The Hidden Blade by Sherry Thomas

sure, my dear boy, that he mentioned an asylum?”
    “He said that Father’s previous stay did not cure him, so he would commit Father this time for however long it takes.”
    “Goddamn it—sorry, please excuse me.” Herb thrust his fingers into his hair. “But Nigel has never mentioned such a thing, not in all the years we’ve known each other.”
    Leighton rather thought he wouldn’t mention it either if he had been locked up and treated as if he were mentally disturbed. And Father would have been young, since by age twenty he was already married, and Leighton had been born shortly after his twenty-first birthday.
    Herb, pacing in the corridor, stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. I am still not hearing things properly. Did you say Sir Curtis threatened to send your father to another asylum?”
    Leighton nodded.
    “Can he? Nigel is a grown man with all his faculties intact, a good landlord and a devoted father. Surely it cannot be such a simple matter to put him away against his will.”
    Leighton did not answer. All he could see was Sir Curtis’s cool, self-satisfied expression. The man did not anticipate any difficulties.
    “What should we do?” Herb let out a trembling breath. “What should we do?”
    None of this felt real. Was this how the monks of ancient China had felt when their monastery was leveled before their eyes, as if the tragedy were happening elsewhere, elsewhen, to people no one knew?
    “I’ll go get Father’s whisky.” It was the only useful thing Leighton could think of to do.
    “Yes, good idea,” said Herb gratefully. “Thank you.”
    After Leighton went downstairs, however, he did not immediately go to the library, where Father’s kept his decanter, but first sought out the butler.
    “Mr. Mims, has Sir Curtis left?”
    “Yes, Master Leighton. When he sent Miss Saithwaite away, he asked that a carriage be prepared for him. I believe he departed more than an hour ago.”
    “Who is Miss Saithwaite?”
    “I believe she might be Lady Fitzmaurice’s niece.”
    Lady Fitzmaurice was an old woman who lived about ten miles away from Starling Manor.
    “But more to the point,” added Mr. Mims, “I believe she must be Sir Curtis’s fiancée, or Sir Curtis would not have brought her here, the two of them alone.”
    Sir Curtis was engaged? Leighton had believed he would remain a widower his entire life. Now Sir Curtis’s sudden appearance made more sense. He had accompanied his new fiancée to visit her aunt—or perhaps it was at her aunt’s place that he proposed. Then he—or Miss Saithwaite—had decided that the good news should be shared with his family too.
    They would have been waiting in the drawing room. Mr. Mims, after a fruitless search, would have returned to deliver the news that the master was not in his room taking a nap, nor in the library, nor the billiard room. He would have asked whether Sir Curtis and Miss Saithwaite cared for another cup of tea.
    Was that when Sir Curtis had asked about Mother’s whereabouts, or whether there were other guests at the estate? It didn’t matter. The point was, Miss Saithwaite had no clue what was going on, but Sir Curtis did. That was why he’d sent her away before he made his presence known to Father and Herb.
    Herb was still in the passage, leaning against a wall, when Leighton returned upstairs with the whisky and two glasses. “Bless you, my dear boy,” he said, the corners of his lips trembling as he tried to smile.
    He opened the door. “We brought fortification, Nigel. Have some. It’ll take your mind off…”
    His voice trailed off. Father was no longer inside—he must have returned to his own rooms via the secret passage.
    Herb sighed. “Can’t blame him for wanting a bit of peace. I talked too much, and said such silly things too—I had no idea that his fear of ending up in an asylum had a perfectly rational basis. I kept telling him that nothing terrible would come of it, nothing worse than mere