Page 10 of The Untamed Heart

“Think nothing of it,” Hawkney called over his shoulder as he took the candle Mitten offered him and headed off into the gloom.

“Good God,” Sheringham said once they were out of earshot and had plunged into the maze that was Darenth Knole. “What was that about? And why is the place in such Stygian darkness? Even with the candle, I can barely see my hand in front of my face.”

Hawkney turned, briefly illuminating Sherry’s perplexed expression with the candle flame.

“Lucius does not like people. He does not wish for visitors. He is never at home and therefore he sees no reason to light rooms which are not being used, nor ever will be.”

“Then how the devil do you know where you’ll find him?”

“Because there is only one place he will be.”

“And that is?”

“The ballroom.”

There was a baffled silence.

“The ballroom? Why, in the name of everything holy—”

“You’ll see,” Hawkney replied with a chuckle, and led him on towards that cavernous room.

The huge double doors loomed before them, and Hawkney reached out a hand.

“Shouldn’t we at least knock?” Sheringham asked.

Hawkney returned a pitying expression. Sheringham really had not yet understood what they were dealing with. “Why? I very much doubt he’d notice it. He certainly wouldn’t answer. We’d be stood there all night, all week if no one came for us.”

Hawkney pushed open the door, and the sudden blaze of light made them both blink. He glanced back at Sherry to gauge his reaction and was unsurprised to see utter astonishment. It was a lot to take in the first time one saw it. To be honest, it never became commonplace.

If one had taken the contents of three museums, every scientific experiment known to man, the library at Alexandria and every oddity, novelty, or peculiarity a fellow could reasonably come across in ten lifetimes, jumbled them together and thrown them into a ballroom, it still would not come close to the bewildering array of… of stuff that was now illuminated before them.

To make things worse, the once magnificent ballroom was lined on all sides with mirrors. The insanity was therefore reflected into infinity, giving a fellow the dreadful notion he had fallen into another, stranger world. If one were prone to fanciful notions of demons and black magic, it might be enough to send one screaming from the room, babbling.

Sheringham gaped, turning a full circle, his face alight with undisguised shock and fascination. For an urbane man of fashion who looked nothing other than bored on principle, it said everything that needed to be said about both the room and the man who owned it.

“I have never, in all my days….” he murmured, shaking his head.

“No, and never will again if you’re lucky. Now, where is the fellow?” Hawkney strode off, past an enormous stuffed ostrich and a glass case filled with disturbing things in jars he decided he’d rather not investigate for fear of nightmares.

They wound down a corridor that became increasingly narrow, with looming bookcases on either side of them. The arrangement featured haphazard groups of strange masks and dark wood carvings from far-off lands atop precarious towers of rare books. Gruesome anatomical drawings and plans of grand houses, including one alarmingly similar to the Houses of Parliament, were pinned all over the place.

“I took opium once,” Sheringham admitted in a low voice. “It was very much like this.”

Hawkney snorted, and then stood still, pressing a finger to his lips. “Did you hear that?”

Sheringham shook his head but obligingly shut up and they listened. A moment later there was a muttered oath. They followed the sound.

Finally, the labyrinth opened up in the centre of the room. Unlike the maze they’d emerged from, this area was spotless and orderly. Dozens of tables lined up one after the other, the surfaces neatly arranged with scientific equipment and things that bubbled and boiled, strange smells emanating on all sides.

“Is it safe?” Sheringham demanded, looking increasingly alarmed.

“Doubtful,” Hawkney replied. “He kept his science experiments separate at one point, but he blew up the east wing five years ago. They’re still rebuilding it.”

Sheringham murmured something that might have been a prayer as Hawkney strode towards a massive desk, over which an unkempt head was bent, long, elegant fingers thrust into the tangle.

“Darenth,” he said, to which there was no reply, only an indistinct mutter. It might have been in Russian, but he wouldn’t swear to it. “Lucius, for heaven’s sake.”

The man’s head remained bent, but his words were clipped and impatient.