Michael accompanied us to Will’s rooms, knowing we would find at least one of the men with his brother. And, in fact, we found both of them exchanging terse bits of information at the door to his parlor, in the midst of changing shifts. Michael asked us to wait a little ways down the hall while he spoke with the men.
Donovan merely nodded at his employer’s instructions, but Mac proceeded to argue. Whether that was because he did not trust Gage or me, and being an older retainer he felt more comfortable disagreeing with Michael, or because he had something to hide, I didn’t know. Mac had always been rather grim and surly, but I didn’t recall him being so outspoken ten years ago. Then again, a fifteen-year-old girl was not a very threatening figure. Perhaps he’d had no fear of what I might discover.
In the end, Michael had to be firm with him, but he received Mac’s begrudging agreement.
“His lordship needs seeing to,” he told Michael tersely in his deep brogue, while glaring down the hall at Gage and me. “They can blather at me later.” And with that pronouncement he closed the door in our faces.
Michael frowned at the offending piece of wood. “You can speak in the parlor at the end of the hall,” he told Donovan and us, leading us back down to the intersection of the two passages just before the locked door near the stairs.
The room was dark, but Michael grabbed a brace of candles from the table beside the door and lit the tapers on one of the wall sconces in the hall. Gage followed suit.
It appeared that Michael didn’t want the other servants knowing we were questioning Mac and Donovan—otherwise why hide us away in this little-used room at the top of the house? In light of all the gossip I’d been hearing from Lucy, I couldn’t argue with him. But I wished we could have conducted the interview in a more comfortable place. I glanced at the unlit fireplace and wrapped my arms tighter around my torso. Even my warm woolen riding habit could only hold so much cold at bay.
The room had visibly been cleaned—the hearth was swept and the furniture was free of dust—but it still held that somewhat musky stench of a room too little used and too long closed. The heavy drapes were pulled shut against even the starlight, and the corners were almost pitch-black with shadows. Gage set one brace of candles on the tea table before a heavy chair and the other on the table beside the door. With a nod to Michael, he closed the door and then gestured for Donovan to take the chair. When I took my seat in the corner of the settee Gage had indicated with his eyes, and he sat in the chair next to me, I realized how clever he had been. The candles on the tea table were directly in front of Donovan, allowing us to see his eyes and face clearly, but the candles by the door were at Gage’s and my back, concealing ours.
“Now, Donovan, if you will,” he began, “tell us how you found out about this position?”
His gaze was cautious, but he did not shift in his chair or attempt to evade the question. “A friend o’ mine from Edinburgh heard a doc askin’ roond. He kenned I were lookin’ for somethin’ different.”
“Than your job at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary?”
“Aye.”
“Why did you want to leave the infirmary?”
“For a position like this?” he replied, as if the answer was rather obvious. And it was. “Better pay. Better food. And I only have the one patient to mind, no’ a whole ward o’ ’em.”
His answer implied that caring for Will was a far easier job than his previous assignment, which meant the rigors and demands should have been no problem for him. I wasn’t sure whether he was simply answering our questions honestly or if he had anticipated the reason for our visit and was already presenting his defense. A man of Donovan’s bulk should not have had to use force to convince Will to do what was needed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy using it. There had been a boy in the village where I grew up who liked to bully the rest of us just because he was bigger. My brother had come home with more than one bloody nose from standing up to the lad and his mean-spiritedness.
Gage tilted his head, studying the man across from him. “I imagine the men in some of those wards could become quite riled.” He spoke conversationally, but I knew his comment was far from innocent.
“Aye. Injured men be like bairns. When one comes in hurtin’ and carryin’ on, the others join in. Canna have one screamin’ and hollerin’ wi’oot the others.”
“How do you manage it when that happens?”
“Careful like. If ye can get the first one settled, sometimes the rest ’ll follow. And if no’, mayhap they need a wee more meds. For the pain.”
Gage’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t missed the way Donovan had tacked that last bit on at the end either. “I imagine it requires a firm hand.”
Donovan’s expression did not alter by one flicker of an eyelash, but I could have sworn he knew exactly what we were hinting at. “Aye. Firm, but no’ too firm. They be like horses. Ride ’em too hard and they’ll be more ill-tempered than ye started wi’.”