Page 47 of The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

“I would never. But I know you, Ivy. You’re much too clever for your own good. I’ll have my personal servants attend to you, and I’ll even have you moved back to your old room for your comfort. Then when we are married, we can discuss living arrangements.”

Mrs. Hewitt would never concede to this madness to be carried out, and Ralph would dislocate Arthur’s jaw before he allowed Arthur to sleep under the same roof as him. That was, if Ralph were still alive.

As if reading her thoughts, Arthur chucked Ivy gently under the chin. “See? You are clever. I can see the wheels turning in your mind. Your servants will likewise be sequestered. If it were up to my father, they would be killed. But I suppose he is right in that I am much too soft for my own good sometimes.”

As if on cue, Arthur nodded to the big servant who had appeared at the door. “Mercer, please see the lady to her room.” Before Ivy could protest, the man had her in a viselike grip, and was dragging her down the hall. Her flailing punches met with unyielding muscle, leaving her with bruised knuckles.

“You can’t do this to me!” Ivy screamed as the man bore her away. “Arthur, you have to help me!”

“You’ll be fine, Ivy,” Arthur called after her. “I swear it.”

24

Someone had fitted the windows with bars and emptied her vanity of hairpins and anything else that might have been used to pick a lock. Ivy was a prisoner, and was being treated accordingly.

Soft rain whispered against the window, the sky so uniformly gray that it might have been dawn or dusk. Arthur had provided her with morphine, left at the bedside with a pitcher of water. He thought that she would drug herself into oblivion. Well, he was wrong. It was bad enough that the headaches came and went, hours lost in a fog. She needed to keep her wits about her as much as possible, not let what was left of her mind drift away on a cloud of drugs.

A tray was brought in, but instead of the usually modest spread of cheeses and meat and toast, there was a bowl of murky soup and some sort of stuffed game fowl. Arthur must have let the cook go, and brought on his own servant. It had been a hostile takeover, the abbey infiltrated by the Mabry servants and Sphinxes in a single night. How long had they been planning it all? Since she and Arthur had gotten engaged? Or, good God, what if it had been planned from the start? Her chance meeting with Arthur in the bookshop no accident at all? Guilt nibbled at her conscience; had she been the one to allow the Trojan Horse to breach the walls?

Ivy stirred at the soup. She would need her strength, but couldn’t find it in her to eat any of the food. He had drugged her once; what would stop him from doing it again?

After her untouched tray had been whisked away by another unfamiliar servant, Ivy waited until their footsteps could no longer be heard out in the hall. She quickly peeled off the torn gown, sending the delicate beads scattering to the floor. It belonged to a different Ivy, an Ivy who had dared hope that she could find love and happiness in the arms of a man. Then she pried off the pinching shoes, and pulled out an old pair of James’s trousers and a cardigan. When the time came, she would be ready to run.

There were secret passages and rooms all over the abbey, so maybe there was one in here. Starting just to the left of the door frame, Ivy began a meticulous survey of the room, running her fingers over every floorboard, every panel in the wall. But after what must have been hours, she collapsed on the bed, no closer to escape than she had been when she started. Of course Arthur would have made certain that the room offered no chance of escape. He was a villain, but he was no fool.

Ivy’s eyes were heavy, her head throbbing like a steam engine was running through it. It felt as if she’d been awake for days straight, not only a matter of hours. Somewhere downstairs, Ralph lay bleeding and possibly dead. Were Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt likewise injured? What had happened that the manuscript had fallen so quickly into the wrong hands? As she fought sleep, images of women wading into pools of blood filled her head, exotic flowers with gnashing teeth, and Ralph’s body lying on the ground, bloated and green and rotting.I told you, Ivy, his corpse whispered over and over.I told you.

The hushed sound of voices from outside her door pried her out of her dream. The door stood ajar, a thin shaft of light spilling into the room. Silently swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Ivy tiptoed to the door and pressed her cheek against the cool wood.

“Can you translate it or not?” asked a nasal voice, thick with condescension. Lord Mabry.

Then Arthur’s voice. “I—I don’t know. It’s not in any language I’ve seen before. I don’t even think itisa language. It must be some sort of code.”

Sir Mabry coughed, a wet rattle that obscured his words.

“I’ll try my best. I—”

“Not good enough!” was the booming rejoinder.

“Father, she’ll hear you,” Arthur pleaded in a whisper.

“And? Do you think I care if she does? Now—” He broke off, erupting in a fit of coughs again.

Arthur murmured an offer of a handkerchief, but the older man rebuffed him with what sounded like an open-palmed slap.

“It’s a good thing your mother isn’t here to see you. What would she think of her son who couldn’t fight, not even being able to read an old book!” Another coughing fit. “Figure it out, boy, and be quick about it.”

The sound of retreating footsteps and Arthur letting out a frustrated sigh sent Ivy bolting back to the bed and diving under the covers. She clamped her eyes shut just as Arthur let himself back into the room. She held her breath, certain that he could sense she had been eavesdropping. But there was only the sound of another heavy sigh, and then the chair creaking as he lowered himself down.

Chancing it, Ivy cracked one eye open to watch him. He scrubbed at the fine sheen of bristle that was sprouting along his jaw, looking very much like a man at the end of his rope. He lifted his head, and she quickly clamped her eyes shut, pretending to sleep.

“I’ll show him,” Arthur muttered. “All of them. The old man will choke on his words when he sees what his son is capable of.”

Ivy sensed his presence hovering at the side of the bed, the smell of alcohol on his breath, and she prepared herself for him to shake her awake. But he just stood there breathing heavily for a drawn-out moment, and then his footsteps were retreating, the door closing and locking behind him.

Her eyes opened, and she lay still for what felt like hours. Rain was just starting to fall when the sound of an auto cut through the silence. There was a pounding at the front door, and a flurry of voices. Rushing to the window, Ivy craned her neck, trying to see round to the front drive. But the angle of the windows and the bars made it impossible. She went back to the door, and pressed her ear against the wood. It was a man, or maybe a few men, and a woman. They must have been speaking very loudly for her to be able to hear them all the way from her room.

One rang out louder than the rest. “Ivy? Ivy, are you here?”

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