Page 60 of The Art of Theft
He should be out of the tunnels, over the fence, and far away from Château Vaudrieu—by any measure he’d made enough discoveries this night.
But no, because the woman, who was most likely Madame Desrosiers, said that all the rooms that served as dignified accommodation had spy holes, after he returned to the main tunnel, the one that was locked on either end, he’d looked for yet another trapdoor overhead, and unfortunately he’d found it, too.
So here he was crawling out of another branch tunnel, scaling another well, and hauling himself through yet another trapdoor, praying fervently that nobody would think to step into this one.
No one did.
Alas, when he thought there was nothing else left to explore, at the far end of this passage he discovered more footholds on the wall, which led up through yet another trapdoor, into a tunnel that was only four feet high.
Here he encountered no tripods, but he did find spy ports. Ten of them, far closer together than the ones on the level below.
The fourth one he opened gave onto a room lit by a single lamp, a much smaller, less opulent room than the one he’d peeped into earlier. There was no one inside, but a battered trunk sat against one wall. The trunk had been unlocked but not too many items taken out. A few unremarkable dresses hung in the wardrobe, a book and a notebook sat on the table, an indifferent watercolor hung over it.
The room of a governess, if he had to take his guess. But apparently whoever had been placed here had complained, and had been taken seriously enough to be shown the secret passage. To be assured that she was important enough to merit privacy at least, except there was no true privacy here either.
Then again, he was making assumptions. This could very well be the room of another woman, and not the one in the secret passage Madame Desrosiers was trying to reassure.
He waited for some time for the room’s occupant to come back. But he couldn’t wait too long: Ideally he wanted to time his departure with the guests’, so that the guards’ attention would be on them, and not on a furtive shadow slipping out of the chapel.
As he was closing the panel, he spied a framed page of pressed flowers on the nightstand. This peephole was also set low to the ground, and the bulk of the bed concealed most of the frame, but he could see that the top flower seemed purple and vibrant, caught in the peak of its brief bloom.
He thought of Lucinda and the pressed flowers she wanted to make for her mother—and missed his children with an acute pain in his heart.
Sliding the panel closed, he went on with his task.
Fourteen
Somehow Livia had forgotten that the end of the reception did not mean the end of the evening for the staff. Hard work began anew. Everything that had been hauled up to the gallery needed to be returned to the pantries and butleries below. The tablecloths and napkins were bundled up to be sent out for laundering, but all the other service items had to be scraped, cleaned, washed up, and then put back in perfect order.
Charlotte had reviewed the dishwashing process with Livia, Charlotte who had read household management books from end to end and warned her that it would be hard work. Livia, tired from carrying heavy trays up and down, was in fact relieved to be able to stand in one spot for some time. Only to learn what hard work meant, to be stuck in place, her legs, back, and shoulders aching, up to her elbows in hot water and washing soda for hours on end.
She was near tears when they were at last allowed to leave the scullery, in the small hours of the morning. The château did not house its temporary staff, but put them on an omnibus and drove them fifteen miles to the door of the staffing agency. She didn’t even know that she’d fallen asleep with her head on Mr. Marbleton’s shoulder until he shook her awake for them to alight.
The staffing agency offered some lodging, but not enough toaccommodate everyone on its roster, and certainly not its newest hires. The huddle of servants who stumbled off the omnibus shook hands with one another and dispersed amidst a chorus of “Bonne Nuit!”
Livia clutched the money she received, her work-dulled brain trying to convert it into pound sterling, scarcely believing the pittance that she’d earned for all her backbreaking labor. She didn’t have a clear idea of how much things cost in Paris, but in London she wasn’t sure this would be enough to pay for both room and board.
Her own life had never been easy. Yet it was both luxurious and carefree, compared to that of the woman she was pretending to be.
She and Mr. Marbleton walked for nearly a quarter of an hour before a carriage drove by them and came to a stop beyond the next intersection.
“There’s no one else nearby?” she asked, her voice half-hoarse.
“Everyone who got off with us has gone in different directions,” he said.
They nodded at the coachman, Lord Ingram, and got into the carriage. Lord Ingram’s ally had secured an idle farmhouse two villages over from Château Vaudrieu. Lord Ingram had driven there the previous day, so as not to make another appearance at the Mouret train station.
She was glad he was safe.
And she was asleep again within seconds.
?Livia had a vague impression of being helped out of the carriage by Charlotte and Mrs. Watson and half carried into her room. She woke up late. And she, who usually had very little appetite upon rising, wolfed down the copious breakfast that had been prepared for her, leaving barely a crumb on the tray.
Breakfast was followed by a long hot bath to soak away the aches and cramps of the previous day. Even as she sighed, her muscles unknotting, her mind still remained on the woman she waspretending to be. That woman, who lacked steady employment, wouldn’t have the luxury of sitting in a deep claw-footed bath in the middle of the day. She’d have gone out at dawn to find work. And if she had anyone depending on her...
Livia had long rued her lack of independence. But independence without funds was like immortality without eternal youth, a proposition that became untenable over time. Was that why Charlotte always analyzed the world the way she did? Because in the end, when all the niceties were stripped away, everything was all about how many resources any given person had at her command?
Charlotte’s greatest resource was her mind. What was Livia’s?
