‘Is something wrong, Garner?’ she asked, untying her bonnet.
Before he could answer, a bustle from the basement stairwell heralded the arrival of Darby, Helen’s maid, and Tulloch, Lady Margaret’s maid. It was a narrow hall, and by all rights the more senior Tulloch should have had right of passage, but Darby’s quick energy and broad shoulders edged her past the smaller woman. She entered the already crowded vestibule with her fair skin flushed in triumph and curtseyed to Helen before taking the bonnet from her hands. Tulloch stalked up a moment later and retrieved Lady Margaret’s reticule.
Garner regarded both maids for a steely moment, then directed his answer to his mistress. ‘Mr Pike and another gentleman are in the drawing room, my lady. Mr Pike insisted upon waiting for Mr Hammond and Lady Helen to return.’
Lady Margaret paused in unclasping her spencer. ‘Pike? Here?’ She turned to her brother, but he was already making his way up the stairs to the drawing room.
‘I shall see what this is about,’ he said.
‘Mr Pike was most insistent upon seeing you and Lady Helen together, sir,’ Garner told Mr Hammond, then turned back to his mistress. ‘I am afraid, my lady, that he made it clear you were not to be present.’
‘I see,’ Lady Margaret said. ‘Did you hear that, Michael?’
Mr Hammond stopped on the first landing and peered up through the balustrade as if he could divine the Second Secretary’s purpose through the walls. ‘Most irregular.’
‘I shall be in the morning room then,’ Lady Margaret said. ‘You will come to me straight after?’
‘Of course,’ Mr Hammond said.
Lady Margaret stalked away to the morning room, her maid trailing behind. Mr Pike had a great deal of presumption to exclude Lady Margaret in her own home, Helen thought. He clearly had more power than she had imagined. She placed her reticule on the hall table and peeled off her gloves, passing them to Darby.
‘Did you see them come in?’ she asked softly.
Darby nodded. ‘I think the other man is a Reclaimer,’ she murmured. ‘He moves like you.’
Helen looked up from unbuttoning her pelisse. That was unexpected. Another of her kind, upstairs.
‘He follows Mr Pike’s orders,’ Darby added, ‘but I don’t think he likes him.’
Helen nodded. Her maid had good instincts about people: a useful asset in a Terrene-to-be. She shrugged off her pelisse into Darby’s waiting hands, using the close quarters to whisper, ‘Has the messenger to Miss Cransdon returned?’
‘No, my lady.’
He was not yet overdue, but Helen could not shake her sense of unease. ‘Find me when he does. I wish to speak to him.’
‘Even if he comes while you’re …?’ Darby glanced upstairs.
Helen recalled Mr Pike’s manner. ‘No. Wait until I am free.’
She passed Darby her reticule — a tap on the beaded silk alerting her maid to its precious contents — then climbed the staircase to join Mr Hammond on the first landing.
‘It would seem Mr Pike was waiting for his lordship’s absence,’ she said, leading the way up the remaining steps.
‘Yes, a rather troubling thought,’ Mr Hammond said. ‘Still, we must remember that Pike is on the same side as us.’
‘Not the enemy, you mean?’
He gave a wry smile. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
Their arrival on the first floor brought Geoffrey and Bernard, the two footmen standing on either side of the drawing room door, into stiff-backed attention. Helen knew that Geoffrey and the senior servants were members of the Dark Days Club, but now she realised that all of Lady Margaret’s staff, down to the lowliest kitchen maid, must be involved with the secret society in some way. How else would the strange goings-on in the house — her training, for instance, or the arrival of the Second Secretary — stay within its walls?
She considered the closed door. What did her training tell her about this situation? It was obvious that Mr Pike was a dubious ally, and therefore, by association, so was the other Reclaimer. She would count them as possible adversaries and follow his lordship’s advice: approach with extreme care, but also calm confidence.
Helen inclined her head and the two footmen opened the double doors.
‘Mr Pike, I understand that you wish to see us,’ she said as she entered the drawing room.
The Second Secretary stood at the window looking down at the street. He held a small cloth-wrapped parcel in one hand and two letters — official-looking packets — in the other.
The Reclaimer stood next to him: a blond, curly-headed man of about thirty-five, tall and thin like all of their kind. According to Lord Carlston, such lean dimensions allowed captured Deceiver energy to move through a Reclaimer’s body into the earth with greater ease. If that were the case, Helen thought, such energy would fly through the long bones of this man. Underneath the room’s ambient fragrance of wax candles, wood polish and charcoal from the hearth, she smelled his scent: a mix of hay and horse and soap. Not wholly unpleasant. He wore a dark blue jacket of fair quality, with buckskins and boots that looked more a practical choice than one of fashion. A country gentleman then, of modest means.
He watched her with blatant curiosity, sizing up the oddity of a female Reclaimer and a direct inheritor. Helen was not entirely sure she was passing his inspection. For all of that, she had to admit she rather liked his face. The whole could not be called handsome — his nose was too sharp and his chin too wide — but his hazel eyes held a steady intelligence, and a rather small mouth was made more amenable by a resting expression of humour.
He glanced at Pike, but the Second Secretary continued to study the view from the window. ‘It would seem I must introduce myself, Lady Helen,’ the Reclaimer said, bowing. His voice held a soft lilt: Cambridgeshire perhaps, or somewhere further northeast. ‘I am George Stokes, Reclaimer. But I think you already knew that.’
She returned his smile, surprised by the sudden sense of camaraderie. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Mr Stokes.’
No bow from Pike. Not even an acknowledgment of her arrival. She knew this game: her uncle used to ignore people when they entered a room too. A way to assert his authority.
She crossed to the damask armchair set opposite its matching sofa, and noted a portable mahogany writing box on the low marble table, with trimmed pen, inkwell and sand pot laid out. Mr Pike had come prepared, but for what?
‘Geoffrey,’ she said over her shoulder to the footman. ‘Tea, please.’
‘No,’ Pike said. ‘No tea. I do not want any interruptions.’
Helen paused in taking her seat. The man was a boor. ‘As you wish. No tea, Geoffrey. You may go.’
The footman bowed and withdrew, closing the door. At the corner of her eye, Helen saw Mr Hammond take up a position beside her chair — an unmistakable declaration. The lines were drawn.
‘Gentlemen, would you care to sit?’
Finally Pike turned. ‘This is not a social call, Lady Helen.’
‘I think we have ascertained that, Mr Pike. Does your business preclude you from sitting?’