clearly conflicted about what to do.
“Unless you think I should alert Traquair?” I asked. As the duke’s eldest son and heir, he would be the natural choice to appeal to next. But knowing what I did about the duchess, I didn’t think she would take kindly to being overlooked in favor of her son, particularly if the victim in question was her son-in-law.
“No, I think the duchess would be best,” he agreed.
I nodded and turned to climb the circular staircase, wasting no time in beating a hasty retreat as Tait and the footman came striding down the corridor bordering the kitchens.
This particular staircase climbed all the way from the doom below ground, up through the ground-floor servants’ quarters, past the first-floor receiving rooms, and the second floor with its state chambers and large ducal suite, to the third floor, which had largely been given over to guest bedrooms. I could have exited on the first floor and traversed the corridor outside the dining room where we had eaten the Twelfth Night Cake before passing through one of the back hallways to the ballroom staircase and up to the staterooms. However, I elected to continue on to the second floor instead and retrace my and Gage’s earlier route, cutting through the library and then the picture gallery.
The library had intrigued me almost as much as the portrait gallery where I’d spied paintings by Holbein, Rembrandt, and Reynolds. But I couldn’t afford the distraction of examining either the artwork or the dark shelves lined with old books, some of which I suspected would be quite rare. Even so, the smell of leather and parchment that assailed my nostrils as I crossed the threshold was as comforting as it was enticing.
The library was divided into two rooms, the first of which was almost half the size of the ballroom. Which was why I didn’t hear the voices issuing through the open door into the next chamber until I was already three-quarters of the way across the room. I slowed my steps at the sharp tone of the first speaker’s voice. The answering lazy drawl left me no doubt as to whom the second speaker was.
“Well, someone in this family needs to make it their business,” the first voice retorted. “Have a care, Marsdale.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he snapped in a harsher tone than I’d ever heard the roguish marquess use. “Do you think I don’t understand? If he was still here, why I . . . I would wring his neck!”
CHAPTER SIX
At this pronouncement, I hesitated in taking the last step that would bring the speakers into sight. However, from the silence that had fallen, it was evident they were already aware of my presence. I wondered briefly if I should have masked my approach so that I might discover whom Marsdale and the other man were discussing, though I had a fair idea. In any case, to hang back now would only make the encounter more awkward, so I strode through the doorway into the room, which appeared to double as a study.
Marsdale leaned back against a desk, his arms crossed over his chest. His face carefully masked the turbulent emotions made evident in his outburst, but there was no denying the relief that seemed to soften his posture as he realized it was me.
His companion was not similarly eased. In fact, Lord John’s spine seemed to stiffen further. He watched me with what could only be described as wariness. It was a caution that seemed out of proportion to the words I’d overheard, but he was rumored to be a very private man—much more so than Marsdale—and we didn’t know each other beyond a passing acquaintance. Perhaps he was simply uncomfortable having such a conversation aired before a veritable stranger.
Or given our gruesome discovery in the crypt, maybe it was an indication he knew far more than he wished me to realize.
“Am I interrupting the final denouement?” I asked with forced levity. “Has our knight finally captured our villain?”
Lord John summoned a tight smile. “Something of the sort.”
Marsdale cast Lord John a look from beneath his hooded eyes that for once I could not read. “Where’s Gage?” he asked. His gaze lifted to scrutinize me and I could tell from the flat gleam of his eyes and the rosy hue of his skin that he was far more sotted than the relatively clear enunciation of his words would have led me to believe. He nodded to my rounded