The Duke Identity (Game of Dukes #1)(9)
With wary anticipation, Harry watched as Black’s lair came into view. Moonlight dappled the gothic mansion, an eerie silver-plating of the turrets and arches. When the carriage stopped, he exited first, turning to help Miss Todd down. Her hand felt soft and dainty engulfed in his. She ended the fleeting touch, ascending the front steps with nimble grace.
As he followed her up to the recessed entry, he had a feeling of being watched. He glanced up, saw dark silhouettes huddled along the roofline. The cloud cover passed, and the exposed moon shed light upon stone gargoyles. They stared down at him, some grinning evilly, others keeping a brooding vigil.
Bartholomew Black knew how to set a stage.
Once inside, Ming told Miss Todd to go upstairs and change.
She bit her lip. “Do you think I ought to leave Mr. Bennett alone?”
During the short ride over, she’d again asked Harry his name, and he’d hesitated. If he let his true identity be known, Bartholomew Black might trace him to the police force. Knowing the underworld’s animosity toward law enforcement, Harry didn’t think the cutthroat would take kindly to a constable embroiled in his granddaughter’s affairs. Moreover, he couldn’t risk compromising Davies’ surveillance.
Thus, Harry had introduced himself as Sam Bennett, the identity that combined his father’s first and his mother’s maiden names. He’d lived as Bennett for so long that, in some ways, it didn’t feel like a lie.
“Upstairs. Change,” Ming said to Miss Todd.
“But you know how Grandpapa can be.” Miss Todd worried her lower lip with her teeth. Her eyes, it turned out, were an uncommon shade of green with a touch of grey…like verdigris, the compound produced from soaking copper plates in acid.
“I don’t want Mr. Bennett to be alone with him,” Miss Todd was insisting. “You know how easily Grandfather’s temper can spark.”
“Master see you dressed like boy, you see more than spark. You see Chinese fire flower.”
At the calm words, Miss Todd flashed an impish grin. “All right, Ming. You win.” She dashed to the stairwell, pausing there to add, “Keep an eye on our guest, will you?”
“I can take care of myself,” Harry called out—as usual, too late.
Miss Todd had disappeared up the steps.
The imperturbable Ming took Harry to the drawing room to await Black’s arrival.
Left alone, Harry took stock of the surroundings. The polished mahogany furnishings and thick Aubusson rugs radiated luxury. He might have been in a grand Mayfair drawing room, or, indeed, any one of his siblings’ homes. Although he came from country-bred, middling class stock, his brother and four sisters had, much to the ton’s and their own surprise, married into the Upper Echelons.
The Kents had come a long way from their humble beginnings in Chudleigh Crest. As fate would have it, several members of Harry’s family had even crossed paths with Bartholomew Black. Although Harry wasn’t privy to all the details, he knew that, many years ago, his brother Ambrose’s wife, Marianne, had paid off some debt to Black. And Andrew Corbett, the man who’d wed Ambrose and Marianne’s daughter Rosie, had also had encounters with Black.
Corbett was a product of the underworld, and, as he told it, he’d barely survived Black’s incendiary wrath as a young man. This supported Inspector Davies’ belief that fire was Black’s modus operandi and that the cutthroat was behind the fiery explosion at The Gilded Pearl.
I must make the most of the opportunity. Harry firmed his resolve. Things might not have gone as planned this evening, but now he had rare access to the suspect’s domain. He would not waste it.
His boots moved soundlessly over the plush rugs as he traveled the perimeter of the high-ceilinged room. He didn’t know what to search for. Keeping an eye on the door, he rifled through the drawers of an escritoire: nothing but candle stubs, an inkwell, and some broken quills. He continued on past several seating areas, one of them around a carved stone fireplace. His shadow glided over a silk-covered wall lined with columns. Between the columns hung gilt-framed portraits in the style of famed painter Benjamin West.
Intrigued, Harry peered at the signature…make that by West.
Upon closer perusal, he saw that gold placards beneath the portraits identified the subjects as members of Black’s family. There was one entitled “Althea Bourdelain Black,” showing a regal matron, her dark hair bound in a pearl-studded coronet. Framed by crimson curtains, she sat by a table, her beringed hand resting delicately on a bible. The paint brought out the richness of her forest green eyes, the blood-red of her heart-shaped ruby pendant and ring.
The next several portraits were of Black’s only child Mavis, spanning her development from girl to womanhood. In all of them, the painter had emphasized her doe-eyed fragility. The last picture depicted her as a young lady, sitting on a swing beneath the bowers of a leafy oak.
Harry came to the portrait at the end. It was one of Black himself, dressed in the style of the previous century with white silk breeches and an embroidered jacket. Beneath a powdered wig, Black’s piercing dark eyes seemed to stare directly at the viewer.
“They don’t make painters like they used to,” a voice boomed.
Harry turned to see Bartholomew Black framed in the open doorway.
Black looked as if he’d stepped out of his own portrait. He had on the same type of old-fashioned wig and breeches, his waistcoat blooming with exotic stitchery. Instead of a jacket, he wore a maroon silk banyan.