One of the brothers had run upstairs while she was distracted by her uncomfortable thoughts. The others were all alert and waiting. Even Lord Isaac and Lord Jerome had stopped playing.
“The butler and a crew of maids,” reported the brother who’d gone upstairs.
“You all know what to do,” said Lord Kemble. “Mr. Black, the maids are coming to clean and the fairy you mentioned is going to prepare the place for them. Please take your coffee to your bedchamber, close the door, and wait for my signal to return downstairs.”
There was no question of refusing. Several of the brothers stood ready to enforce Lord Kemble’s request, and the earl himself was probably capable of carrying her upstairs without assistance. “Certainly, my lord,” she said.
She looked over the balustrade once she was upstairs. The brothers were collecting books and other items to load into two large baskets. The coffee pot had disappeared. Lord Kemble looked up at her. “Mr. Black,” he said.
Mel tipped her head in acknowledgement of his unspoken command. “Bedchamber, right.” Cooperating now was more likely to bring results than sneaking a peek to see where the hidden spaces were and how they were accessed, particularly since she was likely to be caught.
Sure enough, footsteps on the stairs indicated that the brothers with rooms upstairs were heading in her direction. She shut herself in her bedchamber. Perhaps searching this room,bare that it was, would give her some clues. If she could find the catch to a hidden door here, the likelihood was that others in the tower would have a similar mechanism.
She had searched one wall when a knock on the door proved to be a pair of maids with a pail of water, wash cloths, a duster and a broom. “We’re to clean your room, sir,” said one of them. “And Lord Kemble says he would like to see you downstairs, sir.”
Lord Kemble wanted to tell her that the marquess had ordered her to be confined in the tower today. “The butler brought today’s orders,” he said. “Three of us are commanded to appear for inspection by callers. Everyone else is to stay confined today, and that includes you, Mr. Black.”
Having said that, he went into his bedchamber.Inspection by callers? An odd way to put it. Another pair of maids came out of Lord Kemble’s chamber and disappeared into the next one. A minute or two later, a third pair moved between chambers further around the room.
“They clean once a week,” said Lord Francis, coming to sit in a chair near Mel. “We never know in advance the day or the time, so it might be ten days between cleans or four, first thing in the morning or late in the evening. But Allan says it could be worse. At least they do come and clean. We are permitted bath water once a week, too. I daresay other prisons are less comfortable and much smellier.”
They were. Mel had visited a few prisons in her time, and this was a palace by comparison. “Loss of freedom bites hard, no matter how comfortable the cage,” she commented.
“Freedom?” Lord Francis sighed. “For the sons of the Marquess of Teign, freedom is a distant dream.”
“You are of age, are you not?” Mel asked. “What can he do to you?”
In the look Lord Francis gave her, incredulity mixed with a bitter amusement. “Anything he wishes. Did you not say ityourself?” He quoted her earlier comment. “Do you think the marquess will let me disappear without seeking me out to punish me for failing him?”
“I did say that,” Mel acknowledged. “You are his son, though,” she pointed out.
Lord Francis shrugged. “He has other sons. Indeed, if he had grandsons, we would all be superfluous to requirements. He prefers his heirs young and manageable.”
“Frank. Enough.” The warning came from Lord Kemble, who emerged from his bedroom immaculately dressed, from polished Hessians to spotless white cravat. His cream pantaloons hugged his form, as did the green coat he wore over an ornate waistcoat. The green stone in his cravat pin must have been an emerald, given its brilliance.
If he was appealing in undress, he was stunning in formal daywear. Mel’s mouth dried. This untoward lust toward a suspect would not do. She swallowed hard.
“Never was a prisoner so richly dressed,” she commented.
That remark was met with a thin smile and the wry comment, “You have not yet seen Baldwin or Ernest.”
“What does your father hope to achieve?” Mel asked. While the near imprisonment of the ten lords was a poorly-kept secret among the ton, no one with whom she had spoken knew the reason for it. They had defied him in some way, people assumed. But over what?
“Did your audacity not extend to asking him?” asked Lord Donald.
Mel regarded him for a moment. It was a fair question, and the hostile tone was forgivable, under the circumstances. “I did ask. He told me it was not something I needed to know.”
“You have your answer then,” said Lord Kemble.
No. She didn’t. But Mel was beginning to think she needed it. The brothers’ anger at their father was barely veiled, and if theywere not her enemies, perhaps—despite her earlier assumptions—they could be her allies.
Lord Baldwin and Lord Ernest came down the stairs from their bedchambers, each as richly dressed as Lord Kemble. The maids must have finished their cleaning, for eight of them were gathered around another woman servant, this one better dressed and not wearing a mob cap. A housekeeper, perhaps.
“We are done, Lord Kemble,” this woman said.
The earl nodded, and one of the brothers unlocked the door and rang the bell.
From where she was sitting, Mel could see the footmen opening the gates, and letting out the first four of the maids, then the housekeeper and the other four maids.
It was the reverse of the process by which she had been brought inside—the furthest gate opened and a footman left inside to open the nearest gate, which he locked again once those leaving had come through. Only then did the outer footman open the furthest gate and let the group out.
“Take care,” said Lord Donald to those brothers who waited to leave.
“Lock the door behind us,” said Lord Kemble. “Keep an eye on our Mr. Black.” And he gave her a wintery smile.
