A Brush with Shadows Read online

  Some of the warmth and light that had faded from my husband’s eyes returned at this pronouncement, and I was happy to see it, even if it was somewhat at my expense. “I would like to see that.”

  I lifted my chin. “I bet you would.”

  He reached for my hand across the distance between our chairs and I gave it to him. The frisson of attraction and reassurance I always felt at his touch raced along my skin. “Then let’s hope you have the chance.” He squeezed my fingers before releasing them as he stood. “For now, I have a letter to write to a contact in Plymouth. I would like to know whether Alfred has recently made an appearance in that fair city.” His countenance darkened again. “I suppose I should also write my father and ask him to make some discreet inquiries about my cousin there.”

  “Do you honestly think he traveled all the way to London without leaving word of his intentions, without taking his valet or his possessions?”

  “No. But it’s worth verifying.” His eyes shone with vindictive delight. “Besides, all it costs me is a few moments to pen a letter. I won’t be the one searching the city on what is almost certainly a wild-goose chase.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. After everything we’d gone through during our last inquiry—an investigation we’d undertaken at Lord Gage’s behest—it seemed only fair we should return the favor in some small measure.

  “After that I believe we should have a chat with Hammett and Rory.” He whirled toward the door connecting his assigned bedchamber with mine, speaking over his shoulder. “And then, dear wife, I think it’s time you caught your first glimpse of the moors.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “You’re welcome to search yourselves,” Hammett said when we tracked him down in the butler’s pantry a short time later. “But I assure ye, I combed the house and grounds myself soon as the Dowager Langstone sounded the alarm.”

  “It was Lady Langstone who first suggested Alfred was missing and might be in distress?” Gage asked, sharing a look with me.

  He nodded, continuing to polish a piece of silverware. “Said he was ’sposed to join her for tea, and when he didn’t appear, she discovered he hadn’t been seen for two days. Not since one o’ the gardeners spied him walkin’ out on the moor.”

  “Did the gardener see which direction he was headed?”

  “Couldn’t tell. Not for sure. But he supposed he might be walkin’ up toward White Tor.”

  Gage leaned casually against the door frame, crossing one ankle over the other. Contrary to his indifferent appearance, I knew this meant he was ruminating over some idea. “Did Alfred often go for walks on the moor?”

  This question made Hammett slow his ministrations, his brow furrowing. “Not as a rule, no. But recently I’d heard tell o’ him going for a stroll a time or two. More often he’d take his horse.”

  “Do you know the reason for this change in his behavior?”

  He shook his head, seeming puzzled. “Truth to tell, I hadn’t even contemplated it before now. Wouldn’t think twice about hearing the viscount, or you, or even Master Roland amblin’ o’er the moors. But Lord Langstone? He wasn’t one for constitutionals or quiet reflection. And what else could he be doin’ out on those moors?”

  That was a leading question if ever I’d heard one. What had Alfred been doing on his treks over the moor? And did it have anything to do with his disappearance?

  Gage glanced back into the dining room as if to be certain we were still alone. “How were relations between the viscount and Alfred?”

  Hammett peered at Gage over a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. “You know how they always were. Never saw eye to eye.” He turned back to examine the utensil in his hand, then set it aside and reached for another. “Well, not much changes in this old manor.”

  “Had there been any particularly nasty arguments in the weeks before Alfred disappeared? Any more altercations than usual?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Why?” He spared him another glance. “You’ll not be thinkin’ your grandfather has anything to do with this, now will ye?”

  “No,” my husband replied distractedly. “I’m just trying to understand what my cousin’s state of mind was before he disappeared.”

  “A dangerous thing, to be sure.”

  The majordomo looked up at me and winked. It was such an unexpected bit of levity from the crusty old man, and so swiftly done before he turned back to his task, that I questioned whether it had actually happened.

  Gage straightened from his slouch. “Thank you, Hammett. Do you know where we might find my cousin Rory?”

  He bobbed his head to the left. “Master Roland is usually in the viscount’s study at this time o’ the morning. A scapegrace your cousin Langstone might be, but at least that one understands someone ’ll have to be capable of taking o’er the reins o’ the viscount’s estates,” he added with approval. “I expect he hopes his brother ’ll keep him and their mother about if he proves himself to be useful.”

  An unwelcome thought occurred to me as Gage took my arm and led me out of the dining room and down a corridor to the right. I was glad he knew where he was going, for I was certain I would have become lost. Even in the light of a new day, the halls and chambers were dark and shadowy, requiring the glow of sconces and lamps to peel back the gloom.

  “Gage,” I began cautiously.

  “Hmmm?”

  I hesitated, hearing the preoccupation in his voice. “Who inherits the viscountcy after Alfred if he dies?” I already knew the answer, but it somehow seemed gentler to lead Gage into it.

  It turned out I had no need for delicacy, for the look in his eyes when they met mine told me he’d already harbored a similar notion.

  “I’m sure you already know that until Alfred marries and conceives a son, it falls to his younger brother. So unless Alfred has a secret wife stashed in a cottage somewhere, Rory would become my grandfather’s heir.”

