The doorbell rang, and the foyer echoed with chatter and merriment.
Grand rose with the ease of rusted hinges. “Come along, Little Atlas. I want to introduce everyone to Fritz.”
Clara’s breath snagged in her chest. Oh dear. She snatched the cuff of Grand’s jacket and pulled him close so she might hold his hand. Hold him steady. “Grand, Uncle Fritz isn’t here. He ran off fifteen years ago.” With that meddlesome general who’d promised the impressionable youth a shining military career in exchange for seven years’ service as his valet, and in so doing, yoked her family with a burden of heartache that had never lifted. “Uncle Fritz...” Her throat closed over the truth. Her uncle had died. Not on the battlefields of Crimea, but off the southern coast of England.
In an insane asylum.
Clara would never forget the day the letter came. They’d waited months for news, knowing only that Uncle Fritz wasconsidered missing. Grand had finally written to a friend of Fritz’s, a soldier in the general’s command, begging for help in locating his son. The response not only confirmed their worst fears—it revealed horrors they’d never thought to contemplate.
Uncle Fritz had been injured in battle, and while he’d recovered physically, his mental faculties were deemed damaged beyond hope. Unbeknownst to his own family, he’d been conveyed to a government institution, along with other soldiers who’d succumbed to lunacy. The day Lieutenant Harbinger had arrived at the asylum was the day Uncle Fritz had breathed his last.
The lieutenant’s letter contained this news, along with an outraged account of the conditions in which he’d found her uncle. An account so horrific it had attacked Granny’s heart and left them with two funerals to plan instead of one.
Clara closed her eyes. If only Mr. Forrester hadn’t been present when the letter was delivered—hadn’t seen the information it contained with his own eyes—how very different life might be now.
Taking a breath to gather herself, she once more met Grand’s twinkling gaze. “Uncle Fritz never came back, Grand.”
His eyes slowly dimmed. “Of course, of course. Just a slip of the tongue, that.” Grand brushed her hand away and clutched at his waistcoat pocket, where the letter was interred with honor, preserving his son’s final words—I want to go home.
Clearing his throat, Grand shuffled toward the foyer. “The others are going in for dinner. We mustn’t tarry.”
Clara moved to follow, but nerve-pinching pain stilled her instantly, drawing her attention back to her swollen foot. She clenched her jaw. The outsider must be to blame for Grand’s “slip of the tongue.” A young man moving into Fritz’s old room could certainly dredge up memories. As soon as dinner was over, she must speak with her parents. That man had tobe sent packing. And Grand must be convinced to heed her pleas and burn that cursed letter.
After testing the stability of her foot, Clara limped to join the party gathered in the dining room. Her parents anchored either end of the long table Mudgett had arranged for sixteen—an arrangement now thrown off balance by the unexpected absence of Mum’s companions from the Charitable Ladies League. A sinking feeling weighed on Clara as she sat, staring at the empty chairs and polished silver that would go unused. The desertion of her own friends she could endure, but to see Mum shunned on account of vicious gossip broke her fractured heart.
As the dinner commenced and Mudgett served the vegetarian courses, conversation at the table revolved around Mr. Arthur as if he were the sun. He charmed their party with charismatic repartee. Laughing and winking and regaling them with what had to be highly exaggerated tales of his travels abroad. Did he seriously expect them to believe he’d broken the nose off the Great Sphinx or that he’d almost been arrested at the Taj Mahal for defending himself against a troop of vicious macaques? The concoction of such outlandish stories made one wonder what he was trying to hide. Like, perhaps, a covert mission to steal a certain letter for a certain snake?
When the second course had been cleared, Mudgett brought in Mrs. Collins’ crowning achievement—a three-tiered citrus custard arranged to perfection on a cobalt blue glass pedestal cake stand and decorated with candied orange peels and blossoms. Applause rippled through the room, and Clara allowed herself to partially relax against her chair as Mudgett served the dessert. The dinner would conclude soon. If she could only draw their suspicious guest away from the company, she might be able to interrogate and extricate him from their lives before the first dance.
