Page 93 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
As the hired coach pulled around them and the rattle of the horses died away, Paulette remembered the stories Jock had told her about her mother’s escapes from one predicament or another. Her mother had been, like Paulette, a small woman. She’d easily passed for a boy.
She set her hand on the lowered window and counted the turnings. She would need to find her way back to this road that led down to London.
The house wasno cottage but a three-story manor, tucked back in a grove of trees behind a sweeping overgrown lawn.
A squat, older serving woman with a bland demeanor delivered Paulette to her room, where she waited impatiently for the promised hot water. When it finally arrived, an hour had passed.
She swished in and out of her bath, rushed Jenny through helping her dress, and was twisting her hair onto the back of her head when a knock came.
“Mr. Gibson will be taking me down. Hurry with the pins, Jenny.”
Mabel opened the door. The same maid carried a covered tray. “Here’s your dinner, madam,” she said.
“My dinner? You’re not serving dinner downstairs?”
The woman colored deeply. “I was told to deliver it here.”
Mabel rushed to take the wobbling tray. “This will be fine. And doesn’t this smell lovely?” She settled the tray on a table, and the woman turned to go.
“Wait,” Paulette said. “Are you or are you not serving the gentlemen dinner downstairs?”
The maid’s lips moved wordlessly and when sound finally issued she said “Well, yes, his lordship did request I do that, but he said you would be eating here.”
She felt her jaw hardening. “I see. You may go.”
The door closed, and Paulette stood.
“I’m not quite done, miss,” Jenny said.
A lock of hair still tickled her neck. She grabbed the pins from Jenny’s hand and stabbed them in. “There. Both of you eat. I’m dining downstairs.”
In the corridor, she looked around. There was still enough light trickling in through the windows to see her way from this third floor garret to the stairs.
The smallish bedchamber was the sort where a poor relation or a governess would be housed, and the narrow bed would be cozy for honeymooning lovers, but neither her husband nor his bag had arrived.
There was no key in the lock. Not yet.
Hone your instincts, Jock had taught her.
But her mother, when she’d begged her for answers about her past as a spy, had called her too fanciful, and when pushed, had firmly denied her life as a spy.
If only Papa had come home, or Jock had not died. She would have learned more. She wouldn’t be so alone.
It was possible she was being too suspicious. Perhaps Bakeley and Gibson would not conspire to lock her away.
She shook her head and swallowed hard. No, excluding her from the discussion at dinner was a sure sign. She couldn’t trust Bakeley. She couldn’t trust her husband.
Well, let them try to lock her away. Jock had taught her about locks.
She gripped the banister and moved quietly down the carpeted stairs to the second floor. No creaks on the stairs—the house was well-kept for people who needed to sneak in and out. Several doors lined each side of the corridor, which ended in a sharp right turn into the building’s one wing.
Paulette moved down the hall, counting doors, and turned into the second corridor. More doors lined the walls, bedchambers most likely. At the end was a servant’s staircase leading both up and down. The smell of savory meat and pudding rose up these stairs and made her mouth water.
Satisfying her hunger was the least of her problems. She needed to know what they’d planned for her.
Which room would be Gibson’s? She placed her hand on the farthest door latch, and apprehension tingled through her. Who would Bakeley house in this place? Spies on holiday? And if she opened the door and found one sleeping, what would she do? She’d left her weapons in her bedchamber.I’m looking for my husband,she could say.
She remembered Agruen’s grip on her arm.
