CHAPTER 5
Megan presented herself at her new job the next morning with firm resolve. She was there to find her brother’s killer, and she was determined not to be swayed by other feelings.
Barchester’s story had brought back vividly her own memories of Dennis, making his loss once again a fresh hurt. She could well imagine how Dennis’s imagination would have fired at the tales of the lost treasures of the Incas. She could picture his smile, his reddish brown eyes, so much like her own, lighting with eagerness. He had always been interested in the Inca civilization; she could remember him recounting with horror the bloody takeover of their lands and fortunes by the Spanish invaders centuries earlier.
Dennis would have loved to have found some piece of that empire, however small, some tangible link to that long-ago time. Megan felt sure that he had diligently looked for treasure. What if he had found it? After all, Barchester had said that Coffey had come upon some artifacts. Surely Dennis could have, as well.
Thinking back on it, Megan wished that she had questioned Barchester more closely about Mr. Coffey’s find. At the time, she had been more interested in digging more deeply into the quarrel that had set Dennis’s death in motion.
Well, she reminded herself, she could talk to the man again—or, better yet, she would ask Julian Coffey himself when she interviewed him. It was even possible that he might have a better idea about the pendant that Theo Moreland had kept hidden beneath his shirt.
In the meantime, she could begin looking for the necklace. At least now she had a better idea what she should be searching for.
When Megan arrived at Broughton House, she was taken in hand by the housekeeper, a short, stout, grandmotherly looking woman with snow-white hair pulled back into a soft bun. Her name, she said, was Mrs. Brannigan, though the members of the family called her Mrs. Bee, a name given to her by the first set of twins when they were children. It was clear, from the softening of her face and the faint smile upon her lips when she mentioned this fact, that the housekeeper was sincerely attached to the family.
“The ‘Little Greats,’ now, they can be a trial,” she said confidentially as she led Megan up the back stairs. “But you look like a sensible young woman. I think you can handle them.”
“The who?”
“Oh. That’s what Master Theo and Master Reed used to call them when they were little—the younger twins, Master Con and Master Alex. The ‘Little Greats,’ for their names, don’t you see?”
“Oh. Of course. Alexander the Great and Constantine the Great.”
“Aye, that’s it. Never was much of one for history, myself, but in this household you can’t help but pick it up. Lord Bellard, now, he’s a wonder—all those tiny lead soldiers. I don’t know how he keeps them all straight.”
Tiny lead soldiers? Megan remembered Theo Moreland mentioning something about an uncle Bellard. But what was he doing playing with toy soldiers? “Is he, um, getting on in years?”
“Oh, must be in his seventies, yes. Sharp as a tack, though I never know half of what he’s talking about. But shy, you see. His suite of rooms is on the same floor as the nursery—so he can spread out. Right now he’s working on Agincourt. Just got in a batch of knights the other day, don’t you know? He keeps the old battles here and the modern ones at the Park. Too difficult to move around, now, aren’t they?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Megan realized that the housekeeper must mean that the old man laid out his soldiers in re-creations of famous battles, not that he was living a second childhood with toys. Still, it seemed a rather odd occupation for a grown man.
“Here we are,” the housekeeper said, stopping at a door along a wide, elegant corridor on the second floor. “These are the family’s bedchambers. The duke and duchess are at the end of this hall.” She pointed to their left. “With Master Theo—Lord Raine, that is—next, and Lady Thisbe and Master Desmond across the hall. Then these empty rooms—Lady Olivia’s and Lady Kyria’s—but they only come to visit now, don’t they? They’re married, you see, and, of course, the St. Legers have their own house in town, and Mr. McIntyre has purchased one, as well, for when he and Lady Kyria are both here. But her grace is hesitant to make them over into guest rooms. Perfectly natural, after all, and when there are so many rooms here, it scarcely matters.”
“No, I’m sure not,” Megan agreed, not sure why the voluble housekeeper was telling her all this.
“So you are down here,” the older woman went on, going around the corner into a side hall. She stopped before the first door and opened it. “It’s a pleasant room, I think, though a bit noisier, as it looks down on the street instead of back on the gardens.”
Megan stopped on the threshold of the room, looking about her in astonishment. It was a spacious, well-furnished room, with a set of windows framed by heavy dark green velvet curtains. The dark green was reflected in the green-and-gold brocade cover atop the bed and the thick Persian rug that centered the room. A large wardrobe closet, vanity and dresser in mahogany, along with a small table and reading lamp beside a comfortable chair, completed the room.
The place was far larger and more elegant than Megan’s own room at home and certainly was not what she had expected of a room given to a tutor of the family’s children. An avid reader of the Bront? sisters and their successors, she had envisioned a cramped, dark room, sparsely furnished, among the servants’ quarters or perhaps off the nursery.
“But I—this is my room?” Megan asked.
The housekeeper smiled. “Well, the boys’ tutors usually stayed in a room off the nursery, but that wouldn’t be proper, now, would it, what with you being a young lady and all. So her grace directed me to put you in here. In general, you see, she doesn’t believe in separating the youngsters from the family.” She shrugged, indicating the closest thing to disapproval that Megan had seen in her. “All the others’ rooms have always been on this floor, and their governesses, too, when they were young.”
“I—I see.” A little dazed, Megan walked about the room, looking out the window at the view of the wide thoroughfare below and running a hand along the heavy bedspread. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it,” a masculine voice said from the doorway.
Megan started, her heart leaping into her throat. She recognized the voice even before she turned to look at Theo.
He lounged in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame, his arms crossed, grinning at her. He was, she realized, every bit as handsome as she remembered him. She had been telling herself that her memory had endowed him with a more appealing face than he really had, but obviously that was not true.
“Mr.—I mean, Lord Raine. How do you do?”