Page 89 of Ironvine

“Give it all away.” Charles’s sharp voice filled the air. He was in the next bed chamber, standing over two servants who folded clothing, making neat stacks on the large bed. “I don’t want anything of my brother’s in my house.”

She entered the room. “Charles, if you like, I’ll take care of everything.”

He only glared at her, at all of them, and quit the room, his boots tracking loudly down the staircase.

“These are all his lordship’s things?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jerrold. “When we were told of his death, I immediately had the lord’s chambers prepared for the Earl, and the late Earl’s belongings brought here to his former bedchamber.”

One of the servants folded a pair of breeches, smoothing her hands over it, adding it to a pile of other breeches. There was a pile of white shirts next to it.

“Jerrold, as this is obviously a very difficult time for my husband, I’d like to go through his late brother’s belongings to see if there is something that perhaps, one day, the Earl would have wanted to keep. I don’t wish him to have any further sorrows. You understand.”

“I do, my lady. This is a terrible time for the family. First his lordship’s father, then his brother.”

“Yes, awful.”

“I am right glad that he has you now, my lady. That Ironvine has you.”

“Thank you, that is most kind.”

“Other than Master Hugh’s clothing, there are these two caskets his Lordship kept. I found them in his dresser.” Jerrold gestured at two polished wooden boxes on the dresser. “We haven’t opened them.”

“Very good. I shall go through them then.” She prayed they were not locked. She touched the fastening on one. It opened. She let out a tiny breath as she scooped them both up, turning to leave the room when she caught sight of a tall square item cloaked with a fabric covering.

She stilled. “Jerrold, what is that?”

“’Tis an unfinished portrait of the former master, bless his soul. I had it brought here with all the rest of his belongings until we organised everything.”

Georgina moved the sheet from the piece. “There he is.”

Hugh. The beginnings of a portrait, a study. His features were perfectly captured in washes of pigment and brushstrokes, delicate lines drawn and smoothed over. All so very well proportioned, accurately capturing its subject. Hugh’s elegance, along with a subtle hint of patrician condescension. The rest of him, limbs, clothing, were only outlined, sketched, brushed over.

Her heartbeat surged in her chest. A study. The painter was experimenting and deciding what was best to bring out his subject.

Jerrold came up alongside her. “The artist had just begun his work when…”

“Yes, of course,” Georgina murmured. “The artist has done quite a remarkable job even if ’twas only a beginning.” She moved the sheet back over it. “You were right to have it put here for the time being. Lord Ryvves would find this most upsetting if he saw it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please have it brought to my morning room. I would like to study it more closely and I shall put it away there.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Thank you, Jerrold.” Georgina took the wood caskets and made her way down the staircase to her morning room, and locked the door behind her. Setting the two polished wood boxes on her desk, she opened one. Four thick packets of letters filled the box. So many letters bound with leather ties. She picked up one packet. A woman’s hand, to be sure.

“Such beautiful handwriting,” she murmured to herself as she turned over the thick paper. The signature was only“Z.”

Z?

The Duchess’s Christian name was Cassandra.

She looked through a few other letters, handling them gently. They had all been signed Z. Her teeth dragged along her lip. Was Z the Duchess?

She opened the other casket. A collection of snuffboxes. One had a beautiful horse racing across a green field with an interesting decorative design around the edge. Geometric and very unlike the usual Baroque-inspired artwork.

She opened it. The pungent scent of the snuff hit her nostrils. There was a mirror inside the lid but the top of the box was rounded and deep. Could it be hiding a secret compartment?

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