The kitchen of MacAlasdair’s house was far more conventional than the cook. It included a black stove like a mountain of ironwork, shelves of stoppered jars, racks of pots and pans, and smoke-stained walls ascending toward rafters that Mina could barely see. Even though it was only dusk, the stars not yet out, the shadows were deep in the corners of the room. Sitting at the long oak table in the center of the room, she felt dwarfed and mouse-like.
Tea helped. She added three lumps of sugar to her cup, stirred, and sipped.
“You haven’t been here long, Alice says,” she began.
“Well, not here,” said Mrs. Hennings, gesturing around the room. The light caught a gold ring on her hand.Mrs.was more than a courtesy title, then, at least for her. “I’ve been in London for some years now. Worked at Bailey’s before his lordship hired me.”
“The hotel?” Mina grinned. “When I was small, we used to watch the people going in, some nights. My brother and sister and I. Saw all kinds of lords and ladies. George used to swear he spotted a sultan or a rajah or the like once, but Alice and I never credited it.”
Mrs. Hennings joined Mina in laughing. The atmosphere in the room lightened a little, although when Mina glanced toward the corner of the room, the shadows seemed even deeper.
Well, it was getting on toward night.
“He might have been telling the truth, at that,” said Mrs. Hennings. “We had a few.” She set down her teacup. “But that isn’t why you wanted to talk to me.”
“No,” Mina said. “Actually, I was hoping you could tell me something about his lordship. What kind of a man he is.”
Mrs. Hennings’s eyebrows lifted. “I see,” she said. “Made you an offer, has he?”
“Lord, no!” Mina’s face burned. The topic was embarrassing enough, but a sudden, treacherous memory of MacAlasdair’s powerful body leaning over her desk suggested that such an offer might have its attractions.
She couldn’t meet Mrs. Hennings’s eyes for a moment. She looked off into the corner again, and this time she thought she saw something move.
Well, rats showed up in the best-kept kitchens, Mina had heard. She didn’t want to call anything of the kind to the cook’s attention, though.
“He’s…he came to visit my employer the other day,” she said, “and he seemed cross. I was hoping to find out—”
She hesitated, caught between several choices of phrase. “Whether he’s actually a murderer” was almost certainly too blunt. “What exactly is wrong with the man” probably was too. And she didn’t want to bring Moore into it unless she had to.
More movement caught her eye. That was alargerat, if it actually was a rat. A cat, maybe? If so, Mina was surprised it wasn’t under the table begging. In her experience of cats, their reaction to food was almost universal.
“Hoping to find out if there’s anything I can do to help things go more smoothly,” she finished belatedly.
“That would depend on what ‘things’ are, wouldn’t it?”
“I wish I knew,” said Mina.
Mrs. Hennings smiled quickly, which might have been either sympathy or a rebuff. “His lordship’s a private creature, I fear. Certainly doesn’t confide in me, at least not about anything other than a fondness for lemon tart.”
“But he’s a pleasant enough man, generally? Not angry or demanding?”
“Pleasant enough from what I’ve seen. If he does cut up rough with anyone, it’s not been me, nor any of the maids. I’d have known, believe me.” Mrs. Hennings rolled her eyes.
Mina smiled, remembering some of Alice’s stories of hysterics in the scullery. “Speaking of maids,” she said, “I suppose they’re all out at the moment? I’ve heard his lordship’s generous that way.”
“The night’s too pretty to be inside, if you’ve a choice in the matter.” Mrs. Hennings made a wry face and patted her left knee. “I broke this as a girl, and it’s never been quite right since, so I’m as happy to sit down at the end of the evening. As long as—what the bleedinghell?”
Her gaze had suddenly focused on something over Mina’s shoulder, something that had drained the blood from her face. Mina whipped her head around to look.
There was a man stepping out of the shadows.
No, not a man.
Not entirely.
It was nothing but shadow and silhouette, something that didn’t quite look human. It stepped unerringly toward them, moving with a slowness that was more frightening than speed.
It had no need to hurry.