A rustle in the folds of Clara’s skirt set her every nerve on edge. Forshehad not stirred.
Swallowing a squeal, she constructed a framework of calm and looked down. A tiny tail, striped with black and gold fur, dangled out of her pocket. Her mouth went arid. Stars above. Amid the commotion of Mr. Arthur’s arrival, she must’ve forgotten to lock the library door. Perspiration beaded on her brow as the revelers conversed over custard.Steady, Clara.No need to panic. She could handle this. All she had to do was secure Bartimaeus in her pocket and excuse herself. No one would be the wiser about the monkey, and all would be well.
While everyone’s attention was fixed on Mr. Arthur as he waxed eloquent about the Pyrenees, Clara discreetly plucked the pieces of candied orange off her custard, slipped them to the stowaway, and then clasped her pocket closed with a determined grip. She exhaled. There. That was easily done. Now to make a quick getaway.
Clara faced Mum, seated on her right, but a collective gasp silenced her excuse. She turned in time to witness Fred scaling the side of Papa’s chair. The ermine reached the top of an acorn-shaped finial and stretched his neck to survey the stunned humans. Clara held her breath. Dash it all, the little imp was looking for Mum! Ever so slowly, she rose from her chair. She had to get him before—
Fred leapt from chair to table, catapulting silverware to the floor with a clatter. Lame legs trailing behind, the ermine scurried across the entire length of the table amid a cacophony of gasps and shrieks and “By Joves.” Scuttling up Mum’s arm, Fred draped himself about her neck and took to cleaning his front paws.
In utter silence, the visitors gawked at the plates of custard now marred with paw prints.
Clara pursed her lips. How was she to salvage this?
Mr. Arthur’s laughter broke the silence for her with abaritone rumble. “Thank God above, ’tis only an ermine! For a moment there, I thought the macaques had come for their revenge.”
The table erupted in hearty guffaws.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Clara snatched Fred and escorted him upstairs, along with the monkey. After depositing the troublesome pair in the library with the still-snoozing hedgehog and triple-checking the lock, she hobbled downstairs. Come morning, the ermine-in-the-custard story was bound to make its way about town, but there was little she could do to mitigate the damage. No amount of diplomacy could make an ermine frolicking through dessert sound normal. Her energy would be better spent in securing Mr. Arthur for questioning.
Alas, in her absence, the party had adjourned to the ballroom, thwarting her best chance of whisking Grand’s apprentice away discreetly. Across the floor of black-and-white checkered marble, couples paired off for the first of many reels to come from Papa’s fiddle. For now, there seemed nothing for her to do but remain alert and bide her time. And hope the canine quartet upstairs didn’t take to howling, as they were accustomed to doing when Papa played in the evenings.
“Care to dance, Miss Stanton?” Mr. Arthur’s voice startled her, grating on her last frayed nerve. Standing before her, crutch in hand, the man offered a sweeping bow and paired it with a lopsided grin, as if they were old chums. “Seeing as I’ve yet to break in this clanker of a boot, I’m sure to make a fool of myself, but that’s a paltry sum, I say, for a diverting lark about the dance floor.” With a downward tilt of his head, he placed hand over heart. “Upon my honor, I promise not to trample your other foot.”
If the man thought he could win her over with a wink and a smile, like all the others, he was sorely mistaken. “Your honor is of no assurance to me, Mr. Arthur, as it is yet unsubstantiated.Moreover, at present, your questionable origins and serendipitous arrival are of more concern to me than your clumsiness.”
Her frankness rendered Mr. Arthur a wide-eyed mute.
Seeing as the man was rarely silent, she might as well seize the opportunity to verify her suspicions here and now. Clara arched an eyebrow and lowered her voice. “Tell me, Mr. Arthur, exactly how much is he paying you?”
