BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery) by D. M. Mitchell Page A

surrounding countryside towards your family. The only cause I fight is to restore your family’s name and respect. But if you wish to court that ill feeling it is on your own rash head.’
    ‘Having faced Napoleon’s muskets and cannon balls, do you think I’ll shrink away from what I have to do so readily? You do not know what stuff I am made of, Reeve. But you will find out.’
    Reeve shrugged. ‘Your trunks await removal, Mr Blackdown. What else you do is entirely up to you. Good day.’ He bent his head to papers on the desk, waited till Blackdown had left the room and set about penning a letter. He finished it, sanded it, folded it and set his seal to it. He put it in his pocket.
    Thomas Blackdown might bring them trouble, he thought acidly. But that was easy enough to attend to. A ragged down-on-his-luck ex-soldier like young Blackdown was a mere trifle in the grand scheme of things.
     
     
    ‘I’m sorry I locked you out of the room, Mr Addison,’ Thomas Blackdown said to the old man. ‘I needed to speak to my father, but in the event it was a waste of time as he didn’t care to listen. He is too far gone. You know he is dying?’
    Addison nodded gravely. ‘He is racked with pain day and night, Master Thomas, but he will not give up his fight. It all conspires to drive him into his grave, but what can I do? I am but his humble servant, though I love the man dearly, as I loved all Blackdowns. To see it come to this breaks my heart, sir. Hundreds of years of tradition about to crumble to dust. He will not give you your birthright – Jonathan told me. But you are a legitimate Blackdown, Master Thomas, and Blackdown Manor should fall naturally into your hands to help secure its safekeeping so that it might last another thousand years.’
    He unlocked a door and swung it open. The furniture was covered in dustsheets, and it had a damp, musty smell to it. He bent to a sheet and whipped it back. ‘Your trunks, Master Thomas, as Master Jonathan stipulated. And through there,’ he said, pointing to another closed door, ‘is where he kept his wardrobe. He was about your size, so you will find much to fit you, if you can bear to wear his clothes, which must be hard to contemplate.’
    Blackdown lifted the heavy padlock on one of the trunks. ‘You have a key?’
    Addison produced a large iron key from his coat and handed it over.’
    Blackdown bent down and unlocked the padlock. He lifted the heavy wooden lid banded with iron hoops. The trunk was filled with clothes, a brass-edged mahogany box containing two fine pistols, and under this a number of folded letters tied into a bundle. He looked at the letters. ‘From Julianne Tresham,’ he said, lifting the bundle to his nose. There was a faint, lingering smell of feminine scent.
    ‘Master Jonathan was besotted with her. No one was happier than Lord Tresham that such a match was to be made. It joined the two old families of Blackdown and Tresham together for the first time. She is a beautiful young woman, ten years or so younger than Master Jonathan was, and I am certain they would have made a fine and happy couple. But your father did not approve of the match at all. In fact he flew into a rage over the suggestion. That caused a mighty rift between your father and your brother, if truth be known.’
    ‘My father and his rages go together like a hand fits in its glove.’ Blackdown placed the bundle back into the trunk. ‘And what happened when all this traitor-thing blew up around my father?’
    ‘Ah,’ said Addison, ‘that caused some consternation, to be sure. Anyone allied with Lord Blackdown was in danger of being brought down with him. But Lord Tresham was having none of it. He wanted Jonathan to marry his daughter and insisted the marriage go ahead. No one fought your father’s cause more readily than Lord Tresham. He remained loyal to your father, even though he blocked the marriage, until Master Jonathan’s death. It was around that time that Lord