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Clarence squawked.
“And no nothing for me today either.” He turned slowly and began his walk back to Drago Hall.
“I must speak to you, Victoria.”
“Go away.”
“No. I will tie you down if I must. We have to talk.”
Victoria straightened from her task. She slowly put down the feather duster and laid the volume of Voltaire back on the shelf. “Very well, if you must. Get it over with, if you please.” She paused a moment and gave him a thoroughly disgusted look. “This will probably be magnificent. Your other performance was certainly sterling enough.”
“I was wrong, at least I assume that I was. You threw me.”
“If only I had been stronger, you would have been in Fletcher’s Pond.”
“Elaine told me she saw you and me making love by the stable. She thought I was Damien. She thought the man kissing you was me. I decided to put it to the test after you refused to talk to me. I’m not proud of it, Victoria, but I had to.”
“Yet again,” she said mildly, idly dusting a tabletop. “Again you chose to believe anyone, except me.”
“But you responded to me so freely, you said you wanted me, and you—”
“You are a great fool. I also find you excessively boring, Rafael. Have you nothing at all to do with yourself except test your wife to see if she’s virtuous?”
“Tell me you did it on purpose. Tell me you knew all along that I was pretending to be Damien.”
“I will tell you nothing. Nothing at all. Who knows what conclusions you will draw now? Certainly I expect to come out in the wrong. It appears that is inevitable when you are involved. I should like to kick your other shin.”
She tossed the duster at him. “I’m going to dress for dinner.” Then she stopped cold and turned back to him. “Actually, we must leave the Pewter Room.”
“Why?”
“When Damien was pretending to be you, he spoke of things like Honeycutt Cottage and the kitchen. He also said that he was wild for me, particularly after yesterday afternoon.” She stopped, watching his face.
He paled; then his face flooded with furious color. “That damned bastard.”
“Yes,” she said.
“So that is why we were assigned the Pewter Room. There must be a peephole in there, and Damien was watching us.” He stopped, so incoherent with rage that he could find no words.
“Yes,” she said again.
He got hold of himself, but it was a powerful effort. “Let’s find that peephole,” he said, took her hand, and dragged her after him.
It took only fifteen minutes to find it. “In the middle of a grape,” Rafael said with disgust. “Look, Victoria.”
She looked at the fireplace mantel, at the swags of fruits sculptured on the frieze. “Do you think there could also be a passageway behind the fireplace? Connecting other rooms, perhaps?”
“That would be logical. I can’t believe I never knew about this. Obviously Damien discovered it after I was gone. Let’s see if there’s an opening.”
It was the turning of an orange counterclockwise that did it. A narrow panel just to the right of the fireplace slid noiselessly back. The two of them simply stared into the black space. ?
?Goodness,” Victoria managed, then stepped forward. “Let’s explore and see where it goes?”
“No fear?”
“No, just fury. I should like to do something awful to your brother. I can’t stand to think of him watching us.”
“I know. Let’s explore, then.”
