The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (22 page)

“Wellington?” Eliza’s soft voice somehow managed to reach him even through the rage. “Wellington, you’re more than that.”

Mother? Did you know?
Wellington closed his eyes.
Is that why you fought? Is that why he killed you?

“Wellington!”

Arms were around him now and he was down on the floor. He felt sore, an aching that threatened to smother him, but he also felt a tight embrace, and the harder he trembled, the tighter the embrace became. A burning sensation came from his hand. He didn’t have to look. He knew the Usher insignia was cutting into his skin.

“Wellington, it’s all right,” Eliza whispered. “You are an agent of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, an agency dedicated to stand against the House of Usher. You won.” She stroked his hair as she held him. “You beat him. It’s over.”

Wellington wanted to believe that, but something instinctual told him this would not be over until Usher collected their prize.

Wherein Our Agents Settle into Their New Accommodations and Brandon Hill Displays Astounding Culinary Skills

“N
ow is certainly not the right time to mention the ring to the director,” Eliza reminded Wellington, even as they watched the convoy of motorcars and horse-drawn carts coming up the drive. They had discussed away most of their remaining hours, but come to no real conclusion, except for this one. She pressed her hand on the door, preventing him from opening it. Wellington could have moments of blind and unfortunate honour. “This couldn’t have come at a worse moment in the Ministry’s history, my darling archivist, and you know it.”

He pressed his lips together and would not meet her eyes.

“Welly,” she said, her voice rising sharply, “I mean it. What is the point of bringing this up now? Your father is dead, you are an honest and true member of the Ministry—you’ve proven that over
and over
again. We need to stick together, and people need to trust you.”

It was a blunt blow, and it was designed to be that way. Still, Wellington looked up in utter shock. He immediately saw what she meant; he could imagine how some of the other
agents, hurt, angry, and grieving, might look at him differently if they found out his father’s connections. If the words “House of Usher” ever came out, it might mean the end of the Ministry entirely. People who had just been attacked by their own government were not likely to throw their lot in with anyone associated in the slightest with that organisation. He couldn’t blame them for that either.

Eliza could see in every movement how deeply this revelation had damaged her lover. He had hated his father, suspected he was his mother’s murderer even, but this was an entirely different kettle of fish. To find out your father was in league with your sworn enemy . . . Well, she couldn’t imagine what that would feel like, and how it would make a person question themselves.

When Eliza placed a hand against his cheek, it was gentle, but her words remained stern. “You know in the army, when it was time to fight, how everyone needed to be a single unit?” He nodded. “Then you must know this is one and the same for us. Promise you won’t say anything to our comrades.”

Wellington straightened his jacket, and patted his pocket that contained the ring as if to verify it wouldn’t slip out. “I promise, Eliza . . . Unless it becomes important to the survival of the Ministry, I will hold my tongue.”

She had his agreement just in the nick of time too, because the engines were silent now, and instead footsteps could be heard coming up the stone stairs. Wellington grabbed Eliza, suddenly planting a passionate kiss on her that stole her breath and seemed to slow time. “Might be the last time for a bit,” he murmured once they parted in that husky tone of his she’d noticed he reserved for moments such as this. Then he stepped back and flung open the doors to his ancestral home.

“Welcome to Whiterock Manor,” he said to the arriving agents, spreading his arms wide as if he were the ringmaster in a grand circus.

Perhaps he had gotten his acting skills from his mother, Eliza mused, before stepping out to help her colleagues with their luggage. Even though it had only been one night since their meeting in the Red Lion, she could not help but count heads, just in case.

It pained Eliza to ask after them all as if they were a group, but she had to. “Where are the rest?”

“Never fear.” The director put down his disturbingly small valise by the stairs. “We are arriving in shifts, coming from various directions.” His eyes twinkled even in the dim interior of the hall. “It would be, I can only speculate, slightly conspicuous if we all appeared at—where are we again, Books?”

“Whiterock, sir,” he replied.

“Ah, yes—Whiterock, all together as one merry party, yes?”

