Devon leaned forward, sliding his palms up Tom’s thighs. ‘You’re not the slightest bit curious what Simon has planned?’
‘Violet.’
She spun. Her father was standing at the end of the hall, a raised candle in a holder in his left hand. He gave her a warm smile.
‘My dear. What are you doing up?’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Violet, smiling back at him. Her heart was pounding. Very deliberately, she did not look towards her father’s office door, only a few yards away. ‘I thought I heard voices.’
James, she thought. Simon’s planning something and he’s sending James out alone.
I have to tell the Stewards—
‘Tom’s doing some late-night work with Robert Drake’s young clerk,’ her father said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘Oh! Of course. I was just—’
‘I thought you might be sneaking out,’ said her father with another smile before she could finish. ‘The way you used to, down the hallway, then out of the side window in the scullery.’ She felt cold hearing that he knew her secret route. ‘I’d hate to see you leave when you’ve only just come home.’
Keeping her voice light, she said, ‘I just couldn’t sleep.’
Her father motioned down the hall towards the stairs, a friendly gesture. ‘The truth is, I couldn’t sleep either. I know you have questions. And you’re right … it’s time I answered some of them.’
She told herself, He doesn’t know I was snooping. He doesn’t know anything. Her heart was still pounding. She had to keep behaving as though she were innocent. She nodded, conscious of the fact that they were walking away from the locked office as he led the way down the stairs, holding the candle. She was careful not to look at it or give any sign that it was why she was here.
‘I think you know already that what I’m going to tell you has something to do with our family,’ her father said. ‘Louisa doesn’t know about any of it, and Tom only knows a part.’ It was very dark; the candle made shadows leap out before them, then shrink back as they approached.
‘A part of what?’
‘Something like this can’t be told. It can only be shown.’ Her father stopped at the third door at the bottom of the stairs and gestured for her to enter.
It was the India room.
Violet had been four years old when her father had sailed with her for England, and she had few memories of her life before then. Tom, who was three years older, remembered India far better. He told stories about their home in Calcutta, not far from the arched gates of Government House. Violet didn’t like hearing them. She’d pushed them away, feeling a knot of unfairness that it was his to talk about, not hers. She didn’t like to think about that country.
Her father often took guests through the room, pointing out the cabinets from his time in Calcutta, the large map of the city, the paintings of princes and ladies in gardens and under mango trees. Those were the times that she was most encouraged to make herself scarce. Her family’s pride in their connection to India was conditional on her not being there.
Now she looked around at the paintings of nobility, the bronzes of deities, the hangings of delicately painted cloth, and saw a collection of faces staring back at her, displaced and unfamiliar. She took a step forward. Everything went dark, the light of the candle blotting out.
Click.
She knew. Even as she whirled around. The sound of the door locking was like the sealing of a tomb. No.
‘Father?’
No.
‘Father?’
She twisted the handle – nothing. She rattled the door – nothing. Feeling rising panic, she pushed her shoulder against it – it didn’t even budge. She was pounding on the door with her fists. ‘Father? Let me out! Let me out!’
Not a dent, not a shift – even her voice sounded muffled. A lion cage, she thought, panic shoving into her throat. Her father had had this room built after his return from India. Months of construction – a room ready to hold the artefacts he’d brought home with him—
A room ready to hold me.
And she had walked into it, like a fool, and was trapped here.
There had to be another way out. It was pitch-black; she realised with a chill that the room had no windows. She had never noticed that before. She forced down the rising panic. Think.
She took a deep breath, moved back, and then ran at the door, hitting it with all her strength. The impact snapped her teeth together and sent a burst of pain through her shoulder. She gritted her teeth and tried again. And again. No effect. The door was papered to make it look like part of the wall, but under that, it was made of metal, thick as slabbed stone.