and his wife must use the rooms on the opposite side of Lady Helmswick’s sitting room. Though once again, whether they were sitting empty in Lord and Lady Richard’s absence or occupied by guests, I didn’t know.
Returning to Helmswick’s bedchamber, I found Gage standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, scowling at its contents. Or lack thereof.
“I don’t know what to think,” he said in a low voice. “Either Helmswick rarely, if ever, slept here. Or the duke’s staff did a dashed fine job sweeping away his existence.”
I understood what he meant. The duke’s servants were undoubtedly thorough, but it required a special kind of diligence to erase the sights and smells of an occupant that soaked into the wallpaper, paint, rugs, fabrics, and even the very woodwork of a space. I knew that Lady Helmswick and her children visited here often. Even if I hadn’t, the condition of her chambers would have told me so. Because of that, I had also assumed Lord Helmswick often stayed at Sunlaws. But his rooms told a different story.
I had already begun to suspect that their marriage was not the most amicable, but this suggested that their level of estrangement was far greater than I’d imagined. So I couldn’t help but wonder at that gentleman’s black stocking I’d seen on the stool in the countess’s bedchamber. Or stop from feeling a vague stirring of uneasiness upon discovering it had disappeared as we retraced our steps to her sitting room.
CHAPTER TEN
Lord Edward was largely silent as he led me and Gage to the porter’s lodge. Perhaps that was because he had to concentrate in order to guide us through the warren of corridors and chambers populating the castle. I certainly would have gotten lost had I been forced to find it on my own. Except the duke’s third son never hesitated or broke his step once, and the furrows between his eyes had already been stamped there when we returned to Lady Helmswick’s sitting room. Whatever the trio had discussed in our absence had angered Lord Edward. However, I couldn’t tell whether that anger was directed at his brother and sister, or at us.
We turned a corner and finally emerged onto the long landing that overlooked the grand staircase to the ground floor and the guardroom below. Muted sunlight falling into the courtyard filtered through the arched windows at our backs and glinted off the polished oak and delicate iron scrollwork on the banisters before striking the checkered marble floor below. Rounding one of the pillars holding up the vaulted ceiling with its exquisite wooden tracery, we descended toward the two suits of armor standing guard at the turn of the staircase.
Every visitor, except the servants and tradesmen who used the back entrances, had to pass through this single point of entry to the castle. As such, from a historical perspective, I could understand why the impressive display of weaponry adorning the walls might have been placed there in an effort to discourage any who thought to make trouble or challenge the laird and lord’s authority. As a consequence, it was far from the most welcoming of chambers.
Tattered remnants of regimental colors hung from the ceiling, brushing the antlers of the mounted animal heads that vied for space alongside rows of muskets and dozens of sabers arranged in the shape of a wheel. Claymores crisscrossed over recesses where flintlock dueling pistols were anchored beside dirks and traditional Highland sgian-dubhs. Suspended between were shields of various designs, and two vicious-looking maces. They were both fashioned with a series of sharp flanges.
“What of these?” Gage asked, halting beside me as I studied them.
His question brought Lord Edward’s steps up short, and a moment later I heard the tap of his footsteps crossing the marble back toward us.
I shook my head. “No, the victim’s head would have exhibited puncture wounds had either of those been used, and their knobbed heads are too big.” I paced along the wall. “We’re looking for something smaller, more compact.” My eyes fell on the recess where the smaller pistols and knives were displayed. “Something like this.” I pointed toward a shorter-staffed mace, about the length of my arm from elbow to fingertips. Its smooth egg-shaped knob was studded with a half-dozen short, rounded protrusions.
Gage stepped forward to lift it down from the wall, the muscles in his shoulders and upper arms straining beneath the fitted fabric of his dark green frock coat. The manner in