“And the refuse heap beyond the kitchen courtyard’s wall. And the trees within throwing distance of the south terrace. And the river.”
He set the scabbard down by a row of daggers she had collected while she waited for him. She understood why he commanded such admiration from the other guests. He moved with great ease and yet it seemed he had care for each movement, as though everything, even the smallest thing or least important person, merited his full attention.
Now his large, strong hands were deliberate upon the scabbard. Those hands had held her. Had any of the other ladies in the castle experienced that?
It didn’t matter. It mustn’t matter.
“It seemed the most expedient approach,” she said a bit thinly now. “If the dagger were here, it clearly would not be in anybody’s room or discarded.”
“You ably employ the reason that as a woman you lack, Miss Caulfield.”
“You called me Ravenna this afternoon.”
“That was before you refused to dance with me.” The crease appeared in his cheek. “I must consider my honor.”
“Does your honor extend to offering me your opinion on a matter of potentially some delicacy?”
His brows lifted slightly.
She moved to him and held the scabbard up to the light of his candle. “Do you see these fibers? How they seem to be part of the interior fabric of the scabbard?”
“What of them?” He spoke at her brow, his head bent.
“The scabbard is not lined in cloth. The interior is unfinished leather. Those fibers are from rope that had been forced into the scabbard. Or, perhaps, fibers that clung to the dagger after it cut through rope.”
“Interesting. And the matter of potential delicacy?”
“Why would Mr. Walsh have been cutting through rope with a decorative dagger? Perhaps more to the point, why would he have been carrying such a weapon to a late-night assignation with a woman, assuming his assignation was with a woman?”
A moment of silence became two. She looked up at him.
“Do you know?” she said.
“No. But I believe you have a hypothesis you wish to share.”
“Do you mean the hypothesis having to do with Mr. Walsh’s violent proclivities in the bedchamber and the danger such a man might face if his affair were to turn sour before he remembered to hide the tools of his debauchery? Yes, that hypothesis.”
“I’m certain I should be shocked that you know of such a thing, and yet somehow I am not.”
“The butcher used to visit the cook at the—at the place where I lived when I was a very young child. I’d no idea at the time what went on in the pantry, only that I was obliged to wait an extra quarter hour to collect the headmistress’s tea and always got my ears boxed for it. But years later I reconsidered the evidence. Petti told me the rest. He was quite the philanderer in his youth.”
“Was he?”
“You are shocked.”
“I am not. Though I am a bit curious as to how this slight evidence”—he gestured toward the scabbard—“led you to that conclusion specifically.”
“I considered others. None of them were nearly as interesting. More importantly, none led to a crime of passion of the sort Mr. Walsh suffered. His wound does rather speak for itself.”
“Perhaps.”
“I have searched this room. Now we should search everybody’s chambers.”
“It must wait until morning. The evening’s entertainments were drawing to a close when I left.”
He had stayed for all the dancing. Perhaps he had danced with the other ladies. Certainly he had.
“On the other end of the great hall,” she said, “there is a display of weapons and armor that we can study now . . . if you haven’t danced yourself into such exhaustion that you are unable to help me, of course.”
“I believe I can remain awake another few minutes if I try very hard.”
She took up her lamp. “As a despicably wealthy second son you must often spend entire nights drinking and playing cards and generally carousing, then sleep all the following day. Mustn’t you?”
“Something like that.” He extinguished his candle and took her lamp. His fingers brushed hers. She grabbed her hand back and moved swiftly into the great hall.
A magnificent, impressively bellicose array spread before them on the near wall, illumined only by the light of a torch across the hall. Breastplates and other pieces of body armor had been arranged like paper dolls across an iron grille, stretching from one end of the hall to the other. Sprays of lances, broadswords, sabers, and bows had been arranged decoratively. Shields emblazoned with noble crests dotted the whole.
“The lords of this castle knew how to outfit themselves,” she murmured.
“That place where the cook met her visitor,” he said as the glow of lamplight glimmered off steel. “Where you lived. It was a foundling home, was it not?”
“Yes.”
He did not reply, but studied the armor. He was a nobleman and she was an orphan, and she had more in common with a mutton chop than with him. But he trusted in her intelligence and made her laugh. And looking at his profile now made something inside her tighten with both panic and strange pleasure.
“Did you name your dog?” she said.
“He is not my dog.”
“But you did name him?”
“Gon?alo.”
“Gon?alo? How odd.”
“Beatus Gon?alo of Amarante was a priest of the thirteenth century, and worldly despite his vows. He finally turned his life to true holiness. But his nephew, who stood to gain a great deal if Gon?alo remained corrupt, set a dog upon him.”
“The nephew did not appreciate his uncle’s change of heart, I guess?”
He tilted his attention down to her. “That dog chewed through one of the finest boots I have ever owned.”
She smiled. “You still have the other.”
“Thank you. That will do me well should I happen to lose the opposite identical boot.”
“Do you have an identical pair?”
His brow creased. “What would I do with an identical pair of boots?”
“I don’t know. You are the despicably wealthy second son. You tell me.”
“I—”
Laughter bubbled from the archway and candlelight danced toward them along the walls. Lord Vitor doused the lamp and drew her behind the iron screen.
“What are you—”
He shook his head and released her.
Light footsteps tripped along stone, and into the great medieval keep flew a delicate lady wearing white froth, followed by a gentleman with shirt points to his ears. Seeming to flee, Juliana Abraccia moved at a pace far too slow to outdistance Martin Anders’s determined strides.
“Oh, Signore Anders! You must not!”
“But my darling Miss Abraccia, I must.”
Ravenna folded her arms. He had called her his darling only the night before.
Prickling with gooseflesh, she rubbed at her arms. With only aperture slit windows, the great hall was much colder than the tiny south-facing storage room. The muslin gown Ann had lent her was practical for the party in the adjacent chamber, which was well heated by two modern fireplaces and many dancing people, but ridiculously unsuited to hiding elsewhere in the fortress.
The man beside her, however, seemed perfectly comfortable. This must be due to . . . she had no idea. She knew little about Lord Vitor Courtenay, except that he was less equable than he pretended to be among the others, and that the subtle knocking together of her knees beneath her tissue-thin skirts now had more to do with his proximity than with the cold. Absurdly, the recollection of his body atop hers in the stable came to her again, of his weight pressing her into the straw.