“Christ.” Zeb took that in. “You think hewantedthis to happen?”
“Or doesn’t care that it did. I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on in his head, except that I very much doubt it’s remorse, because he is still stirring the pot.”
“This is insane.Heis insane. We can’t just sit here and let him do this!”
“I quite agree. The question is what we can do about it.”
Zeb had no immediate answer to that. Gideon hugged his knees to his chest. “You’ve repeatedly confronted him to no effect. He’s got the footmen and the chauffeur on his side, and they’re all thugs. We’ve no allies in this house. So—”
“But Elise is dead! He can’t just pretend it never happened, not with a houseful of people. What’s he going to do, kill us all and hide the bodies? That was a rhetorical question,” he added quickly.
“Was it?” Gideon said. “Whatisthe damned man’s intention here? Because he seemed determined to wind up all your nerves to snapping point, and now someone has snapped, and I don’t know what the devil he’ll do next!”
His voice had risen. Zeb said, “Are you all right?”
“No! We’re trapped in here! The walls are twelve feet high, Wynn has suborned the staff, Mrs. Bram has beenmurdered, and we can’t get out! What the devil are we going to do?”
Zeb somehow hadn’t expected that. He’d come to know Gideon as the calm, rational supervisor who always seemed to see a solution or a sensible path. He’d looked on in awe in the nine months they’d had together, wishing he could be like that, knowing he couldn’t. Gideon was self-controlled, remembered what needed remembering, made and kept plans, organised his life. Gideon didn’t make mistakes and lose his head.
Except he did, and Zeb would do well to remember that. Gideon could be unable to cope, just like everyone else, and now he was on the verge of panic in a situation wildly outside his experience.
Well, Zeb had plenty of experience of panic, and uncontrolled situations, and Wyckhams. He might as well use it.
“Gideon.” He squirmed round and grabbed his face. “Gideon. Lover.Listen. Tomorrow Wynn will surely have to summon a doctor, if only for the look of it. So when his messenger leaves, or returns, or the doctor leaves, we are leaving with them. Simple as that. We’ll ask for a lift, but if we have to walk out with just the clothes on our backs, we will do that. We’ll wait by the blasted gate all day if we have to. And if he doesn’t call someone, we will find a ladder and scale the sodding wall, but either way we areleaving. All right?”
“Not really,” Gideon said through his teeth. “That is, yes, absolutely, we will flee from here like thieves. Good idea. Itmerely entails abandoning my post and my possessions, which I can’t afford to replace, just when I had thought I was clawing my way out—sorry. Sorry.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. “You’re absolutely right, of course. We concentrate on getting out, and I’ll worry about the future when we’ve dealt with the present.”
“Well, don’t worry about money, at least,” Zeb said. “I can float you until you have a new job, and if you have to abandon your wardrobe, I’ll replace it. So forget about that entirely, and concentrate on getting us both out of here.”
Gideon looked at him for a moment. Then he said, “Zeb, I really cannot bear it if you’re going mad too. You just got sacked, if you recall? So while that is a very kind offer—”
“I have money, or I will. What day is it?”
“The first of December.”
“Then I have money. My publisher pays quarterly.”
“Your what?”
This was really not how Zeb had wanted to tell him this. He’d thought of quietly dropping the news later, in London, over dinner, when he was sure of how it might be received. “I’ve written a couple of books. The advance for the first two wasn’t very generous, but they’ve sold rather well. Very well. Actually, between the advance on the new contract and my royalties on the current books, I’m due about three thousand this quarter. So you see—”
Gideon was waving his hands. “Wait, wait, wait. You wrote abook? When did you do that?”
“I’ve been doing it for a while. Mostly at work. It’s probablywhy people keep sacking me.”
Zeb could see Gideon putting together memories. “You were writing a book. In the office. Well, that explains why I never had more than about forty percent of your attention.”
“You always had my full attention,” Zeb assured him. “The job didn’t, I grant you.”
“And—did you say threethousand? Three thousand pounds?”
“Guineas, actually.”
He hadn’t told anyone this before: as a habitually broke man with habitually broke friends, he didn’t want either to brag or to be deluged with requests for ten pounds till next quarter day. He felt a certain embarrassment telling Gideon now. But he’d asked, and he needed to believe Zeb could cushion his financial catastrophe, plus it was a conversation about something other than this house, Elise, Wynn.
Gideon looked stunned. “But that’s astonishing. That is absolutely wonderful. My God, Zeb, congratulations! Why did you not say? And why on earth have you not told your family this? They’ve been calling you a worthless sponger for days!”
“Because they think I’m a worthless sponger, I suppose,” Zeb said. “Hawley and Bram would have a field day mocking what I write, and I would rather not be ridiculed for it.”
