He came upon me in the stables seeing to Small Bess two mornings after the ball.

He came on me actually not an hour after Lady Elizabeth Palmer had finally cornered me and told me about Napoleon.

She had caught me just outside a small back parlor where I'd fled to just after the marchioness had informed me, in front of at least twenty other ladies, that I should strive to be taller, since my bosom was too large for my torso. That really wasn't at all true, it was just one of those little jabs that occasionally popped out of a guest's mouth.

"I can't bear it any longer," Lady Elizabeth said, coming to within two inches of my face.

"What's wrong? Are you wearing a corset that pinches your ribs? Was your toast burned at breakfast? Did your maid have the gall to refuse to bring you hot water?"

"Shut your mouth," she said, obviously irritated. "You cannot make me laugh, so stop trying. Someone has to tell you, and I suppose it will have to be me. It's about Napoleon."

"You mean his blasted size?"

"Yes," she said, staring at me as if I had grown another nose.

"John told me I was to disregard anything anyone said about Napoleon's size. He said I was simply to forget it. I was to continue blissful in my ignorance."

"A man's size or his endowment simply refers to his manhood," Lady Elizabeth said, staying her course. "Surely you know how gentlemen are fashioned?"

I stared at her blank-faced. "Yes, certainly. Do I look like an idiot?"

She managed to roll her eyes and nod her head both at the same time. "Yes."

Then, of all things, my husband rounded the corner and nearly plowed right into Lady Elizabeth.

"Goodness, forgive me, my dear. What are you two ladies doing? Talking about the latest fashions?"

"Exactly," I said. "I dislike ruffles, and Lady Elizabeth informs me that ruffles will be the newest thing this spring. It is disappointing."

And my husband said, "You make me laugh even when you are lying to my face," and he went on his way.

And that was the end of our conversation.

And now I was spreading more ointment on Small Bess's back, and John strolled in.

He grinned like a sinner who had just slipped by St. Peter through the Pearly Gates. "I just spoke to Lady Elizabeth. She told me of your aborted conversation."

"I tried to ignore all talk of Napoleon, just as you suggested, but she was adamant."

"Then my uncle came along, and you never learned the end to the tale, hmmm?"

"That's right." I looked beyond his shoulder. "She did ask me if I knew how men were fashioned, but nothing more than that." I sighed. "She is so very beautiful.

I feel like a pathetic dowd. I see her, and I want to smack her because I'm jealous."

He threw back his head and laughed. Small Bess whinnied. I heard Tempest trumpet in his stall.

"Well, she thinks you're an original," he said.

"So is she."

"And an ignorant twit."

"She would, curse her."

"Yes, but that doesn't matter, does it?"

I looked at him then, really looked, and said slowly, "I don't know. Does it matter?"

He just ignored that, and began petting Small Bess's neck. "You are taking care?"

"Yes."

"No, you aren't. I followed you here to the stable to make sure no villain would try to do away with you. Don't let down your guard, Andy. Whoever wants to make you pay for it all, whatever that means, is still here. Boynton simply cannot be your shadow every moment. Take care."

He was right, and on the final morning after all our guests had taken their leave, I walked back upstairs to my bedchamber. The truth of things hit me in the face as I walked down that long corridor. I didn't see a single servant. The house was very empty now. Hollow, yet filled with menace I didn't understand, like the Black Chamber, with that horrible cold that bespoke, Viscount Waverleigh had said, of an evil that was here, right now, hidden among all of us.

There was even no sign of Belinda. I fetched George and took him for a very long walk. Boynton walked some ten feet behind me. I was grateful to John. Boynton made me feel safe.

Dinner that evening was a subdued affair. Thomas sighed a lot, Amelia's parents had evidently exhausted their supply of otherworldly phenomena stories, because most of their attention was on their plates. Lawrence was quiet, even thoughtful, as he picked at his food. As for Miss Gillbank, she smiled a lot, but it wasn't meant for us, it was for someone she was thinking about. I wondered if it was her baronet, Christopher Wilkins. As for Miss Crislock, she talked about the Christmas gifts she had sewn and needed to send back to her friends in London.

She told me that she had quite a surprise planned for me. Bless her heart, for as long as she had been with me, nearly ten years, she'd always had the very best surprises. Last Christmas, she'd had ice skates made for me and had hired someone to teach me how to perform tricks on the ice. I had nearly broken my neck when I skated backward into a huge barrel set at the edge of the ice, but that was neither here nor there. If she'd been sitting next to me, I might have cried on her neck and blessed her for always being here for me.

