The boys provided her a bucket of clean water and a towel to wash the dust off herself in the tack room. Luke once again assisted her with her dress and stashed her boy clothes in the big cabinet. She gave herself a look in the mirror and spared a couple minutes to primp her hair, which had been mashed down by the cap, and to ensure that everything was in its proper place. Satisfied, she rushed across the yard and through the back door of the house. Mirriam nearly pounced on her.
“Finally! You’ve a guest waiting on you. He has been visiting with the professor this last half hour.”
“Who?” Karigan asked, but she could guess. She’d met only one other person outside the immediate household.
Mirriam did not answer but thrust a hat and veil on Karigan’s head and ushered her down the corridor as if herding baby ducklings. When they reached the parlor, Karigan paused in the doorway and smoothed her skirts.
“It was the most amazing discovery of eating utensils ever,” the professor said with enthusiasm to the guest, a teacup and saucer balanced on his knee. “Whole place settings!”
With a certain amount of unease, Karigan saw she had guessed right. Her visitor was none other than Dr. Ezra Stirling Silk, who looked politely bored as the professor regaled him about each pewter fork, knife, and spoon found at his current dig site. A hulking man, well-dressed, stood against the wall behind Silk. A servant, or a bodyguard, or both.
Mirriam discreetly cleared her throat. “Sir, Miss Goodgrave.”
“There you are, my dear,” the professor said. Both men rose at Karigan’s entrance, but before Silk could take her hand again to bow over it, the professor guided her over to the sofa so she could sit next to him. In this case, she did not mind him being overprotective.
When all were seated, the professor poured her a tea. It was less hot than she liked, and bitter, indicating it had been steeping for a while. She glanced over the rim of her cup at Dr. Silk. Even inside he wore his dark specs. Did he wear them as an affectation, or did he have some disease of the eyes?
“I am to understand that you are quite taken with Samson. I mean, Raven.” Dr. Silk smiled.
“She can’t bear to be apart from him,” the professor said. “Must run in the family. I had a cousin with a great affection for animals, too. He took in strays, fed birds from his hands, trained dogs. He was a Goodgrave as well. In any case, we’re trying a lad named Tam to exercise Raven. The two seem to get on well, and he has my niece’s approval, doesn’t he my dear?”
Karigan played along and nodded.
“A high-tempered stallion needs his exercise,” Dr. Silk said amiably. “I hope your lad works out.”
“Luke speaks highly of him,” the professor said.
Karigan focused on her tea, sipping beneath her veil, hoping the two men would simply carry on the conversation without her, but it was not to be so. Dr. Silk turned his gaze on her, and she caught her twin reflections in the lenses of his specs.
“I am grateful for your uncle’s swift payment—the first half—for Raven, but I am now here for the second half.” He gestured, and his servant removed an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat. He crossed the room in three strides and presented it to Karigan. The fine paper and flowing ink made it look suspiciously like an invitation. “Normally I’d send Mr. Howser around with invitations, but I was so charmed to meet you yesterday, Miss Goodgrave, and anxious to hear how you were getting on with the horse, that I decided I must come myself.”
Mr. Howser resumed his station behind Dr. Silk. Karigan glanced at the professor, who did not look very happy.
“Now, now, Bryce,” Dr. Silk said. It was odd to hear anyone call the professor by his first name. “Try not to look so glum. It’s a party, not an inquisition, and you haven’t been to one of my affairs in, oh, years, and I can guarantee this one will be very interesting. But now that I’ve made my delivery, duty calls and I must be off.”
Dr. Silk rose and bowed in Karigan’s direction. “I look forward to seeing you again very soon, Miss Goodgrave.”
While the professor saw Dr. Silk and his attendant out the door, Karigan flipped the veil out of her face and cracked the gold wax seal on the invitation. She and a companion, it said, were invited to an evening of dinner and entertainments hosted by the Honorable Dr. Ezra Stirling Silk. The party was to be the next week at seven hour, but no location was listed—it was intended as a surprise. A carriage would come promptly on the evening to deliver her and her companion to the affair.
When the professor rejoined her, she passed him the invitation.
He scowled as he read it. “I don’t like it,” he told her. “I don’t like that he does not disclose the location or that we cannot use our own carriage.”
Karigan agreed that it sounded all very mysterious. “Wouldn’t all his guests have to do the same?”
“If there are others.”
“You suspect a trap?”
The professor stroked his mustache, deep in thought. “It does not seem subtle enough for Silk. Still, there is no way I am going to trust him. I’ll make some careful inquiries to see if anyone else has been invited, and whom, but I’m rather disposed to decline the invitation.”
“We can’t decline,” Karigan said. “It’s part payment for Raven.”
“I know, I know. I’ll see what I can find out, but no matter how innocuous a dinner party may seem, Silk’s motives never are.”