sofa and Vivian picked up the note. “I wish I had opened the door,” she said ruefully.
“It does not matter,” Venetia reassured her. “In such a matter as this, I doubt the writer was also the bearer. He probably paid one of the servants to deliver it.”
“What shall we do?”
“We must find him out, Vivi. Only by discovering who he is can we then find some way to stop him. We cannot allow him to carry out his threat.”
“Nor can you marry such a blackguard! I would rather be exposed than see you meet such a fate. But how will we discover him? We have shown little enough talent in that line. We could not even discover our anonymous poet.”
“We will not go to Father, that much is certain. We will question the servants and pay more attention to our guests, and we’ll try to discover some clues. To begin, let me see that note.”
***
Down in the yellow drawing room many of the Rivington guests clearly intended to continue their card play into the morning hours. Like the twins, however, Gilbey had retired for the night. Ensconced in a huge, old, heavily-carved oak bed with simple hangings of crimson worsted, he watched the flickering light from the dying fire dance over the substantial stone walls of his room.
In the four hundred and thirty-nine years preceding his arrival, how many other people had lain here doing the same thing? He tried to distract himself by imagining those people, and failing that, tried to perform a numbers game to determine how many nights that had been, allowing for leap years and the change in the calendar.
Nothing successfully kept his thoughts away from the events of this particular evening. After the fiasco at the dinner table, he had escaped to his room, thoroughly dismayed by his apparent inability to avoid attracting attention. Twice in one day! It was as if the Fates had decreed some other plan for him. Was he destined to play the fool? Invisibility was a far more comfortable way to ensure he attracted no romantic entanglements here.
He had barely begun to consider the disastrous effect the wine stains were going to have on his limited wardrobe when one of the many chamber servants employed by the duke appeared, ready to assist him and take charge of the damaged clothing. Gilbey was more than a little impressed. His brother-in-law’s estates were well run, but this palatial residence tended by scores of servants ran so smoothly it seemed as if the very walls must have eyes and ears.
He had hoped to stay in his room for the remainder of the evening, certain that the portion of dinner he had eaten would be sufficient. But the valet’s arrival had been followed by a tray laden with delicacies, and a short while after that a note had arrived from the duke himself, summoning Gilbey to the great man’s study.
Escorted by a footman, Gilbey had traversed endless echoing corridors and passed through many rooms he recognized from Nicholas’s tour. He had yet to formulate an accurate plan of Rivington in his mind—it seemed to defy logic with its many additions and odd changes in levels. He thought moving through the house was almost like a journey through time, so many centuries were represented there.
When he finally arrived at the duke’s study, Gilbey was not at all surprised to find the room far grander than its name implied. Although the light from a number of handsome multi-branched candlestands illuminated the room, much of its magnificence was still lost in shadows. Within its cavernous depths Gilbey made out several sculptures set on pedestals, including a few that looked genuinely antique to his educated eye.
Seated behind a massive flat-topped mahogany desk ornamented with ormolu, Nicholas’s father was dwarfed by the proportions of his surroundings. For a fleeting moment, Gilbey was struck by the thought that His Grace, the Duke of Roxley, for all his wealth and power, was after all no more than a man, and an aging one at that.
“Please sit down, Lord
“It does not matter,” Venetia reassured her. “In such a matter as this, I doubt the writer was also the bearer. He probably paid one of the servants to deliver it.”
“What shall we do?”
“We must find him out, Vivi. Only by discovering who he is can we then find some way to stop him. We cannot allow him to carry out his threat.”
“Nor can you marry such a blackguard! I would rather be exposed than see you meet such a fate. But how will we discover him? We have shown little enough talent in that line. We could not even discover our anonymous poet.”
“We will not go to Father, that much is certain. We will question the servants and pay more attention to our guests, and we’ll try to discover some clues. To begin, let me see that note.”
***
Down in the yellow drawing room many of the Rivington guests clearly intended to continue their card play into the morning hours. Like the twins, however, Gilbey had retired for the night. Ensconced in a huge, old, heavily-carved oak bed with simple hangings of crimson worsted, he watched the flickering light from the dying fire dance over the substantial stone walls of his room.
In the four hundred and thirty-nine years preceding his arrival, how many other people had lain here doing the same thing? He tried to distract himself by imagining those people, and failing that, tried to perform a numbers game to determine how many nights that had been, allowing for leap years and the change in the calendar.
Nothing successfully kept his thoughts away from the events of this particular evening. After the fiasco at the dinner table, he had escaped to his room, thoroughly dismayed by his apparent inability to avoid attracting attention. Twice in one day! It was as if the Fates had decreed some other plan for him. Was he destined to play the fool? Invisibility was a far more comfortable way to ensure he attracted no romantic entanglements here.
He had barely begun to consider the disastrous effect the wine stains were going to have on his limited wardrobe when one of the many chamber servants employed by the duke appeared, ready to assist him and take charge of the damaged clothing. Gilbey was more than a little impressed. His brother-in-law’s estates were well run, but this palatial residence tended by scores of servants ran so smoothly it seemed as if the very walls must have eyes and ears.
He had hoped to stay in his room for the remainder of the evening, certain that the portion of dinner he had eaten would be sufficient. But the valet’s arrival had been followed by a tray laden with delicacies, and a short while after that a note had arrived from the duke himself, summoning Gilbey to the great man’s study.
Escorted by a footman, Gilbey had traversed endless echoing corridors and passed through many rooms he recognized from Nicholas’s tour. He had yet to formulate an accurate plan of Rivington in his mind—it seemed to defy logic with its many additions and odd changes in levels. He thought moving through the house was almost like a journey through time, so many centuries were represented there.
When he finally arrived at the duke’s study, Gilbey was not at all surprised to find the room far grander than its name implied. Although the light from a number of handsome multi-branched candlestands illuminated the room, much of its magnificence was still lost in shadows. Within its cavernous depths Gilbey made out several sculptures set on pedestals, including a few that looked genuinely antique to his educated eye.
Seated behind a massive flat-topped mahogany desk ornamented with ormolu, Nicholas’s father was dwarfed by the proportions of his surroundings. For a fleeting moment, Gilbey was struck by the thought that His Grace, the Duke of Roxley, for all his wealth and power, was after all no more than a man, and an aging one at that.
“Please sit down, Lord
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