David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

“I must tell you,” Mr. Buckles said, “how, let us say—I believe the word is mortified —yes, how mortified I am that you would treat Lady Harriett Dyer in this fashion. In light of the attention she had condescended to show you, both in offering advice in your affairs and in permitting her servant to marry into your family. Now, you break open her house. I hardly know how I shall look at my wife again given what her own flesh and blood has done.”

He went on in this manner for some time, permitting neither his chewing nor the repetitive nature of his subject to interfere with his discourses. As this conversation required not a word from anyone else, Lucy allowed him to proceed as he pleased until she was done eating. She then set down her utensils, pushed back her chair, and walked over to Mr. Buckles. Taking a deep breath, she raised up her hand and struck him across the cheek as hard as she could. She had not the power of Lady Harriett, and Mr. Buckles did not fly from his chair as he might have done in her imagination, but even so, the sound rang out with a reverberating crack, and Lucy could not be dissatisfied. Her own hand stung from the force of it, but she cared nothing for that.

Mr. Buckles remained motionless, tears in his eyes. He looked utterly bewildered, like a little boy who has discovered his father kissing the kitchen maid, and suddenly sees that the world is not what he has always believed it.

Lucy turned to Byron. “Be so good as to restrain this man.”

He rose and did as she asked. He stood behind Mr. Buckles, holding his arms so that they were pinned behind the chair. “If Lady Harriett’s creatures should choose to interfere,” Byron said, “I may not be able to do as you ask.”

“Lady Harriett said we have freedom of the house,” said Lucy. “Let us use it.”

Mr. Buckles was beginning to find his voice. “How dare you!” he thundered. “How dare you lay hands upon me and restrain me. Do not think that Lady Harriett Dyer will not punish you most severely.”

Lucy struck him again. It hurt her far more this time, for her hand was now quite tender. What ought she to feel in striking her sister’s husband, the man who had cheated her out of her inheritance, out of the life that should have been hers? Shame? Rage? Revenge? She felt none of these things, only a hard resolve.

“Mr. Buckles,” she said, “be so good as to remain quiet until I ask you to speak. You are in the service of a monster, but you are far worse, for you would sacrifice your own child for your mistress. You disgust me, sir, and I have not the time to visit upon you the punishment you deserve for defrauding me of my inheritance. For now, I wish to know where I can find my niece.”

“I am instructed to tell you nothing, and I will tell you nothing,” he answered.

Lucy reached forward and began to unknot Mr. Buckles’s cravat. He look at her in shock, and Byron cocked an eyebrow in curiosity, but she would not pause to explain. Once the cravat was gone, she unbuttoned his vest, took the top of his shirt in each hand and ripped it open, exposing his pale, flabby chest, hairless and slick with perspiration.

“Stop this!” cried Mr. Buckles.

Lucy felt as though she stood outside herself. Never before had she done anything so audacious. Never before had she violated the bounds of decency with such determination and disregard. In this place, at this time, propriety did not matter. Lucy would do what she must, would do what she liked, to save her niece, and she would take the consequences as they came.

She reached over to the center of the table and pulled from the vase a single bluebell, just as she had seen in the pages of the Mutus Liber . Those pages were meant for her. The flower was meant for her. All came together with ease and precision, like pieces of a broken dish. “Lean the chair back, if you would, Lord Byron.”

Byron leaned back the chair and Lucy showed Mr. Buckles the object in her hand.

“What do you do with that flower?” he asked with a horror perhaps inconsistent with Lucy’s instrument.

“It is a bluebell,” she said. “They grow near graves, you know. My father taught me that. And there is no greater truth than death. The bluebell, when used properly, will render you incapable of lying or withholding what I ask of you. The only difficulty is that it must be held over your heart, and I am not altogether certain you have one.”

“How did you learn such things?” Mr. Buckles demanded.

“I learned them from the Mutus Liber, ” she said.

Mr. Buckles let out a shriek, like a frightened child. Then he swallowed hard and attempted to blink the moisture from his eyes. “I’ll tell you nothing,” he croaked.

“Let us find out.” She slapped the flower upon his chest and, losing herself in the process, moved the bluebell in a circle until the petals began to crumple and ball. She absented herself, muttering she hardly knew what, but words the pages of the Mutus Liber seemed to hint at. She pressed the flower into his breast until his skin ringed red from pressure.

At last, she came back to herself. “Now will you tell me what I wish to know?”

He opened his mouth and moved it back and forth. His jaw vibrated, his lips quivered. Then he spoke, his voice low and forced. “Yes.”

She smiled. “Much better, Mr. Buckles. Let us discover all your secrets.”

27

B YRON CONTINUED TO BALANCE THE CHAIR BACKWARDS WHILE holding Buckles still with one arm. “I realize you are enjoying yourself,” he said, “but we cannot know how much time we have before Lady Harriett returns. Besides which, holding the chair this way is rather uncomfortable. I suggest you ask what you must so we might depart.”

There was not much time, Byron was certainly correct in that, and there were so many questions that needed asking, but only one that mattered. “You may lower the chair, Lord Byron.” When he had done so, she looked at Mr. Buckles. “Where is your daughter?”

He did not hesitate before responding. “I do not know.”

“Then Lady Harriett did not take her, has nothing to do with her disappearance?”

“No.”

“But you knew she was gone, that she had been replaced?”

He paused for a moment. “Yes, of course I knew.”

“Does Martha know?”

“No.”

Lucy sucked in her breath.

“Do you know who took Emily?”

“One of Lady Harriett’s rivals. That is all I know.”

“And why? What did this rival want?”

“To keep Lady Harriett from doing what she wished with the child.”

“And what did she wish to do?”

Mr. Buckles worked his jaw for a moment. “She wished to kill her.”

Lucy could no longer control her anger. She could no longer pretend this was a logic puzzle. “Your own daughter. Why did you not stop her?”

“It is not my place,” said Mr. Buckles. “She is a great lady, who condescends to let me serve her. How could I refuse her such a thing? It was not a boy.”

“Do you know how I can find your daughter?” Lucy asked.

“If I knew, Lady Harriett would have her by now.”

“But why does she want your daughter dead?”

“Because talent runs crossways through families, particularly from aunt to niece. There was too great a likelihood that she would have the same sort of inclinations you do, and Lady Harriett could not endure having another such as you to contend with.”

“Another such as me,” Lucy repeated. “I would be nothing to her if she had not condescended to interfere with my life and abuse my niece.”

Buckles snorted. “Even Lady Harriett can meet her destiny while running from it.”

“We should go,” said Byron, his voice strained.