“You’re a cautious man.”
Gideon shifted onto his side so they faced each other, eyeslocking. “I am, yes. Except when it comes to you, and then I don’t have any self-preservation at all.”
Zeb lunged. Gideon’s mouth met his, and for a blissful moment, he didn’t need to think about his cousin, or his situation, or anything.
***
They were both up in a timely fashion the next morning. Gideon went off to extract Zeb’s remaining belongings and then try to bribe the chauffeur or, failing that, groom. Zeb went downstairs and made an early breakfast in blissful solitude, wondering what might be useful to do.
He ought to warn his family about all this. Unfortunately, he couldn’t believe any of them would listen. Bram and Hawley were both convinced that Zeb was manoeuvring against them; Elise had never liked him. Dash might have listened, but he was ill, which was rotten timing. A military man of action who didn’t believe in ghosts would be a very useful person to have around: it was a bit of bad luck he was locked away from the rest of them now.
Zeb paused on that thought, kipper congealing on his plate as the waters of panic lapped his metaphorical ankles.
It would not do to overreact, he told himself. Wynn was clearly on the far side of eccentric, his practical jokes malicious and frightening, but there was no reason to suppose he would actually harm anyone, especially his old friend and cousin.
All the same, Zeb would drop in on Dash, just to put his mind at rest.
That turned out to be easier said than done. Dash had mentioned he was lodged in the corridor round the corner from Hawley’s. Zeb wandered up and down, listening for the sounds of a man suffering from malarial fever, or sleeping, or talking to a nursemaid, or anything at all. There seemed to be absolutely nobody about, and it felt not just quiet but uninhabited. Was he in the wrong place?
Damn and blast. He made his way up the corridor again, this time trying door handles. The first three rooms he opened were empty, with dusty floors, furniture shrouded in holland covers, and a lot of cobwebs; he shut the doors with speed.
The fourth door opened on an obviously occupied room, with things on the dresser and chair. The bed had the covers pulled back but didn’t look as though it had been slept in.
“Hello?” Zeb said. His voice echoed flatly.
He edged in, feeling like the trespasser he was. The room was cold, the solid cold that came when nobody had lit the fire in a while. He noted water in the jug, shaving things on the dresser, a nightshirt over the back of a chair, a book on the bedside table. It looked like a very dull military memoir. He opened it and sawWyckham Dashwritten on the flyleaf.
So this was Dash’s room, but not his sickroom. They must have moved him to a different, more convenient location. And since a man in the grip of a malarial attack wouldn’t need a book, or consider shaving, they had left his bits and pieces behind, and it hadn’t been considered urgent to make up his room.
He glanced at the dresser again. It bore the usual sort of clutter out of pockets, and some less usual items such as a pocket compass and a penknife. Dash was clearly a practical sort. There was also a toothbrush and a pot of tooth powder. He might have thought Dash would want those, at least. He looked again at the nightshirt on the back of the chair.
Zeb was not a particularly logical thinker, at least in the commonly accepted sense. His train of thought didn’t generally chug from station to station in an orderly manner, taking him from A to B to C on the rails that other people would use. What he could do, now and then, was leap halfway down the alphabet, reaching conclusions in a single intuitive bound he often couldn’t explain, and as he stood in Dash’s empty room, that was exactly what he did.
“Shit,” he said quietly.
He had to look. Feeling both intrusive and alarmed, he opened the wardrobe, and at that moment, a floorboard creaked outside the room.
Zeb froze dead. If Dash was about to walk in, this would be unbelievably embarrassing. He stood, heart thumping. There was another creak, and then the sound of footsteps.
Zeb instantly forgot that he was trespassing, took two long strides to the door, and stuck his head out. The footsteps were clearly audible as they passed, but there was nobody in the corridor. Nobody at all.
To blazes with this pestilential house and its phantom feet. He was going to finish what he was about, and quickly, before he got caught. So he searched the wardrobe, the suitcase, everydrawer, looking through it all, with the panic that had been lapping his ankles steadily rising as he failed to find what he sought. His heart was thumping in a way he didn’t like, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that, while he was delving into Dash’s wardrobe, someone might silently open the door and creep in, and he would turn and they’d be there…
He left the room at last, shutting the door behind him with peculiar care, although there was nobody around to hear, and headed downstairs. He needed to talk to Gideon.
As ever, finding anyone in this blasted house was impossible. He might be in Wynn’s study, but Zeb did not want to go there if he could avoid it. He tried the library instead and came across Jessamine. She was staring out of the window, into the grey drifts of mist.
“Good morning,” Zeb said. “Have you seen Mr. Grey, at all?”
Jessamine turned, startled. “Oh! Zeb. No, I have not.”
“Bother. Thanks. Actually, have you seen Dash?”
“He’s ill. A malarial attack.”
“Yes, but he’s not in his room. Was he moved somewhere else, for nursing?”
“Why, no. I shouldn’t think a sick man ought to be moved.”
