Chapter Four
“My reticule is notin the drawing room!”Mrs.Hubble said in a tragic tones when she entered the breakfast parlour.
Piers and Grant Fosterson rose from the table politely.April and Meg Tilney remained seated, but all regarded Mrs.Hubble with some bewilderment.
“Good morning,” Piers said cautiously.“Er...any reason why it should be there?”
“Yes!I left it in the drawing room last night.”
“You probably took it to your own chamber without thinking,” Meg suggested.“I do that all the time.”
“But it is not in my room either.”
“Bound to be under a heap of Hubb’s making,” Fosterson contributed.“Never met such an untidy fellow in my life.”
“I’ll help you look for it after breakfast,” Meg offered.
Mrs.Hubble sniffed and condescended to fill her plate from the sideboard.
Peggy the maid came in bearing a tray with fresh tea and toast in a rack.She blushed as she placed them on the table, well aware that the incorrigible Fosterson was watching her with his flirty eyes.She even cast him a quick, fugitive smile before she dashed off again.
“Unwise,” Piers murmured.
“I know,” Fosterson said, amused.“But there’s no harm in looking.It’s my motto, you know.Did we agree to ride with Hale this morning?”
“We did, though he may not recall it.”
“Keith wouldn’t come,” Fosterson recalled.
“He has an assignation with Pliny.”Besides, Piers wasn’t sure Malcouldride.In any case, there was only one free horse, left for their use by Sir Dominic Temperley.Piers had sent only two mounts ahead to Temper House, and April’s little mare was not up to Mal’s weight.“Shall we give Hale an hour?”Piers suggested, rising to his feet.
Now would be an excellent time to look at the attics.He caught April’s eye, and she understood at once, although she glanced uneasily toward Mrs.Hubble, no doubt worrying about the missing reticule.In the end, attic-curiosity won.She stood demurely and left with him.
“Seriously,” he murmured as they crossed the hall to the stairs, “how many people does it take to find a reticule?Fosterson’s right.Hubb will have hidden it by accident under a mound of clothing and shoes and several sets of accounts.It only takes him a moment to cause absolute chaos.”
“But Mrs.Hubb is right, too.She didn’t have the reticule when she left the drawing room with me last night.It’s a very distinctive silk bag sewn with the tiniest glass beads.She must have left it where she was sitting.I expect Meg will find it for her...”
The servants were too busy downstairs to have begun on the bedchambers, so Piers and April walked unseen to the attic stairs where she had encountered Edward.
On the half-landing, April paused at the door and after the merest moment’s hesitation, pushed it open.She closed it again after a few seconds.“ItisMrs.Riley’s,” she said.“It’s full of recipe books and a Mrs.Riley-shaped nightgown.So this should be the maids’ side of the attic.”
Piers passed her and went on up to the top.“Is this where you saw Edward?”He pushed open the door, and was immediately confronted by two more, at right-angles to each other.He pushed the one on the left, but it didn’t budge.
“Interesting.”
April tried the one on the right, and they looked down a narrow passage.She darted down it, glancing through an open door.“Maids’ dormitory.But those must be single rooms further on.”
