The Dark Enquiry. Deanna Raybourn

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СКАЧАТЬ gave him a brilliant, deceitful smile. “A pity indeed, my love.”

      The next morning, I dispatched my trunk and Morag to the country with very specific instructions.

      “It will never work,” she warned me. “That Lady Mortlake might have less sense than a rabbit, but even she will notice a missing guest.”

      “Not if you do precisely as I have ordered,” I retorted. “It is very simple, really. I have already left a note for my brother that I mean to take the early train. He is a late riser, and by the time he reads the note, the early train will have already departed with you and my trunk. When you arrive at the Mortlake house, it will be far earlier than expected. They will be at sixes and sevens,” I continued. “You have only to request my trunk be sent to my room and explain that I had a headache from the train and wished to walk in the garden before I saw anyone.”

      Morag was listening closely, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. But disapproval lurked at the back of her gaze, and I hurried on. “You will say that my headache has not improved, and you will make my excuses tonight at dinner. I am unwell and wish to see no one as I mean to retire early. I have already written a note of apology to Lady Mortlake, which you will send down when the dinner gong is sounded. It explains that I am dreadfully sorry but I am simply too ill to meet with anyone, and that I am quite certain the fresh country air will revive me by breakfast.”

      “And when it doesn’t? What then? Shall I tell them you’ve gone for a walk and fallen in the carp pond?” she asked nastily.

      I took her firmly by the elbow. “This is not for me,” I hissed at her. “This is for Mr. Brisbane, of whom I need not remind you, you are inordinately fond.”

      I struck a nerve there. Morag, with her common ways and her flinty heart, had formed an attachment to Brisbane. Perhaps it was the shared link of Scottish blood—or perhaps it was simply that he was a very easy man to idolize—but Morag adored him. She insisted upon referring to him as the master and had taken it upon herself to do his mending, as well as my own. I had little doubt she liked him more than she did me, and the disloyalty rankled, but only a bit. The truth was she had been somewhat easier to live with since Brisbane had entered our lives. At least she was now occasionally in a tractable mood.

      “Very well,” she said, rubbing at her arm. “I will do it, but only for the master. Still, it is a pretty state of affairs when a lady must lie to her own husband.”

      She gave me a look of injured reproof and I pushed her. “Do not be absurd. I am not betraying him. But I fear he may be in trouble, and he will not confide in me. I must discover the truth on my own, and then I will be in a position to help him.”

      To my astonishment, tears sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand and before I could prepare myself, she dropped a kiss to my cheek. “Forgive me, my lady. I ought not to have thought you would ever be disloyal to the master.”

      “Disloyal!” I scrubbed at my cheek. “Morag, could you possibly have a lower opinion of me?”

      “Well, you did mean to sneak about like a common trollop,” she pointed out. “How was I to know you had no plans to meet a lover?”

      She adopted an expression of wounded indignation and would have kissed me again, but I waved her off. “Oh, leave it,” I snapped at her. “I should have thought that after so many years together, you would know me better.”

      Morag raised her chin with a sniff. “You’ve no call to be so high and mighty with me, my lady. Many a finer lady than you has been tempted from the path of righteousness.”

      I narrowed my eyes at her. “Have you been reading improving tracts again? I told you I will not have Evangelicalism in my house. You are free to practise whatever religion you like, but I will not be preached at like a Sunday mission,” I warned her.

      She patted my hand. “I shall pray for you anyway, my lady. I shall ask God to give you a humble heart.”

      I suppressed an oath and handed her the note I had prepared for Lady Mortlake. “Take this and do exactly as I have said. I will send further instructions by telegram when I have plotted my next move.”

      Morag tucked the note into her sleeve and gave me an exaggerated wink. “I am your man,” she promised. “Where will you be whilst I am pretending to attend you at the Mortlakes’?”

      “I shall be staying with Lady Bettiscombe,” I informed her. Portia had agreed to supply me with a bolthole and any other necessities I should require.

      “And what shall you give me to ensure I do not relate that information to Mr. Brisbane or Mr. Plum should they ask it of me?”

      I squawked at her. “You cannot seriously think you can extort money from me to purchase your silence!”

      She gave me a calm, slow-lidded blink. “It might be worth rather a lot to your plans to keep me silent, and I think it is not the job of a lady’s maid to enter into intrigues.”

      I smothered a bit of profanity I had learned from Brisbane and rummaged in my reticule. “Five pounds. That is all, and for that, you will persuade everyone—everyone—that I am rusticating in the country.”

      I brandished the note in front of her, and her eyes lit with avarice. “Oh, yes, my lady! I will make them all believe it, even if I have to lie to the queen herself,” she promised.

      “Good.” She reached for the banknote and I held it just out of reach. At the last moment, I tore it sharply in half and gave one of the halves to her.

      “What bloody use is this?” she demanded.

      “Do not swear,” I told her. “Aunt Hermia would be most disappointed if I told her you still spoke like a guttersnipe.”

      “If you don’t want me to swear, don’t steal my bloody money,” she returned bitterly.

      I tucked the other half of the note into my reticule.

      “You may have the other half when the task is completed to my satisfaction. If you exchange both halves at the bank, they will give you a crisp new banknote in its place,” I informed her. She brightened.

      “I suppose that’s all right then,” she conceded. “Mind you don’t lose the other half.”

      “Shall I give it to the Tower guards to look after with the Crown Jewels?” I asked.

      She waggled a finger at me. “I shall speak to God about that tongue of yours, as well.”

      “Do, Morag, I beg you.”

       The THIRD CHAPTER

      I had the gift, and arrived at the technique

       That called up spirits from the vasty deep…

      —“The Witch of Endor” Anthony Hecht

      With my maid and my trunk safely dispatched to the country and my web of lies coming along nicely, I took myself off to my sister’s house on foot, approaching through the back garden. I thought to make an unobtrusive entrance, but when I arrived, I found the entire household standing outside, admiring a cow. A man stood at the head, holding its halter and nudging its nose towards СКАЧАТЬ