Lynn Viehl - Her Ladyship's Curse

“I’m so sorry.” And I was.

She blotted her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “How could you know this? Have you been one of Montrose’s . . . particular companions?”

“I have friends in the city who acquire such information. One of them shared it with me.” I went around the bed and began working on the next wall.

She ran her hand over the embroidered coverlet beneath her. “He’ll keep coming to me every night, won’t he? Until I increase.”

“There is another way,” I told her. “Take a younger lover. One who has the same coloring as Lord Walsh. Someone you can trust to keep his mouth shut.”

“I could never betray Nolan.” But after that instant of shock, she grew silent and thoughtful.

While Lady Walsh sorted through her mental list of suitable, fertile young lovers, I finished my sweep of the room. The only recesses in the walls were spaces between the support posts, too narrow to serve as hidey-holes. I checked the two windows, the locks on which had not been tampered with, and then the door bolts, which were likewise secure. Whoever was coming into the lady’s room at night was not using a hidey-hole or a secret passage. There wasn’t even enough room in her armoire for someone to hide behind the gowns.

Solving poor Liv’s problem had been a great deal easier, I thought, and then whirled around to look at the lady’s bed. It was made of old, carefully tended terebinth, posted and canopied, and so massive it probably would have required a small army to shift it.

The frame of it sat some two and a half feet off the floor.

I knelt down and bent over sideways to look under the frame. The hardwood floor beneath it was lightly covered in dust, except for a long, wide rectangle in the center. I crawled under, stopping short of the rectangle, and extended the echo over it. I had to crane my head a bit to see into the lens, but it showed a two-by-three-foot section under the floor that was completely black.

Plenty of room for someone with a knife to hide and wait.

I couldn’t bring a candle under the bed without setting fire to the mattress, so I was obliged to blindly feel for the seams. Something thin and rough brushed my fingertips, and I grasped a bit of cord. When I tugged it, a section of the floor slats lifted up.

Inside the hidey-hole was a short ladder that led down into the darkness. On the top rung lay something folded and white. I reached for it, removed the handkerchief, and brought it to my face, turning away quickly as soon as I identified the scent.

It still smelled of the ether it had been soaked with.

I never have the headache, except now and then in the morning.

I replaced the handkerchief, scooted back, lowered the panel back into place, and inched back out from under the bed.

“Heavens, Kit.” Diana helped me to my feet and brushed her hands over my sleeves. “You’re covered with dust.”

“Aye.” I helped her. “There’s a passageway in the floor concealed beneath your bed. Someone’s been coming through it, and they’ve been using ether to keep you asleep while they cut you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

I gestured toward the edge of the frame. “See for yourself. Be careful when you tug on the cord; don’t snap it.”

Diana crawled under the bed, gave a muffled cry, and pushed herself back out. “We have to call the police,” she said as she stumbled to her feet. “At once.”

“If Montrose is responsible for this, that would be very unwise.” I put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Lord Walsh has to discover what is being done to you. When you come to bed tonight, first go under there and dislodge the panel, just enough for it to be easily noticed. As soon as your husband comes to you, drop your wedding ring and kick it under the bed. Then ask him to retrieve it.”

“What?” She gave me a wild look. “Why would I arrange such a farce? Someone is trying to kill me.”

“Someone is trying to badly frighten you.” When she began to protest, I cut her off with, “If they wanted you dead, milady, they’d have slit your throat the first night.”

Her face a mask of alabaster now, she pressed a hand to her neck. “Why would they do this? What purpose would it serve?”

“I can’t say, milady. But once your husband discovers the passage under your bed, I expect he’ll get to the bottom of it.” That might not be the result, however, and I couldn’t abandon her to a husband who might be part of this scheme. “If Lord Walsh retrieves the ring and says nothing about the panel, then he is the one responsible. I can help you get away from him.” When Diana gave me a surprised look, I explained, “We’ll make him believe you’ve left to visit your family.” I heard one of the outer doors opening and quickly stowed the echo before brushing the last of the dust from Lady Walsh’s gown. “You must act as if nothing has happened, or the game will be over.”

“Is that what this is to you? A game?” Before I could answer, she drew herself up and composed her expression. “Forgive me, Miss Kittredge. You have been most helpful, but your services are no longer required.”

Which was the lady’s way of telling me to piss off. “Think nothing of it, Lady Diana.”

She retrieved a small silk purse from her bedside table and dropped it in my hands. “Your continued discretion is also appreciated.”

From the weight I knew I was being paid three times the agreed-on fee. “I’ll keep my mouth shut, milady. You needn’t worry.”

She assumed with perfection the exquisitely bored look of a tonner. “Why ever would I do that?”

The chambermaid stood waiting in the front sitting room, a glass of water and a twist of paper on a small silver tray.

“Betsy, Miss Kittredge is leaving,” the lady told her. “Would you please show her the way out?”

Betsy looked relieved. “Yes, milady.”

After running a gauntlet of frowning maids and glowering footmen, I was shown out through the side entrance reserved for tradesmen and visiting servants.

“Thank you,” I said to the door Betsy closed firmly in my face before walking down the short stairs to the street. Wrecker was nowhere to be seen, and I couldn’t wait for him on the street without attracting attention from a nobber—one of the private security guards who patrolled the streets of the Hill to safeguard the residents from unwelcome intruders. Nobbers liked to crack heads first and ask questions later. I started making my way down the narrow walk.

Before I could reach the thoroughfare and hail a cab, a large, gleaming coach drawn by four magnificent grays cut me off. I would have gone around it but for the silver fist-and-pike crest on the door.

Of course it would be him.

Shadows shrouded the inside of the coach and the man who said, “Get in.”

The driver and the footman didn’t move from their positions; I wasn’t worth the trouble. So I unlatched the door and boosted myself up inside.

The interior was, like the coach and the horses and the servant’s livery, a dismal gray. I perched on the rear-facing bench, taking the time to arrange my skirts and satchel before I looked out the window. Watching the scenery couldn’t erase the delicious spicy scent teasing my nose or calm the nerves humming beneath every inch of my skin, but he didn’t have to know that.

“Trolling on the Hill now, are we?” I asked. “What’s the matter, didn’t your last spell for the governor provide the promised amount of dazzle?”

No answer came, not that I expected one from Dredmore.

No, Lucien Dredmore, the former Lord Travallian, mentalist, deathmage, and current acknowledged Grand Master of the Dark Arts in the whole of Toriana, simply popped a matchit with his thumbnail and lit a thin black cigar clamped between his strong white teeth. The flame briefly illuminated his craggy features but failed to find a reflection in his black eyes. Then he shook out the matchit and blew out a thin stream of smoke.