The Second Key

"I have found that the people who know most about a household are never the ones who own it."

The handle turned. The heavy oak swung inward, and there was Thomas.

I stepped back. The glasses knocked together inside the shawl — a bright, damning little sound — and my arms drew the bundle tighter against my ribs. My breath caught and held. The cold from the corridor reached me first, carrying the smell of his coat: starch and the waxy scent of boot polish and the winter chill of the unheated east wing.

Thomas stood in the doorway with a key in his hand. His gaze found me — stockinged feet, wrapped shawl, guilty face — and moved past me into the room. The righted chairs. The damp table. The cabinet and its collection. The dark smear on the floorboards beyond the rug.

My key lay between us on the pale wood, where his had pushed it through.

He stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it. His key turned more smoothly than mine had — the sound of a mechanism accustomed to a particular hand.

For a moment we simply stood there, the two of us, surrounded by William's collection and the evidence of what had happened here at midnight, whilst the winter silence of the east wing pressed against the walls around us. Thomas clasped his hands behind his back — that familiar stance — and his eyes returned to mine.

"Madam," he said.

"Thomas," I said.

"I see madam has been attending to the room," he said. His gaze had settled on the shawl and its wrapped burden. He did not ask what was inside. He did not need to.

"I found it in a state of disorder."

"Indeed, madam. An unfortunate state of affairs." He moved to the table between the righted chairs. His fingers touched the damp wood where I had blotted the whiskey, pressing lightly, testing. "I had intended to attend to it myself this morning. Before circumstances overtook us."

My grip on the shawl loosened. He had known. Had planned to come here before dawn and make it all disappear. The overturned chairs, the glasses, whatever else this room had held before I reached it. Thomas had been carrying this knowledge through the same hours I had — through the scream, the search, the staff assembly, Victoria's arrival — and his composure had never once faltered.

"The constable will be sent for," I said. "The messenger has already gone."

"I dispatched him myself, madam. He departed approximately twenty minutes ago."

"When the constable arrives, he will wish to examine the house."

"That would be the expected procedure, madam, yes."

He had moved past the table now, his footsteps swallowed by the Ottoman rug, and stopped at the edge where wool met bare wood. The bloodstain lay just beyond — dried rust against pale floorboards. Thomas regarded it. His jaw tightened, a small movement I would have missed had I not been watching him with an attention that felt almost indecent in its scrutiny.

He knelt. Touched the edge of the stain with two fingers. Drew them back and rubbed them together, reading the texture the way I had seen him test the quality of table linen.

"This room cannot be found in its present state," I said.

"No, madam. It cannot." He rose, brushing his knee. "The grain has absorbed it. Scrubbing will not suffice. I will see to it tonight, once the household has retired."

"And if the constable reaches the east wing before—"

"The east wing is not part of the household's regular operations. There would be no cause for an investigator to examine guest chambers not in use." He paused. "Unless someone were to draw his attention in this direction."

"Mrs Holloway has spoken to me about what she heard last night. I have asked her to keep the matter between us."

"A prudent course, madam. Mrs Holloway will honour your request."

The certainty in his voice went beyond confidence in the cook's good character. I filed that away alongside everything else I was learning about the private architecture of my own household.

"The chairs are righted," I said. "The glasses—" I held the shawl out toward him. The crystal shapes were obvious through the fabric. There was nothing to be gained by pretending otherwise.

Thomas received the bundle and tucked it beneath his arm in a single, unhurried motion. The glasses vanished into his custody as though they had never been elsewhere.

"I note that one of the Talisker glasses appears to have been recently emptied," he said. "By means other than spillage."

The laugh escaped before I could catch it — half a breath, barely a sound, but real. The first real laughter since yesterday. It surprised us both.

"The morning has been trying," I said.

"Indeed, madam. Uncommonly so." Something shifted in his voice — not warmth, exactly, but the faintest easing of formality. "If I may — the constable's arrival will be a protracted affair. The ride from Hobart Town is considerable. Madam might wish to avail herself of a measure of the Talisker before the day's demands resume. For steadying purposes."

"Thomas, it is barely midday."

"A reasonable objection under ordinary conditions, madam."

I did not reply to that. The silence sat between us, and it was enough.

Thomas inclined his head — the smallest of acknowledgements. He would bring the whiskey. I would drink it. Neither of us would speak of it again.

"And Thomas — ensure the Talisker is available when the constable arrives. He will have ridden from Hobart Town in the cold. We should receive him with appropriate hospitality."

"Very good, madam. I shall see that the decanter is prepared in the drawing room."

The drawing room. Where I would be sitting. Where the constable would be asking his questions. Where a crystal decanter of Talisker would stand within arm's reach, available to host and guest alike, for the duration of whatever followed.

"How long have you known about this room?" I asked. The question came out quieter than I intended, rougher at the edges.

Thomas met my eyes. He was still holding the glasses beneath his arm, my husband's secrets arranged on the walls around us, the blood on the floorboards at his feet.

"I have served this household since before its walls were built, madam. There is very little about Jeffries Manor that has escaped my attention."

The words settled over the room. Not an answer. Not an evasion. Something that lived in the country between the two — an acknowledgement that we were both standing on the same ground, both carrying loads we could not put down, and that neither of us intended to ask the other to explain what they bore.

Thomas moved to the door. He paused with his hand upon the lock and turned back to me.

"Mr Jeffries trusted me with a great many things during his time in this house." His voice had dropped below its usual register, into a place I had not heard him visit before. "I intend to honour that trust. In all its dimensions."

I held his gaze. The Blue Room surrounded us — the ancient treasures on the walls, the stain on the floorboards, the golden mask gleaming behind its glass — and for a breath or two, there was nothing else. Just this. Two people who had arrived at the same place by different keys, carrying different loads, and who would walk out together.

Thomas moved to the door. He paused with his hand upon the lock and turned back to me.

"Mr Jeffries trusted me with a great many things during his time in this house." His voice had dropped below its usual register, into a place I had not heard him visit before. "I intend to honour that trust. In all its dimensions."

I held his gaze. The Blue Room surrounded us — the treasures on the walls, the stain on the floorboards, the golden mask gleaming behind its glass — and for a breath or two, there was nothing else. Just this. Two people who had arrived at the same room by different keys.

Thomas turned the key. Then he paused, looked down, and bent to retrieve my key from where it still lay on the floorboards just inside the threshold.

He straightened and held it out to me. I took it.

For a moment neither of us moved. The corridor waited beyond the closed door, the house waited beyond the corridor, and the whole fraught machinery of the day waited beyond the house. But none of it could begin until one of us stepped forward.

I reached past Thomas, turned the handle, and opened the door. The corridor stretched empty in both directions, its pale winter light undisturbed.

I turned to him. "Thomas," I said.

He inclined his head.

I stepped out of the Blue Room, drew the door closed behind me — Thomas's key still in the lock on the other side — and walked toward my bedchamber.