When the butler closed the door on the sight, I turned to follow Alana and Philip up the stairs, only to be surprised to find them still standing near the top, watching me. The pleased smiles that stretched their faces left me with no doubt that they understood the significance of Gage’s leave-taking. Heat began to rise into my cheeks, and I hurried up the stairs past them.
“I believe you said the children wanted to see me,” I muttered, moving on before either of them could say anything.
But all the same, I could hear Alana’s happy laughter as it followed me up the next flight of stairs. And I couldn’t help but smile, despite my embarrassment.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Woodslea stood on an eastern slope of the Pentland Hills, nestled within a small wood that had grown up around a burn. Traveling across empty Seafield Moor as we were, we could see the Pentland Hills rising before us for miles, and then the pale stone facade of Woodslea as it stood out against the darkness of the trees. The sun was hidden behind low gray clouds, which scuttled across the sky as if racing toward some goal—perhaps a warmer clime.
I tugged the hood of my cloak up around my ears, trying to block the bite of the wind as we made our way from the carriage into the mansion. The solid oak door stood open just wide enough for us to slip through, and then the butler slammed it shut.
I jumped as the sound echoed through the vaulted space.
“Apologies,” the majordomo said with a warm smile. “The wind often makes closing the door quite difficult.” He gestured to a footman hanging back near the wall to take our coats and gloves. “You are here to see Mr. Tyler.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Gage answered it as such anyway. “Yes. He should be expecting us.”
The butler nodded. “Right this way.”
We followed him up a staircase, around a corner, down another short flight of steps, and then down a long corridor to a room near the back of the house. From our approach, Woodslea had appeared to be a rather irregular pile of stone, with several additions made on different dates, and our convoluted path to this, what must amount to the drawing room, only confirmed it.
Owen Tyler and a rather plain woman, who I suspected might be his wife, rose from their seats as we entered. Introductions were swiftly made, and we settled down on opposite sides of the long table positioned between two settees. The drapes over a large window had been drawn back to show the garden, which must have been lovely during the summer. Now there were only barren branches and shrubs, and towering evergreens to look at.
“I hope my letter arrived in good time, and adequately explained the reason for our visit,” Gage started off by saying.
“Yes,” Mr. Tyler replied. He glanced at his wife, whose hands were tucked demurely in her lap. “And, I must say, we were rather unsettled to hear there’ve been other such thefts.”
“We’re still making inquiries to discover if there have been even more, but from what we’ve ascertained, yours may have been the first. You understand why we would want to find out all we can about the incident.”
“O’ course. Whatever we can do to help.”
Gage joined me in studying the couple—their rather austere clothing, void of all ornamentation, and the severe style of Mrs. Tyler’s hair fastened almost ruthlessly into a tight bun. “If you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you report the crime when it happened?”
“Well, to be honest, we thought it was an isolated incident. Some local lads fallen on hard times, or a passing family of gypsies and the like. We never dreamed they’d do it again, to someone else.” Mr. Tyler paused, drawing a deep breath. “And we didna want to call attention to it. My father was a good man, a righteous man, for his body to be desecrated in such a way . . . Well, perhaps it was my pride talkin’, but I felt that the fewer who ken, the better it would be.”
It was clear just how horrified the Tylers were by the entire affair. I suspected they feared, as many did, that the fact that Ian Tyler’s body had been disturbed meant that he would not be able to rise from the dead on Judgment Day. Having married an anatomist who routinely conducted dissections of human corpses—and forced me to assist him—I’d heard the argument many times before. I had no answer for them, but I could attest to the fact that whatever energy, whatever force gave us life—a soul, a consciousness—it no longer inhabited our bodies after death. There was nothing behind a cadaver’s eyes but nerves and tissues and fluids, and all of it was quickly decaying.
Whatever had made Ian Tyler the man he’d been was no longer present in his bones. It had gone to somewhere better, or worse, depending on the type of man he really was. Or, at least, that was what I believed. It was the only thing I could believe, faced with all I’d seen.