Jade chose one and opened a drawer, picking up a few letters to see who they were addressed to. Alanna. She placed the letters neatly back into their pile and went to the other desk.
A small stack of papers sat on Arabella’s desk, but Jade didn’t bother with it. Anything of such importance as the evidence she sought would be hidden away. She opened drawers and thumbed through the papers, digging for anything that might indicate the event from eleven years prior.
Jade took her time, studying each piece of paper, but her search yielded no results. It was possible that Arabella had not only hidden this information but kept it locked away. Jade dropped to her knees to run her hand over the underside of the desk, searching for a secret drawer or opening. Pulling all the drawers open again, she pressed down with her fingers and felt for any type of release of a false bottom, to no avail.
So the desk was a bust. Jade checked the cabinets along the wall, but they mostly held things such as blankets, trinkets, more paper and ink for letters, and other such items. She ran her fingers along the smooth wood inside, again trying to find a latch, but found none.
Jade huffed. She hadn’t entirely expected to find what she was looking for in the first room she’d chosen to search, but she’d hoped to.
She opened the door to the left of the fireplace, which led directly into the second-floor library, carrying her candle with her. This would be a greater challenge than the morning room. A letter or piece of paper could easily betucked between the pages of a book. Jade wouldn’t consider the room cleared until she’d leafed through each and every volume. Luckily, she had all the time in the world.
Three of the walls in the room were lined with bookshelves, though they did not extend from floor to ceiling and there were gaps in between for chairs and lamps. Jade chose the first shelf to her right, starting at the bottom of the bookshelf and working her way up.
She pulled volume after volume from the shelves, fanning the pages and turning them over to see if anything was tucked inside. Once or twice, a piece of ribbon marking someone’s place or a pressed flower fell out, but nothing that Jade was hoping to find.
More light in the room might have helped her make faster progress. Jade relied on her single candle to thoroughly examine each book, but she wouldn’t risk lighting more or turning on an electric lamp and potentially attracting attention. On the off chance that a guard or a member of house staff—or even Alanna or Arabella themselves—came down the hallway, she didn’t want them to notice a light coming from the room.
The top few shelves were too high for Jade to reach on her own, so she dragged an ottoman from one of the chairs over to stand on. She checked in the books, between the books, behind the books, but as she checked off shelf after shelf, she was still coming up empty.
Creak.
The tiniest screech of hinges ripped through the deathly silence, arresting Jade where she balanced on her tiptoes on the ottoman with her hand on the spine of a book. It was a door—or a window.
Adrenaline surged through her veins as her heart pumped faster. She’d been careful, quiet. There was no reason to believe anyone was coming after her. Regardless, she had to be smart. If one of the sisters was having trouble sleeping and on her way to the library to get a book, Jade had to find a place to hide.
She hopped down from the ottoman, blowing out her candle and setting it on a table. Jade strained her ears for any hint of another sound, but she heard nothing: no footsteps, no door, no voice.
The morning room was a better place to take cover, considering both its small closet and the fact that it was less likely to be used until daytime. Jade pressed her ear to the door between the rooms, and when she decided it was safe, she opened it and returned to her previous location.
A twinge of a new scent met her nostrils, one that she had not noticed the first time she’d entered the room. She sniffed, trying to place the subtle scent and determine if she was going crazy.
It was the smell of dewy grass wafting in from the open window.
Thirty-Two
Nothing about this solo missionhad given her anxiety. Until this moment.
Now without a candle, Jade had only the few gas lanterns outside to rely on for light. She did a quick scan of the dark room, the shadows suddenly menacing shrouds keeping secrets, but saw nothing out of place. Her feet carried her to the windows, and the smell of dew grew stronger. At one of the windows, where the scent was strongest, Jade pushed on the pane, and it moved at her touch. Unlatched.
The pounding of her heart roared in her ears. Had all the windows been latched when she arrived in the morning room? She hadn’t checked. She was on the second floor, so it wasn’t unreasonable to think that one of the sisters might have left the window unlatched after a warm, sunny morning basking in the early light of summer without worry. But with tight security atLesseine, a maid would likely come behind them later and ensure all the windows were locked.
And she hadn’t smelled the dew when she’d first entered the room and pulled back the curtains.
Jade peered out over the grounds of the estate, searching for anything unusual. A fog was rolling in, settling in between the trees and clouding her line of sight.
Instinct told her she wasn’t alone anymore.
The assassin.
Her heart lodged in her throat. If he were here, who was he after? Arabella? Prince Reynauld?
Her?
She backed away from the window, breathing deeply and willing her pulse to slow. She forced herself to turn, nearly expecting to find the assassin waiting behind her. But there was no one.
A wild thought flew through her mind that the intruder might be Theo, and he was somewhere along the passage trying to find her. He knew she’d taken on one late-night solo mission, so he might be keeping a close eye to see if she would sneak out again. Maybe he had seen her scale the base’s wall and had been following her ever since.
But that would have meant he had followed her to the farmhouse.
