“Have a–” Stone’s words stopped as he watched Lucas pull out a small metal instrument and insert it into the lock. “You’re a rum dubber,” he whispered.
“A what?”
“Picklock. Learned the term from Rosalind.”
Lucas turned an amused face to his co-dubber. “She called me a…” He concentrated for a moment, feeling the metal click. “Cow-handed, drab-tupping goat earlier in the week.”
“Ah, true love.”
Lucas merely opened the door quietly in response. The passageway was dark and the house had a slightly dank smell to it. The first room was the one that he’d questioned the curate in that first day. It was the same as before: immaculate, even the grate was free from coal or ash. It looked like the man hardly used it. Stone’s frown matched his own.
The next room was covered in dustsheets and Lucas got an itchy feeling up his back – the same feeling he’d had when he’d been betrayed, and the supposed meeting with allies had been a French trap.
Something was wrong. A strange smell pervaded the hallway, and he suddenly worried for the cherub-faced curate.
The fourth door proved more fruitful. It was a huge chamber, and it seemed as though the young man lived his whole life in just this one room.
“It’s like two different people live here,” muttered Stone. “A clean one and a slovenly one.”
A bed was shoved against one corner, its dark coverlet thrown hastily upon it. The centre of the room held a large desk, strewn with various papers and books, and Lucas gravitated to the scribbled writings.
They were sets of sermons, and he recognised the fervent tone – vehement and vitriolic. A few words had been crossed out, as though even he realised it was too strong for a small village church.
“Mainwaring.” He turned and saw Stone holding an open wooden box covered in mud. “Strange thing for a curate to have – pink ribbons.”
Indeed it was. Lucas picked the bright material from the box, holding it up to the light from the window. Red smudged the very edges of it.
“Bloody hell,” Stone murmured softly.
Both men searched the side table where the box had been found: a necklace, pretty but with a broken clasp; a piece of pale-blue lace; a small bible; and nestled in amongst a slip of lavender silk, a ring, gold and delicate, two hands clasped in eternity.
“Bloody hell,” Stone said again. “You told me about that ring. Miss Risley’s, wasn’t it?”
“It was indeed. Keep looking, we need to be sure.”
Stone started pulling out the drawers of the desk, one by one, whilst Lucas hunted around the small kitchen area in the corner of the room. The strange smell he’d noticed in the hall was emanating from the unwashed dishes, which were stacked in a bucket.
Wrinkling his nose, he dropped to the floor and sifted through the stack of books left lying there. The curate was obviously a prodigious reader – everything from Rousseau to what looked like ancient religious tracts, many of them must have been from the vicarage.
“Mainwaring, is this suspicious enough for you?”
Stone was holding a knife sheath. He clasped the end tentatively as he crawled out from beneath the desk. The object was stained red. “I suppose he could enjoy hunting?” Stone proffered, “but I think we need to find him.”
“No sign of the actual knife?”
“No.”
“I don’t like the look of any of it. To leave the ring and baubles lying around, a knife sheath on the floor… He’s either got arrogant, clumsy, or he’s leaving and no longer cares. I suggest we get back to the house and round up as many men as possible. Search the area, and get O’Carroll to spread the word in the village.”
Dismounting in the stables with faces grim, both men nodded at each other, before Lucas strode to the house. Stone was to have words with Ridges and round up trustworthy servants to help search. Lucas would first warn Rosalind and the ladies not to leave Stonebridge Hall.
“Cooper?” he called out, and the man silently appeared in the hallway. “Can you gather the ladies in the drawing room?”
“Mrs Mereworth and” – the butler glanced over each shoulder – “Lady D,” he whispered, “are both in the west wing. Miss Trewent, however, has gone out.”
“Gone out? Where? I thought she was taking a rest?” Lucas’s heart thudded erratically. On the ride home, he’d felt thankful that at least Rosalind was safe: sleeping off the brandy beneath rose-scented sheets, far away from all this violence.
“The curate came to call. Mrs Mitchell has fallen ill and requested Miss Trewent’s company.”