John asked her what she had made for him. She just shook her head at him and said he had to wait, like all the rest of us.

I thought about Napoleon, but kept my mouth shut. Everyone went to bed early.

Belinda wasn't there. Where was she? My room was empty. I didn't like it. I held George until he pulled away from me.

I awoke at ten o'clock the next morning, stretched, and petted George's topknot because he'd stuck his face into mine and licked my nose until I laughed and ducked away. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The tiny golden key to my Italianate letter box fell forward outside my nightgown. I had forgotten about it, and my father's wretched letter that hadn't really told me much of anything except that I should leave Devbridge Manor right away.

Well, I supposed that I should consider it. I wanted to see that letter again. I carried George over to my writing desk and opened the top drawer. I lifted out the letter box, lifted the golden chain over my head, and stuck the key in the box. The lock was broken. I stared at it, unwilling to believe it. Slowly I opened the box. It was quite empty.

My father's letter was gone.

George didn't realize the significance of the empty letter box. He wanted to go out and relieve himself.

I was shaking even as I dressed quickly to take him for his morning walk.

Boynton weaved in and out of the shadows some twenty feet behind us. I wanted to ask Boynton to bring two friends the next time.

Amelia's parents left that day, after Lord Waverleigh had once again paced about Caroline's music room. Nothing, he said, there wasn't anything at all. And I had to agree with him. No vestiges of Caroline. Had it indeed been Caroline who had locked Amelia in the music room so long ago? Or maybe I had imagined the door slamming shut in my face. Maybe all of it was just madness.

He also visited the Black Chamber once again, and reported to all of us that the evil was still here and it was quite real. And he had shaken his head when his dear wife had said, "Now, Hobson, there's no reason to scare everyone."

"Yes," he had said, and he looked over at me, a puzzled look on his face. "Yes, there is, but you're quite right, my dear, since I do not begin to understand it, then I shouldn't terrify the household." And he thought that erased what he had said? I wanted to hit him. He had terrified me and given me no explanation.

His words also killed any hope of conversation. It also hurled me into a well of fear. I was frankly relieved when they finally took their leave. We all stood in the front of the Manor, waving when their carriage rolled down the long driveway.

Thomas said to Amelia, "Your father told me that I was to cease complaining about my health, or else when I died, my ghost would not give forth a strong aura. I would never be able to see you again, even from that metaphysical distance. I would, he told me, be doomed."

It took all the strength I had not to burst out laughing.

John had no reticence at all. He clapped his brother's shoulder and said, "I don't want you to be doomed, Thomas, no matter what sorts of distances we're talking about. Do consider what your father-in-law told you."

Amelia was staring down at the toes of her slippers. What was she thinking about this, I wondered? Or was she thinking about the evil in the Black Chamber? She didn't say a word, merely offered to prepare Thomas a very nice tisane if he would accompany her to their bedchamber. I stared at them, walking so very close together, speaking in low voices. About what?

When John and I were alone. When I was certain that there was no one hanging about, I said, "There is something I suppose I should tell you. I should probably have mentioned it before, but I didn't, so perhaps now is a good time to do it."

One of those dark eyebrows of his shot up. He eyed me. "Well? Come on, out with it."

"All right. Two weeks ago I received a letter from my cousin Peter. He enclosed a letter from my father, a man I had hoped was long dead and in Hell, where he so richly deserves to be."

"Your father? I believed he was dead. You lived with your grandfather, did you not?"

"Yes. I do not wish to discuss it. I despise him. He murdered my mother." *

"How?"

"I don't wish to discuss it. Just believe me. In any case, in this letter he wrote me, he said that he had read of my marriage to your uncle. It unnerved him.

He told me to leave Devbridge Manor at once, that he was coming as soon as he could."

I saw that flash of violence in his dark eyes, then it was gone, and I knew he was angry. "May I ask," he said very pleasantly, "why the hell you did not tell me of this damned letter before?"

"I did not feel that it was anyone's business. Actually, that isn't quite all of the truth."

"And the truth is what, exactly?"

"I didn't want you to know about the man who is my father."

"Why?"

"I don't want to discuss it. The main reason I'm telling you now is that his letter has been stolen from my letter box." I pulled the gold chain with the gold key attached to it from my bodice. "I kept the box locked. I have worn the key. Now that everyone is gone, there are no more distractions. I wanted to reread the letter. It is gone. Someone stole it. I searched all over my bedchamber, which turned up a pair of stockings that George had pulled out of a drawer, but nothing else."