“As long as no one gets shot, I’ll count that as a success,” Eliza said as an aside to Wellington.

“You mean, as long as another agent doesn’t shoot Bruce,” the archivist whispered in her ear, before lifting a box Blackwell had deposited on the marble floor right by the door where anyone could trip over it. “Some of you may need to double up on lodging, so feel free to use discretion.”

Blackwell and Axelrod appeared to be the only ones with a substantial amount of luggage, hopefully items they had managed to steal away from Miggins Antiquities. Despite the tensions between R&D and Wellington, Eliza was still rather fond of their creations, most especially since she was not afraid of things that went bang.

Everyone else carried remarkably little. Lady Caroline had a single hatbox and a small suitcase that couldn’t have held anything more than a pair of bloomers and perhaps a spare corset. Maulik, it turned out, had only a saddlebag and a battered hat to his name. It suddenly dawned on her just how amazing a feat it had been for Wellington and her to have made it to the rendezvous with Alice and children in tow. Possessions were something that agents learned to do without, especially when on the run. Eliza though did have a momentary pang for her own apartment. She hated to think about the state of it, considering how the Department was likely to have treated it while looking for her.

“This?” Doctor Blackwell stood in the middle of the hallway and stared up at all the mullioned windows. “This is your home?” The expression on her face was as if she were looking at some particularly attractive piece of art.
Naturally she likes it,
Eliza thought.
Gothic was always her style.

“It’s very dusty!” Axelrod was not nearly as impressed by either their new headquarters or apparently his associate’s reaction to it.

“It’s also very safe.” Wellington tucked his hands into his
pockets, possibly to avoid knocking Axelrod’s block off. “Bedrooms are on the second floor. I believe for what you lot may want to do, the lower kitchens downstairs may suffice.”

“The
lower
kitchens?” Axelrod scoffed.

“Speaking of, I shall just go downstairs, check on Alice and the children, see how preparations are proceeding.” He stalked away into the shadows of the manor.

“Well, that was awkward,” Eliza murmured to herself, but personal issues were going to be the least of their problems.

Barry appeared from the back rooms and embraced the horrified Blackwell as if she were his long-lost sister. “Great to see you! You should see this place!”

“If the rest of this manor is like this foyer, it’s stunning!” Blackwell glanced around. “An excellent environment to perform some kind of human experiments.”

“Or raze this Gothic monstrosity to the ground and do the world a favour,” Axelrod commented with an extremely sour expression on his face.

Barry, for the first time in a very long time since Eliza had known him, looked offended by something. “I think it’s grand—actually, quite noble—of Wellington to open up his childhood home to us all, considering the dangers and possible property damage.”

The two men glared at each other, and it was Lachlan King who appeared suddenly to diffuse the situation. Placing his firm, barrel-chested frame between the men, he said, “Why don’t we continue this discussion elsewhere? Perhaps where our lovely clankertons can set up? Barry, you’ll love helping Axelrod and Blackwell out. I am sure they have some wonderful machines.”

Barry’s face lit up, while the other two inventors’ positively collapsed.

Lachlan slapped Axelrod on the back, nearly knocking the scholar over. “After all, we are all part of the same team, eh what?”

They had nothing to say to that—because there wasn’t anything
to
say.

“Sounds like a wonderful idea,” came a voice from the hallways. The two men looked up to see Wellington, apparently returned from the lower kitchens. From his softer demeanour, he’d seen the exchange between Agent King and
the clankertons. He stepped forwards, and for once showed a shrewd grasp of diplomacy. “Allow me to show you where you may set yourself up?”

“In the lower kitchens, Books?” Axelrod scoffed. “Shall we all crowd into a dumbwaiter then?”

“If you would prefer,” he said with a shrug, “or . . .”

Wellington placed his hand on a small, carved lion in the sideboard and gave it a gentle push to one side. The whole wall folded in on itself, revealing a spiral staircase going downwards and squeezing a gasp from Barry. When gas lamps in the side of the wall leapt to life, Doctor Blackwell let out a small giggle and clapped her hands together.

