A drawer was pulled open. Unable to see anything through the thick curtain, Jade could only assume they were retrieving the same poison she had just discovered.
Jade clung to the stonework surrounding the window frame, her feet one in front of the other on the narrow ledge. This would be so much easier if she weren’t in an evening gown and high-heeled shoes.
“I’ll want this done as soon as possible,” Grannam continued from within the room. “No delays. We have no time to waste.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” the other man replied. “It will be done at the next opportunity.”
Without a line of sight into the room, Jade had no idea who this associate of Lord Grannam’s might be. The two men she’d been unable to get a good look at in the sitting room earlier were easily identified at dinner: Phillipe, Grannam’s son and husband to Helene, and Harold of Remcourt, Grannam’s cousin and the father of Harrison, Simon, and Cecile. Jade doubted the man in the war room with Grannam at the moment was either of those men, but she couldn’t say for sure without laying eyes on him. Grannam spoke frequently to them at dinner, and their conversation in the shadows of the sitting room appeared suspicious now in retrospect. Both were likely on Grannam’s side and working with him, but did that mean he had employed one of them as an assassin? No, the assassin was clearly a trained killer. But either one could be simply another link in the chain that led to him.
“And what about payment?” Nothing in the man’s tone betrayed fear at such a bold request. If anything, he was self-assured.
“Payment will be sent when the job is done. No sooner.”
“It’s as though you doubt my abilities.”
A pause, the tension in the room evident even without Jade witnessing the scene.
“Don’t play me for a fool. You know I am going to be king,” Grannam said, his voice pointed and low—a warning. “You don’t want to cross me.”
Blood pounded in Jade’s ears. Grannam was going to be king. Was that his own wishful thinking, or did he have it on good authority somehow? It might explain his and Arabella’s moods at dinner. What had transpired between them? Was he planning to kill Arabella?
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Your Grace,” the man said, unperturbed, his voice as slippery as before.
Jade itched to peer past the window and see who spoke. She didn’t know the voices of every member of the royal family, but she’d heard each of the men present for dinner, and this voice didn’t match any of them. This man had either been waiting somewhere or had arrived for a clandestine meeting with Grannam after dinner. Jade made a mental note to ask Theo if he saw anyone new come to the palace after the dinner had begun.
“After you, then,” Grannam said as the door latch clicked.
Footsteps shuffled before darkness shrouded the room again. Another click and a soft thud told Jade the door had closed, and the bolt slid into place, locking her back inside.
Jade’s shoulders fell, and she allowed herself to take a full breath. She crept along the ledge, peeking through the gap in the curtain to assess the room, but she saw no trace of its previous occupants.
She shuffled back to the slim opening she’d left between the large window panes and pushed the open one, but her slick-bottomed shoe slipped on the stone. Jade’s heart dropped. Her body tipped backward, and Jade reached out in front of her, grabbing the wooden window frame and pulling her body through. She stumbled onto the floor but managed to keep her footing well enough. The noise she had made worried her the most. Without another move, she stopped and listened, waiting to see if anyone came rushing back to the war room.
But no one came. Jade’s blood pumped wildly through her veins, and she inhaled deeply to bring her heart rate back down as she returned to the cabinet where she’d found the poison. She switched on the lamp again andopened the drawer in question to confirm Grannam had given the poison to the man.
But the box sat untouched where Jade had left it. She reached in and flipped open the lid, finding the same amount of poison as before. Her mouth fell open as her brows pulled together.
If Grannam didn’t give the strange man this poison, what had he given him?
Jade couldn’t linger and try to find out. After being trapped in the room by the appearance of the two men, she’d spent entirely too long away from the group. Marguerite had likely sent a search party out for her by now, and Jade didn’t want to be found lurking on the second floor.
With a sigh, Jade shut the drawer, turned off the lamp, and crept to the door, unlocking it as before with her hairpins. She peered into the corridor and found no one, then stepped out and locked the door once again. Keeping her eyes peeled and her ears perked, Jade rushed to the back staircase and to the first floor, thankfully not encountering a soul. She fell back into the character of Elena Tavigne, who had unfortunately lost her way trying to return to the sitting room from the lavatory.
When she rounded the corner that took her down the passage with the lavatory, she found Marguerite approaching the door and raising her hand to knock. Jade let out an overdramatic cry of relief and rushed toward Marguerite.
“Oh thank goodness! I must have turned the wrong way out of the lavatory. I became completely lost trying to find my way back. I was afraid I would wander all night!”
Marguerite approached her, grabbing both her hands and holding them up in the air between them to reassure “Elena.” “I was starting to grow worried! You’ve been gone for so long!” She turned to head in the direction of the sitting room and hooked her arm through Jade’s, strolling along the hallway with her. “I’m afraid we played a full game without you, but I came to look for you before the second.”
Jade smiled sweetly at Marguerite. “How kind of you. I’m looking forward to joining you for the next one.”
The door to the sitting room lay ahead, but the butler met the ladies in the hallway and stopped them before they entered. He still appeared distressed from dinner, but some new emotion edged his features. Curiosity, perhaps?
“Lady Elena, it appears your driver is at the door.”
Jade’s heart jumped to her throat. What was Theo doing there? If he had noticed something suspicious, could it not have waited until they were back at headquarters?
Marguerite frowned and faced Jade. Jade mirrored her expression, the confusion not an act.
