Page 28 of The Trials of Alaric
It remained only to check the ceiling up in the gallery, which was reached by a set of steps off a small passage she accessed through a door hidden in the paneling.
Yes. She had been correct. Moon and stars looked down on roses, for a tendril of the vine reached into the gallery on both sides.
She needed to tell Alaric. Bother. She could not take him aside somewhere they’d not be overheard without sending her mother into spasms nor go for a walk with him without breaking her promise to her father. In any case, it was nearly time to dress for dinner.
She’d have to send her information through her maid to his valet, and hope Alaric got the message.
*
When Colyn cameto help Alaric dress for dinner, he also brought a message. “Lady Beatrice said to tell you, you should look at the minstrels’ gallery in the ballroom,” he said.
Alaric wanted to rush off and look straight away. The answer to the second clue. It had to be. He allowed Colyn to tie his cravat just so. “It would be better with a tie pin,” Colyn commented.
“Perhaps,” Alaric agreed. “But I am still very much beholden to my host for everything I wear.” Would he hear from his father soon? It had been more than a week since he’d written. He would dearly love to have even a few pounds to give vails to Colyn and the footmen who brought the water for his bath.
Best of all would be if his father sent the trunks he had stored in the family attics when he left for Brazil. Alaric had sent a second letter, once he decided to enter the trials, explainingabout the trials—and the prize—and asking for his trunks. But that letter had only gone five days ago.
“There, sir. You are ready,” Colyn declared. “You have thirty minutes. Do you wish me to show you where the ballroom is?”
“Thank you,” Alaric replied. It was not a place he had been to in his clock hunt, so he needed assistance finding the room expeditiously.
Colyn left him at the door to the ballroom, which was a hive of activity, with servants hanging cloths to drape from the wall, setting out chairs, and attending to two enormous chandeliers that had been dropped to floor level. They were setting new candles in the sconces and polishing each individual crystal.
The woman who was housekeeper came to meet him. “Mr. Redhaven? Is there something I can do for you? Shall I direct you to the drawing room?”
“I am here to see the minstrel gallery,” Alaric explained. “I trust I shall not be in your way?”
The housekeeper looked dubious, but she said, “Of course not, sir. We are nearly finished here for the night.” She stepped out of his path.
The climbing roses that framed the gallery certainly fitted the rhyme. But what of the moon and the stars? He borrowed a lamp from a nearby group of servants who had finished hanging their drape, which proved to be a cloth painted with a semblance of a garden.
One of the servants directed him to the stairs he needed, and he soon found the ceiling up in the gallery was painted with a night sky. The silver moon and golden stars shone on roses. Back downstairs again, he tried to make out the panels along the front of the gallery. He would have to return in daylight, for the details were too shadowed for him to determine their subject.
As he stood there, the servant who had given him the lamp came to retrieve it. “Did you find what you were looking for, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you. Except I cannot make out what the panels are about,” he replied.
“TheRomeo and Julietpanels?” the woman said. “They are very beautiful. They were carved for this ballroom, you know. My great uncle was the carver.”
She pointed up at the first panel. “They meet and dance.” Then to the second. “He climbs to her balcony.” The third. “He is forced to leave.” And finally, the fourth. “She lies, apparently dead. Of course, after that, he kills himself and then so does she.” She sighed. “Such a tragedy. We had players here the year before last. They acted the play in this very ballroom, and Lord Claddach allowed the household staff to watch. We all cried.” This time, her sigh was redolent with the satisfaction of a treasured memory.
“Thank you,” Alaric said, sincerely, handing over the lamp. He had his answer. Did he have time to give it to Lord Claddach? He thanked the housekeeper, too, and went looking for the earl.
His lordship was already in the drawing room, talking to the Earl of Lewiston and Mr. Howard, the father of Arthur Howard the suitor. Alaric was frustrated, but interrupting would be rude, and would also draw too much attention. He didn’t want to find himself followed by suitors who were less successful than he had been, with Bea’s help, at unraveling the clues.
His chance came after dinner, when the men finished their glass of port and began to make their way to the drawing room to join the ladies. “My lord,” he said to Lord Claddach, “May I have a quick word?”
“Go along without me,” Claddach told the other gentlemen. “Very well, Redhaven. You have my attention.”
“I believe I know the answer to the second clue, my lord,” Alaric told him. Claddach inclined his head, and Alaric continued. “It is the minstrel gallery in the ballroom, my lord. The climbing rose. The moon and the stars.Romeo and Juliet, in fact.”
Claddach raised his eyebrows. “Well done. I did not expect anyone to discover the answer until tomorrow’s dancing. Come to my study after we have done the pretty with the ladies, and I shall give you the next clue.”
Which meant Alaric slept that night with the third clue drifting ominously through his mind:
“A victim, he, of beauty’s snare
Lost at a glimpse. Young man, beware.