  “Then I suppose you’ve considered—”

  “That Rory is behind Alfred’s disappearance?” he finished for me in a tense voice. “Yes. Though I don’t like to think it.”

  Sensing his turmoil, I tried to lessen the pain such speculation caused by asking after the rest of his family. “How many children did your grandfather have? Do you have any other cousins?”

  “Only three who survived infancy—my mother; her brother, Alfred and Rory’s father; and my aunt, Matilda. Aunt Matilda and her husband and two children—Edmund and Hester—have always split their time between London and a cottage a short distance from here. Though, Hester has since wed and lives with her husband and children, of course.”

  “And Edmund? Is he married?”

  “Not the last I knew.”

  His voice was taciturn. There was no loving inflection when reflecting on his relatives, only a reserved recitation of facts, and that saddened me.

  I’d always known I was fortunate in my family. In my parents, my brother and sister, and even my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I recalled all of them with mostly love and affection. Long ago, I’d realized that Gage had not been so lucky, but I hadn’t recognized how intolerably so.

  Except for his mother, whom he still adored fifteen years after her death, I couldn’t name a single member of his family he held in esteem. Even his father, Lord Gage, was a thorn in his side. And a thorn in mine, if the truth be told. After watching them together, I believed there was some fondness between Gage and his grandfather, though if pressed I suspected they would demur.

  “Then I would hazard a guess that they would be at their cottage nearby,” I said. Given the fact that most of the nobility and gentry preferred to escape the heat and stench of London during summer, it wasn’t a detail that was difficult to construe.

  “Likely,” he replied.

  And yet they weren’t here assisting with the efforts to locate their lost relative. None of
Gage’s family had even mentioned them, nor did my husband seem eager to visit them. I didn’t know how to view this level of disinterest. It seemed a bit heartless to me, but then my numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins would have been swarming all over the hills had I gone missing. They would have descended on the location like vengeful angels, teasing and annoying each other and stepping on each other’s toes, but also nurturing, defending, and bolstering those who needed it.

  As if sensing some of my confusion, my husband squeezed my arm where it linked with his. “I do usually see Aunt Matilda and her children in London several times a year. By no means do we avoid each other. At least, not like Aunt Vanessa and Alfred when they come to town.”

  I was bursting with more questions about his family, but I didn’t want to press too hard too quickly and risk him falling stubbornly silent as he had so often done in the past, regardless of his assurances that he wouldn’t. But before I could tactfully voice another query, we found ourselves outside the study. He gave a peremptory knock and pushed the ajar door further open.

  Rory looked up at us over a document clasped in his hands and grinned. “Good morning. I hope you both slept well.” He sat back in the chair he occupied behind the sturdy oak desk positioned before a small stone hearth. The surface overflowed with papers, all arranged and organized into stacks.

  “Good morning,” Gage replied, his eyes flitting over the paperwork. “Hammett suggested we would find you here. That you’ve been helping Grandfather with the estate management.”

  Rory dropped his gaze to the paper still clutched in his hand before setting it aside. “Yes, well, we caught him trying to descend the stairs when we all know he’s in no condition to exert himself in such a manner. I volunteered to handle all the trivial matters and bring those papers that required his attention to him. At least until he’s well enough to venture forth again.”

  Someone had to do it.

  The words weren’t spoken, but they gleamed in his eyes, hanging in the air between us nonetheless. Gage was not so willing to ignore them.

  “Shouldn’t Alfred be doing this?” It wasn’t voiced as an accusation, but more of a concerned query.

  “Probably,” Rory admitted with a sigh. He turned to look out the window, narrowing his eyes. “But you know Alfred. He never was one to interrupt his fun.”

  They shared a look of silent apprehension, undoubtedly wondering what was going to happen when Alfred inherited the title.

  Rory pushed up from his chair with determined cheer. “But I’m certain you’re not here to discuss the flooding in the south pasture or the masonry crumbling over the fireplace in the billiard room. Did you wish me to show you where Alfred was last seen?”

  I was surprised when Gage did not reply. He appeared to be distracted by something on the wall opposite the window, and it took me a moment to realize why. There were three portraits spanning the length of the wall, but it was toward the one of the woman on the left that Gage took several steps.

  It was his mother.

  I’d never seen an image of Emma Trevelyan Gage, yet I felt certain the blond beauty smiling mischievously down at us from the wall was she. There were the pale winter blue eyes and the softly tousled curls my husband had inherited. But if I had held any doubts, the longing and tenderness that flashed in his eyes would have confirmed it. An answering twinge pricked in my chest, a yearning for my own mother who had passed when I was only eight years old. I supposed no matter how old you were, or how long ago your mother had passed, you never stopped wanting her.

  The portrait had been completed by a painter of some skill, though his brushwork was unfamiliar to me. However, I would have chosen a different color palette to capture her complexion. One more similar to the woman rendered at a slightly older age in the portrait hanging next to her. I quickly deduced this one was a wedding portrait of her mother—Gage’s grandmother. She also boasted the same blue eyes, but a pointier chin and a more somber demeanor. On her other side hung a young man who could only be her son—Rory’s father and Gage’s uncle. His looks were a match to the current viscount, though softened in some way, either by nature or by the artist’s fancy. I supposed the man could be a depiction of Lord Tavistock as his younger self, but given the fact this portrait was hanging beside the other two deceased members of his immediate family, I decided it must be his son.

