I perked up. “Udolpho Castle?” I echoed. I tried not to seem too interested, even if my hopes were tied up in the retreat. “What’s that?”
“You’ll find out eventually. The family makes at least one trip out to that dreary pile of stones each year.” She glanced up at the open door briefly before leaning into me. “The place is haunted, you know. I’ve heard it myself. The walls themselves moan.”
I shuddered, trying to discern whether Annette was teasing me or not.
She looked serious.
But haunted or not, Udolpho might be my best chance at independence. Good thing I didn’t believe in ghosts. After all, it clearly hadn’t hurt the Montoni family over the years. A drafty castle was bound to be better than a padded cell.
A figure was suddenly standing in the doorway, and we both looked up expectantly. A woman was holding a bouquet of flowers. “Is this Lady Morano’s room? I’m to arrange these for her.” She smiled and stepped into the room. “Perhaps you could fetch a vase for me?”
I blinked. Her red hair was a stark contrast to her plain black uniform, and those freckles spread across the bridge of her nose … She clearly wasn’t a member of the household staff. Had she been sent to the château with this delivery? I narrowed my eyes as I suddenly placed where I’d seen her before.
I straightened. “What are you doing here?”
The woman tensed and then scowled as she recognized me from the hedge maze. “No need to cause a scene.” She tossed the bouquet of flowers aside, dropping the pleasant tone of her voice. “Give me a moment alone in her room and you’ll never see me again.”
Never see her again? I didn’t understand her need for subterfuge unless it was for a sinister reason. Did she plan on doing something untoward to the room? An act of vandalism? Or was she looking to steal items of value? I felt uneasy as I noted the dangerous gleam in the girl’s eyes, as if she wouldn’t balk at doing me harm to have her way.
I met Annette’s startled gaze and nodded to her. Annette frowned, but walked to the door, giving the mystery woman a wide berth. As soon as she crossed the threshold, I said “Get Grimes. Quick.”
The girl growled and spun toward Annette, but the maid had already scampered up the hallway. When she turned back to me, I was brandishing the only thing I could find within reach that could fend off a dangerous person: a fireplace poker. I held it up threateningly.
“You can just leave now, before he gets here,” I said.
The woman eyed the poker in my hands, before searching the vanity behind me. She gave a frustrated grunt before whirling away and fleeing into the hall.
I held my ground for another minute before peeking into the hallway. The mysterious woman had vanished, but Montoni hustled up the hall toward me, Annette at his heels.
“Where is she?” Montoni demanded when he reached me, his eyes finding the poker in my hand.
“Gone, my lord. She fled.”
“And you didn’t go after her?” Montoni roared and slapped me.
My head snapped to the side, and I gasped. The blow had been vicious, and my cheek stung fiercely. I held a hand up to it, shocked by the actions of this man. If only he knew who he had attacked so ruthlessly.
When I looked back up, Montoni was heaving, his face red. Suddenly I understood Blanche and Henri’s fear.
“You,” he growled. “You’re the one who found the hand off the footpath.” He sneered at my surprised look as I wondered how he had uncovered that detail. Hadn’t Grimes wanted that kept secret?
“The gendarmerie warned me about you,” he said, as if hearing my thoughts. “Trouble has a tendency to follow you, doesn’t it?” He leaned into me, and I shrank back, bracing myself in case he should strike me once more. “I’m watching you,valet.If anything else goes awry around here, I know who to seek out.”
I gaped at him. Was he threatening me?Me?Because I had innocently stumbled upon a severed hand and had the audacity to report it, as was my duty? He must have realized that I had just stopped an intruder from accessing his niece’s room, and yet he blamed me for this? And now I was under Montoni’s scrutiny. It would make it harder to uncover anything of consequence that he might be hiding.
Aside from that ugly temper.
“Uncle?”
Montoni’s head turned back up the hallway as Henri appeared. When Count Morano saw me cradling my cheek, his face hardened. “What happened?”
“A woman tried to enter your sister’s bedchambers,” Montoni declared, scowling. “These two deterred her.”
“And that earned him a beating?”
Montoni grunted and turned to me. “What did she look like?”
Annette stepped forward. “Red hair, sir. In her early twenties, I’d say.”
