“How refreshing. So few people do.”
Curtis wasn’t quite sure how he was meant to take that remark, but it scarcely mattered. His uncle Sir Henry was a devout Christian but a well-travelled man, and one of the strictest tenets of Curtis’s upbringing had been that one never expressed disrespect for another man’s faith. It was not a view shared by many of his peers, and Curtis didn’t feel inclined to be conciliatory to the bloody man, but a principle was a principle.
“I beg your pardon,” he repeated. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Er, how about beef?” He lifted the plate apologetically and saw what looked like a glimmer of laughter in the dark eyes.
“Beef is quite acceptable, thank you.” Da Silva accepted the offering with great gravity. “I’m not offended by ham, you understand, I simply don’t eat it. The only meat that offends me is kidney, and that’s for aesthetic reasons.”
That was exactly the sort of pansyish remark Curtis would have expected of him. Much more so than that intense scrutiny earlier, or the series of well-targeted jabs. He was damned if he knew quite what to make of this.
“So, er, are you a religious man?” he tried.
“No, I couldn’t claim to be that. I’m not terribly observant.” Da Silva gave a sudden, feline smile. “Of my faith, that is. I’m quite observant in general.”
Curtis was sure that was another dig, but da Silva didn’t follow it up, returning his attention to his plate. Curtis took the opportunity to look him over. He was a handsome enough fellow, he supposed, if you could tolerate the type, with those deep, dark eyes, a full, well-shaped mouth, high cheekbones, and black brows that were almost too elegantly curved. Curtis wondered if he did something to shape them and decided that he did. He had seen that sort in London, passing certain clubs: plucked eyebrows, powdered faces, rouged cheeks, chattering to one another in that affected way. Was that what da Silva did in his private hours, with other men?
Da Silva gave a slight cough and Curtis realised he had said something. “I beg your pardon, what was that?”
“I enquired as to your plans for the afternoon. Or shall we simply keep, ah, bumping into one another?”
“I shall go for a short walk in the grounds, I expect,” Curtis snapped.
Da Silva’s lips curved in a secret smile, as if relishing a joke that Curtis did not share. “I’ll be in the library. Don’t let me stand in your way.”
That night, Curtis waited for the clock to strike one before he slipped out of his bedroom. The corridors were very dark, but he had checked his way and felt sure he could avoid knocking over any stuffed birds, occasional tables or other clutter.
He felt very heavy on his feet as he went down the stairs. There was no sign of life in the house. The servants would all be asleep, the guests who weren’t asleep would be otherwise occupied.
He made it to the library without incident, though his blood was pounding in his ears, and shut the door with great care behind him. The room was shuttered for the night and it was pitch dark. He opened the slide of his dark lantern, letting out a beam of yellow light that made the silence and the dark close even more heavily around him.
He tried the door of the storage room to be sure it was still locked, and began to work through the ring of skeleton keys that he had bought, with appalling self-consciousness, in the East End.
One after another failed to fit, until he had tried them all. He cursed under his breath, then stiffened as he heard a sound. Very slight but—
It was a creak. Someone was opening the door.
Curtis moved without having to think, shutting the lantern slide to cut off the light and stepping as silently as he could to one side of the door. He closed his fingers round the skeleton keys, knowing he had to get them into his pockets before they were seen, and without the slightest clink—
Whoever had opened the door had not switched on the light.
He could see the faintest glimmer of less than absolute dark from the hall around the doorframe. It was cut off as the door was closed without sound, and then a narrow beam of faint, whitish light cut through the middle of the room as the intruder, the other intruder, lit some device.
Someone was sneaking around with a torch.
It had to be a burglar. Of all the rotten luck. He would have to confront the fellow; he could hardly stand by and see his host robbed. There would be noise, it would raise the house, and he had skeleton keys in his pocket and a dark lantern by his side. Could he blame the burglar for those when help came?