Portia Da Costa by Diamonds in the Rough

Author:Diamonds in the Rough
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

Into the Devil’s Lair

A narrow-eyed manservant with a vaguely protective air led Adela through the ground floor of Wilson’s spacious London home, a rather fine villa in Maltravers Road, in the nicer end of Chelsea. Whether the man disapproved of her or not, she really didn’t care. She was on a mission. But she supposed if that woman had treated his master capriciously, the dour young man perhaps viewed all her sex with an air of suspicion.

It was an odd residence. Used to dwelling in a home full of furniture, knickknacks, photographs and all manner of collected mementos, Adela found the Spartan yet vaguely aesthetic quality of Wilson’s house a surprise. The entrance hall was almost bare, apart from one spindly but elegant table and a narrow mirror, and there were but two simple Japanese prints on the wall. Passing what was clearly a series of electrical light fittings set into the wall, she followed the thin, dark-haired servant as he led her length of the airy hall, then along an equally plainly decorated corridor, to knock on a white painted door at the end of it.

“Come!” called out Wilson’s familiar voice from beyond, and Adela was shown in.

The room she entered could not have been more different.

An immense, glass-ceilinged area, it was a palace of clutter, crammed with a cornucopia of “things” that defied her classification on first glance, and probably still would on closer inspection. It was hard to tell whether she was in a workroom, a study, a conservatory, a day room or a library, or some kind of general space where all the artifacts and possessions that might normally have been spread throughout a house were stored, along with those of a magician, an alchemist and an engineer. And it was all haphazard, scattered about, in a perfect jumble.

The single most apt description of it might well be a “lair.”

And as it all belonged to Wilson, she suspected that despite the apparent disorder, he knew exactly where every last item resided, and could put his hand on each thing within a heartbeat.

The man himself was standing before a large blackboard on an easel, staring intently at a surface covered with so many equations it was more white than black, and for several seconds he didn’t even turn around.

“Miss Adela Ruffington, sir,” the manservant said, spare and solemn, and Wilson spun around, tossing a piece of chalk in the general direction of the groove where other pieces lay. It missed and went skittering and rolling into a corner of the room.

“Della, what a delightful surprise.” Wilson surged forward energetically, the panels of yet another dressing gown fluttering about him. This one was rather drab for him, a dullish gray-brown the color of a mouse adorned by several dabs of chalk dust here and there. He took her gloved hand in his and drew it to his lips, kissing it assertively through the thin kid leather. In her mind’s eye, Adela could see his servant’s eyebrows lifting behind her.

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