  “When did Grandfather have her portrait moved here?” Gage asked quietly.

  Rory moved forward to stand beside us. “I don’t recall exactly. It’s hung there for years now.” He turned to study his cousin’s profile. “I keep forgetting you haven’t been here in fifteen years.”

  Gage lowered his gaze to meet his, but Rory had already looked away, staring up at the portrait again.

  “Have you visited St. Peter’s Churchyard yet?”

  Had I not been watching him so closely, I’m not sure I would have seen the swift tightening of my husband’s jaw and brow.

  “No,” he murmured, seeming to gather himself before turning to his cousin once again. “Did you say you can show us where Alfred was last seen?”

  If Rory considered this abrupt change of topic odd, he didn’t indicate so by word or expression, but merely gestured toward the door. “Let me just change my shoes.” His eyes dipped to my dainty slippers. “And you might wish to as well.”

  * * *

  • • •

  A quarter of an hour later, appropriately shod and attired for the rough, boggy ground of the moors, we stepped out onto the back terrace. The garden at the rear of the manor was not any more impressive than that at the front, and largely echoed its presentation. Neat and tidy, constrained by the walls, and for the most part colorless, except for a profusion of purple flowering butterfly bushes near the west corner. Though now that I could see a glimpse of what was beyond the stone boundaries, I better understood why more time had not been spent cultivating a more pleasing aspect. For what could compete with the view that unfolded once one followed the path through the faded wooden gate and out onto the commons?

  Heather-covered moorland stretched toward the cloud-speckled cerulean blue horizon, rolling and rising, unbroken by anything but a small brook that trickled northward. I could see now that Langstone Manor sat on a sort of peninsula of pastures and straggling forest that pushed out into the high moors, so that the house was nearly surrounded by heath. From this vantage, I could see no fewer than four of the tors Dartmoor was so well-known for towering in the distance. These hills topped by their craggy granite outcroppings, each one uniquely shaped, their faces etched and weathered by time, silently stood watch over the bleak landscape surrounding them.

  I nearly gasped at the windswept scenery laid before me. There was such a stark beauty to it, a sort of wild desolation, that I felt my breath catch. In many ways it reminded me of the Scottish Highlands, and yet it had a mysterious quality all its own. This was a land that was still untamed and unpredictable when so many stretches of Britain were not, and in that knowledge lay the treachery of its splendor.

  “Yes, it does rather have that effect on one, doesn’t it?” Gage murmured, standing close beside me.

  I tore my gaze away from the moors to look up at him. The gleam in his eyes was almost as poignant as when he’d been staring up at his mother’s portrait.

  Until that moment, I hadn’t known what this place meant to him. He never spoke of it, and I hadn’t dared to raise its specter. Not until we received that letter from his grandfather. And even then, when I questioned him, trying to learn about the childhood home we were racing hundreds of miles to reach, not once had he made me suspect he felt anything but aversion for this place. To discover now that had all been an illusion left me reeling.

  This place obviously stirred something inside him—something warm and lasting—and yet he had not shared it with me. How much more of my husband did I not fathom? How much more did he keep hidden deep wi
thin him, somewhere I could not see to reach?

  He blinked against the sudden glint of the sun breaking through the clouds and turned to meet my gaze. Something of my thoughts must have shown on my face, for his expression grew shuttered. I could almost physically feel the door he had opened between us last night being shut, not with a bang, but with a gentle nudge.

  “That’s the direction the gardener said he assumed Alfred was headed.” Rory pointed to the north, over the warbling brook toward a squat tor in the distance. “He’d crossed the beck and might have been peeling off toward the Langstone.”

  A frown formed between Gage’s eyes as he planted his hands on his hips to survey the landscape. “Was he certain the man was Alfred?”

  It was some distance to the brook. Far enough that you would not be able to see a person’s face clearly, though you could observe their clothing and mannerisms.

  “I suspect so, as Alfred had passed him striding through the garden.” Rory glanced back toward the manor through the weather-beaten boards. “The gardener found a piece of paper on the ground and supposed he might have dropped it. That’s why he stepped through the gate to call after him. But Alfred either didn’t hear him or didn’t wish to be delayed, for he never turned back.”

  “A paper?”

  “Yes. Torn from one of the Plymouth newspapers. I’ve no idea why.”

  “Did the gardener keep it?” he asked.

  Rory’s head reared back slightly. “I’m not sure. I hadn’t considered it. You’ll have to ask him.”

  Gage nodded, taking several strides in the direction Alfred had gone. “Let’s follow in his footsteps, shall we? I need to become reacquainted with the lay of the land, so to speak.”

  The narrow path was scarcely more than a track worn down amid the vegetation. It was plainly little used, and as such, rough going. Rocks and pebbles littered the ground between the tufts of gorse and heather in some places, while in others the plants hid boggy depths which grasped at our boots, trying to steal them from our feet.