“That’s just ripping, Books!” Barry actually rubbed his hands together.

“After you are situated, I can show you the armoury.” Barry’s and Axelrod’s eyes both widened with delight as they mouthed in unison,
“Armoury?”

Wellington motioned to the clankertons and smiled. “For now, if you please?”

Axelrod and Blackwell followed him down, neither saying a word. It didn’t matter. As they descended, Barry effortlessly kept up a steady stream of chatter that mostly seemed to be about Eliza’s uncle Roger and his tractor.

Eliza let out a sigh. She hadn’t even been aware that she was holding it in as she watched them disappear. “I do hope that keeps all three of them out from underfoot.”

Lachlan grinned at her. “At least for a while I suppose. I’ll go with them . . . just in case. You know, your fellow New Zealander does have far too many ideas, and I think that Blackwell isn’t one to dissuade him from anything.”

While she had met Lachlan King before, she never had been partnered with the older man; but she could see immediately that his exasperation was somewhat feigned. Partners often became family, Eliza had found. Sometimes more than that.

When she turned around, the director almost made her jump, standing there with his hands in his pockets. Just how much he knew about the new relationship between herself and Books was anyone’s guess. Right now, though, he was a pool of silence in the activity of the agents around him. “I was thinking, as there are no servants here at Whiterock, if Cassandra and I
could commandeer the third floor, perhaps convert one of the available rooms into a private library?”

“Certainly. If you need books, I believe the library is just down the hall, outside the main dining hall,” Eliza replied.

“Oh, is that the main library?” Sound stuck a thumb into one of his waistcoat pockets as he stroked his moustache. “I noticed a few choice volumes missing. I was uncertain if there was another library somewhere.”

Her heart sank. She had shoved the remains of Arthur Books’ chair into the far corner of the master bedroom’s library. Having the director so close was a little unnerving to say the least. Still, she plastered on a smile that she hoped would fool him. “If we come across a second library, we will let you know.”

“Very well then, Cassandra and I will begin the move in.”

Doctor Sound turned to leave when Eliza suddenly remembered, “Before you begin to settle in, may I have a moment of your time?”

He appeared, for the first time in serving as the omniscient director, surprised. “Of course.” She motioned for him to follow her to the main library. “Most uncharacteristic of you, Miss Braun, seeing as it is usually I requesting a private audience.” He gave a slight chortle. “Oh dear, I hope I am not due for a reprimand.”

“Believe me, sir,” Eliza said, lifting aside a small stack of books to reveal the ledger she and Wellington had kept close since their journey across Europe, “you’d rather wish it were. Alice and the children . . .” She bit her bottom lip, then shrugged. “. . . liberated this ledger from a physician’s office. There are notes in here pertaining to the Duke of Sussex, the Maestro, and Her Majesty.”

The director silently took the ledger. “Evidence.”

“Look over the names inside first,” she warned. “This doctor has powerful friends.”

“Well done,” he said, tucking the ledger under his arm, “all of you.”

With a final nod of approval, Doctor Sound disappeared in the growing activity of the foyer. Passing the ledger to him felt as if a weight had been lifted. Finally.

Securing the ledger, Eliza discovered, was merely a calm before the storm as her fellow agents claimed bedrooms upstairs,
and found throughout the manor their own little nooks and crannies. When the second wave of Ministry agents arrived, even Wellington lost a moment to catch his breath, what with answering questions and helping his fellow operatives settle. Eliza mused on how the archivist had missed his calling and would have made quite a good innkeeper.

It was when he secured arrangements for Khaled, that Eliza noticed the set of his shoulders, the twitch in his neck. She could read him better than most, and saw he was actually rather nervous having the Ministry stomping around his family home. Far too many ghosts resided here for him to be comfortable.

Eliza smiled in suddenly seeing how one particular ghost—Lillian Books—presided over it all. If what Wellington said was true and his mother had been killed by his father, then this collection of cultures, religions, and ideologies within Whiterock might well serve as some kind of revenge for her. The dusty old manor was once more filled with life and vigour, all thanks to her son, Wellington Thornhill Books.