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‘Of course I am. I am your friend. We Ravenhursts stick together, don’t we?’ The safe answer. Pretend there is no ambiguity, pretend I understand what is happening here.
‘Your sense of family duty is strong.’ He lifted his hand, apparently studying the tips of her rather inky fingers.
‘Not particularly,’ she admitted. ‘Only for the relatives I like.’ The silence seemed to stretch on. ‘Why are you here, Theo?’
‘Because this morning, when my head finally stopped aching, it occurred to me that if Lord X has sent any more—minions, was it?’
‘Henchmen,’ Elinor supplied.
‘What do you read? Sensation novels? I’m shocked. Henchmen, then. You are staying here quite openly using our own name and I should be taking better care of you.’
‘I don’t think he would have. Sent any more, I mean.’ She freed her hand and went to perch on the edge of the big chestnut wood table. His close proximity was too confusing. ‘Two would seem adequate and they’d have to find you and report back. If I were he, I would not be concerned about not hearing from them. Not yet.’ Theo nodded and leaned against the window frame, his eyes on the street outside.
‘You don’t think—?’ she began, then broke off, shaking her head. ‘I did wonder if he had had it stolen himself, but there would be no advantage, would there? He might have had the count murdered to get back the money, but you were bringing him the Chalice.’
‘You are talking about a highly respected member of the peerage.’ Theo sounded amused by her speculation.
‘The man’s a pornographer.’
‘A collector of erotic art,’ Theo corrected her. ‘When it costs that much money, it is art, believe me.’
‘Anyway, by tomorrow we’ll all be safely inside the chateau.’
‘Oh, yes, all the suspects in a murder case tucked up within nice thick walls with the portcullis down. Your idea of safe, Nell, is unique.’
The door opened on Jeanie with the tray, Lady James at her heels. ‘Theophilus, I am appalled. What your poor mother would say if she could see you now I shudder to think. Let that be a
lesson to you to foreswear strong drink.’
‘Good morning.’ Theo took the onslaught with admirable calm. ‘Thank you for your concern, Aunt Louisa. I am not in any great pain now.’
‘Huh! You should be suffering from a hangover, if nothing else. Why are you here, other than to alarm Jeanie and cause her to break the china?’
‘To offer you my escort to morning service, naturally, Aunt.’
‘I do not chose to attend the Roman rite, I thank you, Theophilus. However, it shows more sensitive feeling in you to have offered than I would have expected.’
‘I also brought a copy of a plan of the chateau, which I thought might be of interest to study before we arrive.’ He removed a package from his satchel and handed it to Elinor. ‘How accurate it is I do not know, it appears to date from the middle of the last century. I found it in a bookseller’s in Avallon.’
‘I will make a copy.’ Elinor spread it open on the table. ‘I am sure Mama would like to have one to make notes on.’ If they had several copies she and Theo could mark each chamber and passage as they searched it—once she had persuaded him to let her help, that was. It showed the chateau from cellars to roof, floor by floor, each part numbered in a crabbed hand. Down the edge, in the same hand, ran the key.
Theo came to stand close beside her while she ran her forefinger down the list, squinting to try to decipher the writing. ‘Looking for a chamber marked orgies?’ he murmured.
‘There might be some clue,’ she whispered back, refusing to rise to his satirical tone. ‘The group must have called themselves something, and this is an old plan. With a key apparently written by a drunken spider,’ she added, depressed.
‘I will leave it with you,’ Theo said. ‘Until tomorrow, Aunt.’
One did not have first cousins who included a duke and an earl, an uncle who was a bishop and numerous titled relations by marriage, without having stayed in many fine and historic mansions. But this was the first time Elinor had ever found herself in a castle complete with battlements and turrets, and, according to the plan, dungeons as well.
She rested her elbows on the sill of the window in her allotted bedchamber and looked out. Below her the hillside sloped down through parkland, into fields and ended at the river, out of sight behind its fringe of trees. The shadows were lengthening now, the long summer dusk making the valley mysterious and tranquil.
On either side of her window the wings of the chateau stretched away. It seemed to have grown over the centuries without any coherent plan, each count adding and adapting to suit his needs. She and her mother were in rooms that dated from the seventeenth century, with fine panelling and great chestnut beams overhead. From the window she could see the medieval part with its turrets to her right and the incongruous eighteenth-century wing to her left, overlooking the formal gardens.
Lady James had a room next door and Theo was opposite. Where the marquesa was lodged, she had no idea. Doubtless she had secured a chamber close to Theo, Elinor thought, fighting a losing battle trying not to think about Theo’s relationship with the woman.
It was none of her business and she shouldn’t be thinking about such things in any case—the love life of an adult male was a highly unsuitable subject for speculation by an unmarried lady. But this was Theo, and he had kissed her, and now her overactive imagination was visualising him kissing the marquesa. Only she, of course, knew exactly what she was about and he would enjoy it very much indeed and—
‘And nothing.’ Elinor pushed herself upright and stalked into the room. He had kissed her for a number of reasons, none of which had anything to do with why a respectable young lady should wish to be kissed by a man. And Theo was her friend and should not be the focus for her romantic daydreams. If romantic was quite the word to describe the odd, shivery, yearning feeling that kept washing over her when she thought about touching Theo. Or Theo touching her. And it was more than touching, more than the vague and disturbing things that haunted her dreams. She wanted to be close to him with her mind as well as her body.
