to shake.”
“I see.” I spoke over my shoulder to His Lordship as I hastened after our other guest, who was scratching with his fingernail at the gold leaf on the frame of my grandfather’s image. I’d have thought that even a chill on the liver would be pleased to be excused from Mr. Fredericks’s company, but apparently not.
When I reached him, Mr. Fredericks was looking down at a small object in the palm of his hand. He held out a curlicue of gold, broken off from the frame, saying accusingly, “Shoddy workmanship. However,” he went on, pointing at a painting I had loved from infancy, a small picture of a brown and black dog playing with a ball, “that is by George Stubbs. Take care of it. It may be worth something someday. Or not, of course—Stubbs turned them out by the boatload, you know—but it is a pleasant little thing. The others, of course . . .” He shrugged.
With enormous restraint, I did not remark that, up until today, the paintings had not suffered any damage in my lifetime. “Allow me to show you the view from the parapet,” I said, in hopes of distracting him. What harm could he do on the battlements, out in the open air?
“These portraits ought to be cleaned,” he said, ignoring my suggestion and fiddling with the painting of the little dog. “They are shockingly dirty. Let me show you . . . I believe that a penknife inserted here under the frame would allow us to see—”
“Mr. Fredericks!” I cried. “Please! I am exceptionally fond of that picture.” I looked to Lord Boring for assistance, but he was some distance away, examining a portrait of my great-great-great-aunt on my father’s side. He turned, however, and was about to remonstrate, when Mr. Fredericks began groping in his pocket for a knife.
“Oh, never fear, I shan’t harm it,” said that gentleman.
I gasped and, struck by inspiration, clutched at my throat. “I—I require some air or I shall faint! I must ascend to the roof. I pray you, gentlemen, follow me at once!” And I pulled the picture from Mr. Fredericks’s grasp, set it down, and staggered towards the stair to the rooftop walkway.
Mr. Fredericks looked rather startled, but followed me meekly enough, once Lord Boring gave him a push in the proper direction. Once out on the parapet, with its splendid view of the sea, however, it occurred to me that the drop from where we stood to the beach below was prodigious. I eyed him nervously and moved a safe distance away. The danger, however, was not to my person but to my family’s property; he began prodding at the massive stone making up the battlement in front of him, trying to see if he could pry it from its position. (“This one’s loose,” was his comment.)
“Fredericks, stop that at once,” said Lord Boring. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.” And he pulled his cousin bodily back from the edge.
“I? I have done damage?”
“You have. And if you knock that stone over you’ll be held criminally liable for doing to death a whole family of fisher folk.”
Indeed, peering over the edge I could see our tenants, John Snyder and his sons, dragging their boat and nets onto the beach far below us. I gasped at their peril.
“Gentlemen, indeed I pray you! Shall we not go downstairs? And—and—” I wracked my brain for some activity which would engross Mr. Fredericks’s energies without resulting in murder or mayhem.
“And we shall take our leave,” finished Lord Boring. “We have trespassed on your kindness for far too long.” As we moved towards the staircase he addressed me privately. “My apologies. I shall ensure that reparations are made for any harm our visit has caused.”
Mr. Fredericks was still looking out to sea. “Yes, do let’s go down. I was examining the cliff face that supports this portion of the castle earlier, and it is my opinion that a good storm could fatally weaken it. That moat was a foolish idea of your great-grandfather’s—it undercuts the integrity of the ground this building stands on. The only thing that prevents the waters of the moat from breaking through are two thin stone walls, and a major flood could breach them. All this”—he gestured about us—“is quite apt to fall into the sea at any time.”
Most thankfully we arrived downstairs without further mishap, Mr. Fredericks complaining fretfully that he had not been shown over the whole of the property. “I