The Dark Volume Part 36

Harcourt gestured angrily toward the sound of the ransacking soldiers. "Of course not!"

"Goodness." She smiled brightly. "Would such information be worthwhile?"

As she hoped, Harcourt hustled her back where he had emerged, the better to make her capture his own. It was another office, its furniture covered with dust cloths. His grip remained hard on the arm that held the case, and he shook her when he spoke.

"Where is he? Tell me! Lord Vandaariff has five estates within two days' travel. Soldiers have searched each one!"

Miss Temple chuckled and shook her head. "Mr. Harcourt, I am not a girl to take the efforts of the Queen's own army lightly! Believe me when I say, with sober respect-"

Harcourt shook her arm again. She looked down at his hand and her voice became cold.

"It is merely a matter of logic-"

"Logic? Are you just guessing? If you think to mock me-"

"Mr. Harcourt, contain yourself! If Lord Robert Vandaariff is not here at Harschmort, then two things have unquestionably taken place."

"What things?"

"First, someone has lost him. And second, someone else... has taken him."

Harcourt sputtered with exasperation. Her knife-hand was still tucked behind her back.

"You said you knew where he was!"

"I said I was looking for Captain Tackham."

"I am right here," called Tackham from the inner door.

Miss Temple and Mr. Harcourt both spun toward the officer. He smirked at their expressions, then pushed himself toward a tall piece of furniture from which the white cloth had been pulled, a sideboard stocked with bottles. The Captain sorted amongst the brandy as Harcourt sputtered.

"Are they finished? Why did no one call?"

"Where are the children?" asked Miss Temple.

Tackham pulled the cork from a squat square bottle and poured an inch of amber liquid into a gla.s.s. "What is she doing here?" he asked.

Harcourt's reply was stopped by a cry from the inner room, the high-pitched voice of a child. Miss Temple took a step toward the door. Tackham quite casually reached back and pulled it tight with a click.

"What is being done to them?" she cried.

Harcourt called past her to Tackham. "She claims to know how to find Lord Vandaariff."

"What is being done?"

"Does she really?" asked Tackham with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"But now she will not say!"

"I say she knows as much as my boot."

"Any idiot knows," sneered Miss Temple.

Tackham c.o.c.ked his head with some amus.e.m.e.nt, but she saw the s.h.i.+ft of weight between his legs, and the snifter slip easily into his left hand, leaving his empty right hand ready to catch her arm.

"Call me idiot, then," he said. "I've no d.a.m.ned idea."

"You are a swearing rogue," she spat.

Captain Tackham extravagantly drained his gla.s.s. Recognizing the gesture for a distraction, Miss Temple wheeled, to find Harcourt had crept up behind her.

"She has something in her hand," called Tackham sharply, but Miss Temple had already slashed the little blade at Harcourt, ripping a two-inch line across his coat sleeve. Harcourt stumbled clear and stared at her in shock, pulling at the sleeve and its dangling b.u.t.ton to make sure he was unhurt.

Captain Tackham chuckled. Miss Temple turned back to him with contempt.

"You are a beast. I will be happy to see your skin melt off with each rise in rank."

Tackham's face hardened and she knew he was about to come for her. Miss Temple gripped the knife tightly, but the conversation was interrupted yet again.

"What is this?" croaked a peevish voice from the corridor.

"It is Miss Stearne!" called Harcourt. "She knows the location of Lord Vandaariff but will not say." He raised his sleeve. "And she has cut my coat!"

Andrew Rawsbarthe entered unsteadily, drawing a noticeably more gelid gaze across Harcourt, Miss Temple, and the blade in her hand, before settling it on Captain Tackham.

"Captain?"

"The lady insists upon seeing the children."

"What children? It surprises me to hear you speak of children in Harschmort House."

Tackham s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. "She encountered them in the upstairs hallway."

"I see," said Rawsbarthe, gravely. "You first failed in your a.s.signment, compromising your orders-and then you said nothing about this breach, to protect yourself!"

"She's only a feather-headed nothing of Lydia Vandaariff-"

"I did not know you made these decisions, Captain. I was not aware you were in command!"

Tackham pursed his lips, angry but silent. Harcourt cleared his throat and gestured to the door.

"If you would like me to inform the Colonel-"

"I would like nothing of the kind!" Rawsbarthe's fatigue showed through his anger like bones protruding in an old man's hand. "I will be obliged, sir, if you would shut the door to the corridor and then sit on that chair."

Harcourt looked once at Tackham and then-as he was clearly junior to Rawsbarthe, no matter the man's condition-closed the door and then perched himself on an armless side chair, looking altogether childish. Rawsbarthe himself fell onto a divan. His palm left a rusty streak on the white cover.

"Miss Stearne, is it?" he asked.

"It is," said Miss Temple.

"A companion of Lydia Vandaariff," offered Harcourt.

"She should be brought to Mr. Phelps," insisted Tackham.

