The Bet

Myles helped his cousin to his feet. When Isaac blanched and began to sway, he slipped his arm over his shoulders and helped him to the door. In spite of his blustering, Isaac leaned heavily on him as they made their way out of the room.

“What happened?” Myles asked. “What do you remember?”

“I was going up to bed last night and saw someone in the shadows. I shouted at them and chased them. They came down here. When I got down here the blackguard was standing around the corner waiting for me. The world went black. I don’t remember anything after that. I came to sometime in the night but whenever I moved I felt sick and the world went black again. That’s all I remember.”

“Why leave him in that room?” Estelle asked.

“We don’t go in there,” Myles replied. “Even if Isaac woke up and started to shout I doubt anybody in the servant’s quarters or the main body of the house would hear him. I suspect that when the killer saw how heavily his head was bleeding they thought he would die before morning.”

“Well, it is going to take a damned sight more than that,” Isaac snorted, but then winced when his head protested against the sudden movement.

“Let’s go to the study. We need to tell Barnabas and take a good look at that head of yours. I don’t want you falling asleep on me right now, Isaac,” Myles replied.

When an uncomfortable silence settled over everyone, Isaac stopped walking and stared hard at Myles.

“What?” he demanded quietly.

“Beatrice has been killed: poisoned, I think. We found her this morning,” Myles explained. “We also saw that same cloaked figure and followed it out of the house and into the Whispering Woods. It is one of the people who chased Estelle out of the woods the other night and, I suspect, the same person who sent us those letters that brought us all together.”

“Is it Estelle they are after, or us?” Isaac asked.

“Us. All of us,” Myles replied bluntly.

“Why us?”

“It may be because we are the closest house to those woods. I don’t know why they chose to target us now, after all these years. I cannot help but think we are missing something.”

Isaac snorted. “Yes, the bloody killer,” he replied sarcastically.

Myles looked at his head. “I think it is safe to say that Estelle stumbled upon them the other night and they want to silence her because of what she saw.”

Myles named a few people from the village and saw recognition dawn on Isaac’s face.

“Damn it all to Hell. The magistrate needs to throw them in gaol and toss away the key.”

Myles agreed. “Until then, I am pleased to announce we have a passage in and out of the house we can use, even when the moat is flooded.”

Isaac stared at him, waiting for him to explain.

“I will show you later,” Myles sighed.

He helped his cousin down the hallway and into the main body of the house. When they entered the rooms used by the family they were immediately encased in warmth, and heaved a huge sigh of relief to find that everything was as they had left it.

Estelle rubbed the chilled flesh of her arms while she absorbed that blessed warmth. She would have preferred to go straight up to her bed chamber and get some much needed rest, but that would have to come later once Myles had finished telling Barnabas what had happened, and he had decided what they should do next.

“There you are,” Barnabas breathed when he saw them. “Good Lord, what has happened to you?”

Myles sighed and opened his mouth to speak only to slam it closed again when Vernon appeared silently behind them.

“Shadows and traitors,” he mumbled almost tauntingly, for once staring Myles straight in the eye. “They are amongst us, you know.”

Myles opened his mouth to answer, but Vernon clearly wasn’t interested in a response. He stepped around them, his gaze locked on Eva, who sat in her favourite chair beside the window, sewing quietly in her own little world as always.

Estelle stared at him, unsure what to ma

ke of his outburst. Myles and Barnabas had said that their relation was strange, but she hadn’t expected just how odd he was.

“Tea anyone?” Barnabas asked when a maid entered moments later, followed by a second maid carrying an equally heavy burden.