Engaging the Enemy (The Wild Randalls 1)

Blythe’s embrace grew stronger and then her arms fell away. “You look tired.”

“It’s been a stressful morning. Can you stay with Edwin for awhile?”

“Of course. But what is going on? Your butler was behaving very strangely. He questioned me about the servants I brought to the abbey. He even demanded their names.”

Mercy clutched her sister’s hands. “Leopold saw a stranger outside the abbey last night. He is convinced it is the person threatening us.”

Blythe cried out softly. “You are not thinking of going outside are you? You must stay close to Edwin.”

“No. I will stay inside the abbey, but the waiting is driving me to the brink of madness. To distract myself, I want to continue searching for clues about Leopold’s siblings. If the worst comes to pass, the estate may very well need them.”

“Surely it won’t come to that. But I understand your thinking. If not for my husband having a son from his first marriage, that estate would have fallen to the worst side of that family.” Blythe nodded slowly, her gaze fixed on Edwin where he slept. “I will guard him with my last breath.”

Blythe was always a touch too dramatic. Mercy threw her arms around her sister. “I’m sure it won’t come to that but thank you.”

She turned around and approached the wall containing the only entrance to the duke’s real study—a narrow space connected to three main chambers: drawing room, dining room, and study. The one place she had not searched already but the place she really should have checked first when Leopold had told her of his lost siblings.

Mercy slid her fingers over the rose carvings and set her fingertips apart on the wood. She pushed each petal evenly until the wall issued a clicking noise.

Perhaps she should be ashamed that she had not shown Leopold this chamber, but if the answers he needed were found before she had convinced him to remain, he would have gone too quickly for her comfort. The chamber was not marked on any architectural plan for the abbey that she had ever seen, and she had no idea how long ago it was constructed. It was very likely that Leopold had no knowledge of the chamber. She would tell him when the time was right.

Blythe handed her a lit candle. “I do not like it much in there.”

Mercy pushed the candle away. “I don’t particularly care for the confines either, but it is our best chance for success. I’ll return as soon as I discover something. If you need me, knock on the wall. The sound will travel to me easily enough and I will return to you.”

Blythe nodded as Mercy closed the door softly. She turned as her eyes adjusted to the muted light and then moved into the room, keeping her steps slow and her breathing shallow against the dust that rose up to fill her nose. She only came here when she absolutely had to, and it was only by accident that she had spied the old duke disappearing into the space at all. When he and her husband had passed away, Mercy and Blythe had explored the chamber. Blythe was always anxious to leave the tiny, windowless space, preferring to wait at the door to ensure they could always get out.

Mercy moved to the left wall and to the peep hole that looked into the study. She stretched up on to her toes and peered inside. Leopold stood with his back to her, bent over a large map. The estate? She couldn’t tell from this distance and she shifted slightly to look beyond him when she saw another shape. What was Eamon Murphy, the biggest gossip known to mankind, doing here with Leopold?

She ducked from view as both men lifted their heads suddenly and looked around.

Spying was an unsavory habit. But for the time being it was best not to distract Leopold with thoughts of his other concerns. If she found the answers he needed, then she would tell him as soon as the danger passed. She just hoped he would not disappear immediately after that.

Most of the light illuminating the chamber drifted in from diamond shaped holes cut behind three mirrors in the adjoining rooms. Those large and heavy mirrors had never been taken down and could only be cleaned in situ. A cunning design, indeed. Not one servant to her knowledge, not even Wilcox, had ever mentioned the irregularity or the odd dimensions of the adjoining chambers.

She sat down on a leather upholstered chair. In his day, the old duke had dabbled in many things; investments, successions in other duchies, and matters likely addressed in parliament. But there had been nothing she had read so far that hinted at the whereabouts of any Randall relations. But then she reasoned, their disappearance had been many years ago.

She scanned the spines on the book shelves above her head. There were dozens of volumes, some marked with the numbers on the spine. She took down the first one and opened it to a random page. The hand writing was bold, strong, and undoubtedly belonged to her late father-in-law. But the writing was not in exact English. Why ever had he written them in an addled code?

She grabbed another and flicked through the pages, squinting in the hopes of making sense from the squiggles. She spied a date that seemed familiar and as she followed the lines of characters down the page she thought she saw a pattern. The dates advanced at odd intervals, matched with more indecipherable squiggles. She flipped the pages. There were pages of notations, all leading up to a year ago when her husband had died. The final line—September, 1812 - Gone to God, was written in a different hand.

She looked at the date again and her hands shook. Her father-in-law had been dead six months when Edwin had died and could not have possibly recorded it. She glanced around nervously, half expecting someone to emerge from the shadows to catch her snooping in here. Someone aside from herself and Blythe knew about the room and its contents.

Although her heart hammered, she slid her finger over the page until she found Edwin’s date of birth, the date the stranger came to her bed, and the date of her marriage. However, there were so many notations in between that she wondered what on earth her husband had been doing with his days that the duke felt the need to mark them down.

Her husband had been an unexcitable man, or so she thought. This couldn’t be all about him.

She pulled down the next journal, marked with the number three, and on a whim, flicked the pages until she reached the end. The last entry had been made yesterday in the same unfamiliar handwriting as the first book. It simply said; home. Was this book about Leopold?

After a quick glance through the pages, it seemed very likely. The book contained many notations of money and foreign sounding names that twisted her tongue. Heart in her throat, she rechecked the dates carefully. There were four around the time her stranger had come to share her bed, evenly spaced around that heavenly night.

What to do? She had only her suspicions, but she was certain these journals could contain important keys to finding what Leopold sought. She couldn’t resist digging further, but puzzles were not her specialty. However, Blythe was good with puzzles and games. But could Mercy risk exposing her suspicions to a sister who thought her on the brink of scandal every other minute? She might discover she was right if she cracked the code and uncovered Edwin’s parentage.

Mercy pressed her head into her hand. She was so tired of keeping the secret from her sister. She would take the risk of showing her the journals and if she uncovered the secret herself, she would confess to the possibility. If she did not, Mercy would tell Blythe herself once the danger had passed. Mind made up, she closed the journal, gathered the first three in her arms and returned to the drawing room.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Darkness cloaked Romsey Abbey in sinister shadows, reminding Leopold of all the nightmares he’d endured while away from England. Visions where Rosemary pressed against the glass of an upper bedchamber window, calling for him to come save her from the old duke’s clutches teased at his mind. During the dream, he’d not been able to storm the abbey and save his sister. He’d been trapped outside and alone while the old duke hovered, watc