Geoff checked his wristwatch, looked at me, and waited for my nod before answering. 'Okay,' he said. 'If you think you can still move after that meal you've eaten. Where is Freda, by the way?'
'She went to dust the library.' Iain took his feet off the table rail and brought his chair forward with a crash. 'That was about fifteen minutes ago.' 'Right.' Geoff turned to me. 'I don't suppose you could track her down for me?'
I looked at him dubiously. 'What, in the public side of the house, d'you mean?'
'Sure. You'll have no trouble,' he assured me. 'We don't take many tours through this late in the afternoon. You know which door to use? Good. See if you can't persuade Freda to whip us up some reasonable facsimile of Iain's feast, here.'
'I'll see what I can do,' I promised.
He sent me a wink and a winning smile before following Iain out the back door. The low hum of conversation and laughter rattled the windowpanes as the two men passed by on their way to the rose garden.
When they had gone, I went back down the dim, uneven passageway and pushed open the heavy door at the end, the door that divided Geoff s private domain from the public portion of the manor house. Passing through another door, I found myself standing in the Great Hall, staring up at the colossal fireplace and the carved and painted coat of arms that crowned it. The hooded hawks upon the bloodied shield looked fiercer than I remembered them, their golden talons grasping at air. Indestructible. That was the translation Geoff had given of the family's Latin motto. I looked at those talons again and shivered.
The great house was quiet, as Geoff had said it would be. No footsteps but my own echoed through the cavernous room as I moved from shadowed dimness into sunlight beneath the tall east-facing windows. I didn't really expect to find Mrs. Hutherson still in the library, but there was no harm in looking there first. And if I happened to waste a few minutes looking at the books, well, that could hardly be helped, could it? Especially since there were no tour guides or other visitors to spoil my enjoyment of the lovely room.
I had forgotten, of course, about the portrait. His portrait. From the moment I entered the studious silence of the library, I felt Richard de Mornay's eyes upon me, as surely as if the painted image had been a living man. I stared hard at a shelf of books, even read the titles of some of the more beautiful volumes, but always my gaze kept returning to the black and towering figure, watching me steadily from his corner of the room.
Finally I gave up altogether and walked over to stand before the portrait, aware that the cleverly painted eyes had followed my approach. Clasping my hands behind my back, I tilted my head upward to get a better look, marveling at the skill of an artist who could so perfectly capture the arrogant set of a jaw, the placement of hand on hip, the barely discernible half smile that lingered knowingly on those lips....
What had become of this man, I wondered, that future generations had forgotten his name? 'We've dubbed him The Playboy,' Geoff had said to me when I'd first commented on the portrait. An inglorious legacy, certainly, for any man. I had looked for Richard de Mornay's name in the weighty registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths that the vicar of St. John's Church kept locked in the vestry. The vicar himself had helped me, peering with failing eyes at the neatly handwritten entries, row upon row. 'My eyesight's not what it used to be,' the kindly old man had apologized. 'I used to do this sort of thing by the hour, you know, searching out names for Americans tracing their ancestry. No,' he had said finally, 'there doesn't appear to be a Richard. Of course,' he had added, by way of consolation, 'we don't have all the registers. Some were lost, you understand, during the Interregnum, when Cromwell was in power. It was not a pleasant time for the Church, I'm afraid.' He smiled gently. 'The Roundheads often destroyed records, and all things sacred to our Church, and even when they did keep up the registers the entries were sadly incomplete. This register here, you see, ends in the year 1626, and the next does not begin until 1653, nearly thirty years later. But you may perhaps find a later reference....'
I ought to have known, really, that it would be a wasted effort. Geoff’s father, with his love of family history, would already have searched those parish registers for William de Mornay's offspring and found nothing.
The death of Mariana Farr, on 3 October 1728, had been duly recorded in a flowing, unemotional hand. But Richard's fate remained a mystery.
I stared up at the portrait, now, with an absent frown. Lifting one hand, I let my fingers trail across the flowing sweep of painted cloak that fell in artful folds from the lifeless Richard's shoulders. It was a mistake. Even as my fingertips left the canvas, the walls began to waver, the colors of the painting running as if the artist's hand had brushed carelessly across it, smearing the outline of that handsome, taunting face. Taking a hasty step backward, I squeezed my eyes shut.
/ can't, I pleaded silently, urgently. Don't you see that I can't? There isn't time....
As if in answer to my thoughts the dizziness subsided and the shifting, vibrating walls righted themselves, appearing placidly innocent when I dared to open my eyes. My breath was coming in short, nervous gasps that hurt my lungs. Quickly I turned my back to the portrait and stumbled out of the room, steadying myself against the comforting solidity of the massive doorjamb. A peal of girlish laughter drifted into the dim hallway through the partly open front door, and I turned my steps toward it, like a prisoner seeking fresh air and the warmth of sunlight.