He cursed, very fluently, and for a good length of time.

"When you keep me in ignorance, you unman me," he said, looking at me like he wanted to strangle me, and I immediately started shaking my head.

"No, if that is what you feel, then I am sorry. I believed my father's letter to be ridiculous. No, not really, since all these things have happened to me. No, what's important now is that I leave. I don't want to stay here and let someone kill me or make me pay for all of it. I will return to Grandfather's house in London."

"Yes," he said, "I believe you must leave. And while you are gone, I will get to the bottom of all this."

"How?"

"It's time I did a bit of searching about," he said. "No, it won't work. For example, just what would you tell Uncle Lawrence? There is no good reason. You cannot leave, dammit."

"I have no choice."

"All right. Just what reason will you give him? Give everyone?"

"Oh, God, I don't know. Let me think. There must be some good reason that calls me back. I know?Peter. He's now the Duke of Broughton. I will tell everyone that he has written me and asks me to come assist him in redecorating the London house. What do you think?"

"It sounds ridiculous."

"Just because you didn't think of it?"

"No, Andy. Think. Next week is Christmas. Families stay together for Christmas.

You are newly married to my uncle. No one would ever accept that you would leave him during the Christmas holidays. Moreover, as the new countess, you will attend services in the village, lend your presence to many parties given by the local gentry. There are gifts to be bought and wrapped and given out. You will be expected to have a Christmas ball for the servants and to present them money.

No, it has to be something else. Damnation, I can't think of a blessed thing at the moment, but I will." He rubbed his chin, turned, and left me standing there.

I saw Boynton lolling next to one of the ancient sessile oak trees.

I went to visit Judith and Miss Gillbank, and learned to say good day in Turkish.

I spent an hour with Miss Crislock, who couldn't stop talking about all the guests. I swear that each and every one of them had flaws that she had to detail at great length.

Finally, I picked up George and carried him outside. I waited patiently for him to sniff at a good dozen trees, bushes, hedges, plants, before giving his custom to a lone skinny maple tree. I hoped the tree survived. It was getting colder.

Someone broke into the letter box and stole the letter. I tried to remember who all knew that I had received it. Brantley had brought it in. That meant any and everybody in the house could have known. Shadows were lengthening over the horizon. It was colder now than it had been just five minutes before.

I hurried to the stables to visit Small Bess, George at my side. He tried to bite her hock. The other horses looked at George and raised a ruckus. I picked him up, apologized to the animals, then walked slowly back to the house. It was then that I happened to look up at the north tower, where Caroline had hurled herself off that small balcony to the flagstone below. In that instant, I saw a light move in the narrow-slitted windows. Then nothing. My eyes were deceiving me. No, wait, there it was again, a brief light, like a single candle, with someone holding it.

But why would anyone be in the north tower? That made no sense at all.

Then I realized that I very much wanted to know why someone was walking about up there. I dashed back into the house, George barking madly, tucked under my right arm. I ran past Brantley, who said nothing, just stared at me as I ran up the stairs, holding my skirts up to my knees. I shut George into my bedchamber, lit a candle, then headed for the north tower.

I felt the blood pounding through my body. I passed servants and footmen and nodded pleasantly to them, not pausing to speak at all. I was filled with a heady combination of utter fear and excitement. I had my derringer. I wanted very much to see the person who was doing this to me.

It took me nearly fifteen minutes to make my way to the north tower. Only when I pulled open the very old door at the base of the winding tower stairs, did I pause. I pulled my derringer out of my pocket, lifted my candle high, and walked up the uneven wooden steps.

No one was in the circular room at the top of the stairs. The air was still and icy cold. There was no candle in evidence. Someone had brought the candle and then taken it away.

There was still only the bed and the chest at the end of it. I carefully set the candle down on the floor, my derringer beside it. I opened the lid to that ancient wooden chest. On the very top lay a gold brocade gown of the last century. It was yards and yards of very heavy material, so much of it. I couldn't imagine being able to stand upright it weighed so much. I lifted the gown out and carefully laid it on the wooden floor.

Beneath it was a very old-fashioned nightgown of fine lawn sewn with the most beautiful lace I'd ever seen. The lace was yellowed with age.

There were riding boots and slippers with the soles nearly worn through.

And on the very bottom of that wooden chest was a long tangled mass of white hair.

Chapter Twenty-five.