Shit. I am.
Goosebumps erupt on my bare arms and legs as I sit up and toss the covers back, my feet swinging down to the rug. My nipples harden beneath my tank top, and my forearms press against my chest as I scurry across the small room to my half-unpacked suitcase.
The lid is open. Moonlight spills around the edges of the curtains, giving just enough light to see by. Squinting at the huge, tangled mess of my clothes, I squat and curse and rummage until I’ve dug up some warm layers.
A pair of black sweatpants with my old school logo; a chunky set of hiking socks; a red knitted fisherman’s sweater with a thread coming loose on the left cuff. To finish: a soft periwinkle scarf wound around my neck, the ends tucked into my neckline.
By the time I straighten up, fully dressed, I look like some kind of hobo polar explorer. At least I won’t be cold on this idiotic mission, though. Huffing into the folds of my scarf, I stomp to the attic door and yank it open.
If Lord Westmore refused his dinner because of me, then I need to balance out the universe. He may be a jerk, but it turns out we’rebothcareless with our words.
* * *
Down in the kitchen, I flick on the overhead light. It’s weird being in here after hours, with all the surfaces wiped down and gleaming, no Mrs Ainslie bristling under her white cap by the hob. It’s quiet. Everything seems bigger, somehow, unconquerable, like a vast terrain of mysterious appliances and sharpened implements.
I am—technically speaking—not supposed to be here. Mr Jenkins explained during my orientation tour: all full time staff get free room and board, but those meals are to be prepared by Mrs Ainslie. We can snack freely, and help ourselves to leftovers, but cooking from scratch? Not so much. This isherdomain.
But a quick glance at the clock on the wall tells me it’s nearly midnight, and I know for a fact that Mrs Ainslie drinks a brandy in front of the boxy TV in her room every night at 9pm, then heads to bed with a grisly crime novel from the mainland library. She’ll be long asleep by now. That slammed door must have been someone else—or somethingelse. The wind, maybe.
Heart thudding, I tiptoe across the kitchen and start fishing through cupboards, trying not to let any pots and pans clang together.
Baking trays. I need a baking tray.
And a mixing bowl, weighing scales, wooden spoon, and sieve.
Flour, sugar, eggs, butter and spices.
“Oh, crap.” I skate across the polished floor tiles in my socks, turning on the enormous oven to preheat. It rumbles to life, waylouder than I want it to be, but when I strain to hear any noise in the rest of the manor…
Nothing.
Okay.
Realistically, West is probably asleep right now. He surely turned down dinner because he was absorbed in his research, not because of anythingIsaid. He’ll have forgotten all about our conversation in his study earlier today, wiping me from his mind as easily as he forgets the other housemaids. He’s famous for it among the staff. The amnesiac lord.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I measure the dry ingredients into a big glass mixing bowl. Even trying desperately to leave no trace, little puffs of flour settle over the counter tops like fine snow. I’m gonna need to scrub this whole kitchen to within an inch of its life before I leave, and even then pray to any deities listening to stop Mrs Ainslie from noticing my tracks.
It will be worth it, though.
Even sweating in my layers from stress and the heat of the oven, even risking Mrs Ainslie’s pinched glare turning on me, this caper will be worth it if it makes my grumpy boss feel less… alone.
My chest pinches, and my stomach feels weirdly hollow as I beat eggs together. God knows we all get lonely sometimes—some of us more than others. But at least whenIfeel like a desolate little speck in a huge, indifferent universe, it’s because I’m a flighty drifter who refuses to settle anywhere and put down roots. My choices have led me to these feelings.
Meanwhile, Lord Westmore lost his closest friends in a tragic accident. That’s so much worse.
AndIreminded him of that fact. Damn it.
When the baking tray slides into the oven, the cookies are raw lumps of unappetizing dough. When they come out tenminutes later, they’re golden and round and perfect, and the whole kitchen smells like ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Especially cinnamon.
Biting back a smile, I set the cookies on a wire rack to cool while I clean up the evidence of my crime. As the clock ticks toward half past twelve, with the kitchen viciously scrubbed, the oven silent, and the cookies arranged on a patterned china plate, I creep silently through the manor halls.
It all looks extra ghostly at night, with moonlight slanting through the huge glass windows and crimson rugs spread across the floors like spilled blood. Long-dead Westmore ancestors watch me from their oil paintings as I tiptoe past in my socks, no doubt rolling their painted eyes at the riff-raff the manor is home to these days.
My plan gets firmer in my mind as I pick my way between shadows: I’m gonna leave the plate on his lordship’s desk in his study for him to find in the morning. No note; no real clue that the cookies are from me, beyond the cinnamon. Plausible deniability. That’s the goal.
But when I reach the study, warm light glows around the edges of the door frame. Pages rustle inside, like the boss is flicking through a book or a sheaf of papers. Heart pounding, I lean closer to eavesdrop.