"I disagree, Captain," Rawsbarthe answered, sharply. "Miss Stearne, perhaps you will lower your weapon. There are no highwaymen here, and no lady is in peril."

Miss Temple looked to Tackham, who smoothly adopted a posture of casual disinterest and poured himself more brandy. She lowered the knife but did not put it away.

"I am indeed acquainted with Lydia Vandaariff." She indicated the case in her left hand. "I am here to collect certain hairbrushes to be sent on to Macklenburg. I came upon the Captain and his charges and have expressed my concern. You have three children-under arms, mistreated-"

"What of Lord Vandaariff?" Rawsbarthe wheezed. "Do you indeed know where he might be?"

Miss Temple did not answer him, glaring again at Tackham. Rawsbarthe leaned forward with difficulty. His chin quivered and suddenly Miss Temple wondered where he had been in the house all this intervening time. Even from the upstairs room, his condition had precipitously declined.

"Will you tell us?" he croaked.

"Why should I, given these peremptory gentlemen?"

"It would be indelicate to say," drawled Tackham, "but I should be more than happy to show you."

"Captain Tackham!" cried Rawsbarthe. "I believe you have tasks other than drunken insolence! You will inquire as to the readiness of your charges, at once!"

"I was told to wait-"

"And I am telling you to go!"

The officer met Rawsbarthe's gaze-and his trembling jaw-and then mockingly clicked his heels. He cast a last glance at Miss Temple. Then he was gone.

"Mr. Harcourt, as soon as Miss Stearne reveals Lord Vandaariff's location, you will take the news to Mr. Phelps alone."

"Yes, sir."

"If I tell you," Miss Temple asked, "will you let me see the children?"

"It is not your place to bargain," wheezed Rawsbarthe.

Miss Temple was certain that as they stood talking, no matter what Rawsbarthe intended to do, Captain Tackham would carry the children farther and farther from her grasp.

"Well then." She tugged on a dangling chestnut curl, and then exhaled with a tinge of boredom. "It is the simplest thing to learn where a person is-one merely has to know where he isn't. Lord Vandaariff is not at any dwelling or place of business, or you would have found him long ago. He is not anywhere related to his business, or his family. His daughter is gone. His recent companions of close council are gone as well, all off to Macklenburg. Of course, such a man has secrets-yet with the destruction of his home, he must suppose those secrets compromised. He must turn to others, and so one returns to these absent companions. Which of them possesses resources he might rely upon... or take outright."

"If he were in the shelter of Crabbe," whispered Rawsbarthe, "the Ministry would know it."

"So he is not," said Miss Temple. "And neither the Contessa nor the Comte have an organization of people. It leaves only Francis Xonck, and the power of Xonck Armaments."

"But... but Francis Xonck..." Harcourt looked nervously to Rawsbarthe.

"Was here this very day," said Miss Temple. "I know it."

"Yet if Francis Xonck could not find him..." began Rawsbarthe.

"Then it is not Francis Xonck Lord Vandaariff is with."

Neither man spoke. Rawsbarthe stared at Miss Temple, his fingers gripping the divan at some internal pang.

"Go to Phelps," he hissed. "It is the sister after all."

HARCOURT RUSHED from the room. Miss Temple followed him to the door and locked it. From the corridor she heard Colonel Aspiche roaring to his men. She turned to the wheezing man on the divan.

"You are not well, Andrew. And now you have quite compromised yourself. When it is known who I am, she will be angry."

"Then she must not know."

"She knows already. Have you not sent Tackham to her? She will s.n.a.t.c.h my image from his mind."

"I resent this very much indeed," Rawsbarthe muttered. He coughed weakly. Tears glazed his eyes.

"Come, come," she said, with a brightness that would not convince a trusting dog. "You forget that I am well acquainted with the woman. Indeed, I am acquainted with her as a woman. Up you go!"

She took his arm carefully with her case-hand, guiding him from the sofa and toward the inner door.

"We cannot-"

"If I leave you here, you will simply die, like Mr. Soames."

"And the Duke," he sighed, as if this were a terrible admission.

"And the horrid Duke," she agreed. "But the truth is, Andrew, the Duke of Staelmaere was killed some days ago. He was shot through the heart in the quarry at Tarr Manor, and by the lover of a Macklenburg spy at that."

Rawsbarthe wobbled as Miss Temple reached for the doork.n.o.b.

"I had no idea."

"It is a world of secrets."

THEY Pa.s.sED through another shuttered parlor and another after that, Miss Temple closing each door behind with a flick of her boot.

"I have always found you beautiful," wheezed Rawsbarthe.

"Well, that is most kind of you, I'm sure."

"What you said to me earlier-about my being ushered into a room, and not remembering..."

"The truth is better for us all, Mr. Rawsbarthe."

"That is a terrible lie! The truth is a plague!"

"Mr. Rawsbarthe-"