‘Of course you bloody didn’t,’ he said,slurring his words. Whoever he was, he was very drunk. ‘I’ve beenhere since… God knows. Could be days. Enough time to know thatyou’ve been out all night,’ he accused with a lopsided grin and pointing hisfinger. ‘Naughty. Very naughty.’
Mary stepped closer. He waswell-spoken and, despite being in a dishevelled state, was clearly not aservant or tradesman. He was handsome in a rugged, masculine way withtousled, slick, black hair and a white shirt, almost entirely unbuttoned,revealing a well-toned chest and stomach. ‘Are you Lord Rothborne’scousin, Sir?’ Mary ventured.
The man grinned again. ‘Yup. But please don’t tell me I look like that ugly little cad. I rather hopedI’d inherited Mummy’s beauty.’
‘I’d heard you were coming—I’m a housemaidhere,’ Mary said, wanting to soften him up in the hope that he wouldn’t thentell anyone about her nocturnal foray, but also desperate to get back to herroom.
Frederick’s eyes lit up. ‘Ahousemaid. How delectable.’
Mary shrugged, unsure of how torespond. ‘It’s okay.’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, taking agulp of wine from the bottle.
‘Miss Mercer.’
‘What’s your real name? Surely your mother didn’t name you Miss Mercer?’ he said with a laugh.
‘It’s Mary,’ she said, a littleuncomfortably.
‘Mine’s Frederick.’ He stood and offeredher his hand to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mary.’
Mary reluctantly shook the proffered handout of duty to her employer and deference to his class. ‘Nice to meetyou. I’d better get on.’ Mary began to move towards the door.
‘Of course, keep the Blackfriars’ wheelsturning,’ he muttered, taking another swig of drink. ‘Before you go,could you tell me something?’
Mary stopped close to the door and facedhim. ‘Of course.’
‘Being a housemaid, you must know a bitabout the bedroom department.’
Mary’s face flushed. ‘Pardon?’
‘I know, bloody crude of me to ask, butdoes my dear cousin actually bed his good lady wife? Hmm? I mean,they’ve been married for what six years and there are no signs of any miniMansfields yet, are there? Most peculiar.’
‘I don’t think I’m in any position to talkabout that,’ Mary answered.
‘They have separate rooms though, don’tthey?’
Mary nodded.
Frederick took another swig of wine. ‘I only ask because I’m next in line to the Blackfriars throne you see. If Cecil doesn’t produce an heir, then this—’ Frederick said gesturing the winebottle around the room—‘all comes to me. Every last piece of God-awfulfurniture, every last servant. You’ll be mine, Mary Mercer. How would you like that?’
Mary was desperate to leave the company ofthis awful drunk. How can I get away from him? Time’s runningout!
Mary’s heart sank: her time had runout.
Standing at the door, mouth agape, was MrsCuff.
‘Miss Mercer, what are you doing in herewith Mr Mansfield? Where’s your uniform?’ Mrs Cuff stammered, quiteunable to believe her eyes.
‘So, sorry, Lady Housekeeper,’ Fredericksaid, turning his attention to Mrs Cuff. ‘All my fault. Miss Mercerheard a noise and came to see what the bother was. I was thebother. All my fault. Now I’m keeping her chatting. Myhumblest, most sincere apologies.’
Mrs Cuff glared at Mary, seeming to acceptthe absurd notion that Mary could possibly have heard a noise from three floorsup in the attic. ‘Right, well, you’d better get into your uniform and getto work.’
Mary slunk from the room.
‘Cheerio, Mary,’ Frederick called. ‘Time I went to bed, I think.’
Mary hurried up the stairs to her bedroom,certain that she would be for it when Mrs Cuff finally caught up withher. She opened the door; Clara was just in the process of lifting herdress up over her body.
‘Where have you been?’ Clara asked.
‘Nowhere exciting,’ Mary replied. She no longer trusted that what she said to Clara wouldn’t be gossiped about inthe servants’ hall.
‘Look, I’m sorry about what happenedyesterday, Mary,’ Clara began. ‘I didn’t mean to betray your trust. Can we be friends again?’
‘Just forget it. Let’s get to work,’Mary said.
Chapter Nine
Mortoninserted the memory card from his camera into his laptop and plugged in hisiPhone. He was sitting in shorts and a t-shirt in his study, sipping athis fourth cup of coffee of the day. He drank too much of the stuff;Juliette was always telling him that he needed to cut back. She wasright, of course, but it was the one thing that helped him through theeye-straining slog of staring at a computer screen for hours on end. Thelow bubbling of tourist chatter filtered in through the open study window, thewarm day having brought the visitors to Rye by the coachload.
Morton navigated through the filedirectories on his computer until he found the photographs that he had taken onhis camera at Blackfriars. The first picture was of the back path to theestate, with the house looming large in the distance. He lingered on theimage for a few seconds, then turned to the wall of his study covered withnotes, pictures and information from the Mercer Case. He lookedMary square in the eyes, almost pleading for the time-frozen image to revealwhat had happened on that path that fateful day in 1911. Turning back tothe laptop, he clicked onto the images taken on his phone; a dull yellow tingeon each revealed that they were taken in the dimly-lit depths of theBlackfriars archive. He knew the contents of the first page: an excerptfrom the Blackfriars wages book. As he scanned down the page, he caughtEdward Mercer’s name again and scribbled down the date of his last wages: Friday19th May 1911. Where had he gone, just one month afterMary’s disappearance? Sacked? A new job? Dead? Thethought then entered Morton’s mind that maybe, he too had vanished withouttrace. The desire to know more about what happened to Edward was enoughfor Morton to hold off temporarily looking at the rest of the images. Achange of employment would be almost impossible to ascertain; a death searchwould be simple. Opening up the Ancestry website, Morton ran anopen-ended death search and found Edward immediately. His death wasrecorded in the June quarter of 1911 in the Rye registration district. Heknew that the death may have had nothing to do with Mary’s disappearance, butsince Edward featured on both the family and work lists for people
