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“Wasn’t,” the man mumbled. “Ain’t. Place was left empty.”
“So you broke in.”
“It wasn’t hardly locked up.”
The duke sighed. “By which you mean the lock was poor, and you were able to get through it.”
“I don’t see why a house should go to waste.”
Sarah had some sympathy with this point. She also noted that the man’s rural accent had gone crisp and more cultured with that last sentence.
“Are you behind all the tales of haunting?” asked Kenver.
The sly grin was enough of a reply. Merlin’s teeth looked very white against the mass of black hair. “Those as snoop may find more than they was looking for,” he said.
Sarah appreciated Kenver’s cleverness in realizing this right away.
“Let’s look through the house,” said Cecelia, ever practical.
Her tone made the man step back. Sending the coachman back to his team, they entered a long, narrow room that had once been the manor’s kitchen. It was now obviously the man’s entire living space. He clearly cooked over the large fireplace with an oven at one end. A few pots and dishes sat on a shelf beside it. A pallet lay in the front corner at the other end. And a table and chair occupied the middle of the space. Sarah noted that the place was sparse and shabby but not dirty. Doors leading into other parts of the house were shut. Greenish light filtered through ivy leaves came through high windows on the side wall. These had not been trimmed like those in the rear.
The duke went to one of the inner doors and pushed. It did not open. “Are these locked?” he asked their inadvertent host.
“Nah. Warped.”
“I see.” The duke put his shoulder to the door and shoved. With a screech of dry hinges and scraping of wood, it yielded.
They walked through Tresigan’s empty rooms, moving around the ground floor and then testing the stairs before doing the same on the upper level. They found nothing but dust, a bit of debris, and one patch of damp. A broken window upstairs had allowed birds to enter and nest. The floor of that room was spattered with droppings.
Back downstairs, they forced open an inner door and revealed the central courtyard the duke had suspected. Cascades of ivy had grown down from the roof and pooled in this open space, humped and mounded over what might have been small trees. Sarah started to step through the doorway. “Don’t go out there,” said the duke. “We can’t tell if there are broken pavements or even holes to trip you up.”
She pulled back.
“This is unusual construction for this area,” said Kenver. “It’s almost like an atrium.”
“Do you think the house might have begun as a Roman villa?” Sarah asked. “There was trade from Cornwall to the empire.”
“It can’t be that old.” But Kenver looked intrigued. He edged over and pulled at the ivy, exposing a section of wall. “It’s built of brick. Not ancient.” He smiled at Sarah. “Too bad.”
Sarah nodded, the Romans briefly forgotten in the allure of that smile. Her pulse speeded up. Kenver held her gaze as if he could tell.
“It looks as if no one has tended to Tresigan for a century or so,” said the duke.
“Many years at least,” replied Cecelia. “It is a shame.”
They returned to the kitchen. The man who called himself Merlin was sitting at the table, hands folded as if awaiting his fate.
“Where do you come from?” asked the duchess. “Who is your family?”
“I am Merlin from the hollow hills,” he answered, gesturing at the cliff behind the house. “I sprang from the realm of faery, and I rule this place.”
The duke sighed. Sarah again noted the change in the man’s accent.
“We’ve brought a picnic,” Cecelia said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“You’ve got tea?”
“Yes. And cakes.”
