Page 80 of The Shadow Key

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The journey back up to Plas Helyg was not conducive to chatter. Julian’s phaeton juddered and jolted up the woodland path, the servants’ trap driven by the groundsman Dylan cluttering close behind, and together they produced an altogether noisy racket that left Henry’s ears ringing. Now Lord Tresilian lounges back in his armchair before the fire, cigarillo in hand. He breathes it in deeply, seems impervious to the fact that it will do little good for his cough, and Henry watches the man blow smoke through his mouth in ever decreasing rings.

He looks sicker than when Henry last saw him – Julian’s cheekbones stand out sharply from his skull, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced. But his smile is as wide as it was the previous week, his black eyes beetle-bright.

‘Come. Sit. We have much to discuss.’

Indeed they do, Henry thinks as he takes the armchair opposite, but this is a situation in which he must practise restraint. When he first met Julian, he thought of him as nothing more than a rich eccentric, someone who had the best interests of his relatives at heart. But now … Henry glances at the bookcases on the back wall, the tome on its plinth that could answer so many questions. But would Julian, if asked? He has already been proven a liar. So, then, what to do? Watch and wait, as Francis would say. Watch and wait.

‘Was your business in London productive, sir?’

The older man nods. ‘I’ve procured a few more artworks for my collection.’

He gestures to a stack of paintings leaning against the curio cabinet, and Henry sees that one has already been unwrapped. It depicts a woman in deep sleep with her arms thrown below her, a demonic apelike creature crouched low on her chest.

‘An unusual painting,’ Julian says, ‘is it not?’ and Henry searches for a polite word but cannot find one, opts instead for honesty.

‘Disturbing,’ he says, but the answer seems to satisfy his host.

‘I saw this particular painting in the Royal Academy last year. The Nightmare, it’s called.’ He tilts his head, gaze focused intently on the incubus before sliding to the horse’s head on its left which until that second Henry had not noticed. ‘It caused quite the horrified stir, apparently. Nothing like it had been attempted before.’

It makes Henry distinctly uncomfortable. Pointedly he turns his back on it, focuses on Julian once more.

‘It must have been very expensive if you purchased it from the Academy.’

‘I’m sure it would have been, but this is not the original.’

‘A forgery then?’

Julian sucks on his cigarillo, a look of contemplation on his face.

‘I prefer the word “copy”. Quite a few of the pieces here have been purchased at a fraction of the price of the original. I use a dealer in Ludgate Street, you see. Unscrupulous character by all counts but he knows his stuff. But I did not ask you here to discuss my collection.’

‘No.’

‘No,’ Julian repeats. A pause. ‘Drink?’

Henry pulls his pocketwatch from his waistcoat. ‘It’s ten minutes past the hour of nine. In the morning,’ he adds meaningfully as if the point needs to be clarified but Julian smiles, holding a carafe of what Henry takes to be the expensive port.

‘I know precisely what time it is.’

Henry lets silence be his answer.

Lord Tresilian shrugs, pours himself a glass, cigarillo still smoking between his clubbed fingers. ‘Very well. But I hope you do not think less of me for indulging.’

He replaces the stopper in the decanter, and as he does so his gold signet ring flashes in the firelight.

‘Tell me, then,’ Julian says. ‘What do you make of our fair Linette?’

Henry licks his lips. ‘I have come to know Linette very well this past week.’

Julian watches him over the rim of his glass.

‘And?’

‘And I do not feel her to be in any danger of inheriting her mother’s –’ he pauses, must consider how best to describe it, under these new circumstances – ‘malady. I think your concerns simply stem from her solitude here in Penhelyg for so many years, and, I hesitate to say, neglect?’

For Henry is sure now that contrary to Lord Tresilian’s previous claim, no fondness for Linette induces him. There comes no reply to Henry’s summation. He carries on.

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