“Idiocy!She managed to scare off the Town servants, so she had to take this lot or hire new people during the Season while holding parties for Miranda.Girl’s got no character anyway—she’ll never take.”
“And we are not meant to know you’re here?”April said, while Piers moved with some interest toward the fireplace.
No doubt the old lady threw things and shouted at the servants in the middle of the night and made the maids cry.And the sounds all drifted up her chimney and down others, distorted and muffled as they emerged faintly from the fireplace in April’s room.
The old lady was cackling again.“She thought I might put you off coming.I drink brandy and I swear to annoy her.I’m a disreputable old harridan, a relic of a bolder age!”
“And you love getting away with it, don’t you?”April said.
The old lady’s eyes gleamed.“There’s not so much fun to be had in old age.”
“Just winding up the family and throwing things at the servants.They don’t deserve that, you know.”
“Then they should bring me my damned breakfast on time!”
“I don’t suppose,” Piers said, distracting her, “that you emerge into the main part of the house at night?”
The old lady regarded him with something like approval, overlaid with distinct mischief.“Not just a pretty face, are you?The candlesticks are mine, came with me as part of my dowry when I married Sir Justin.I heard the servants gossiping about the new tenants and decided the silver was safer with me.”
What had they been gossiping about?The “student reunion” that had alarmed Constable Barley?Or the origins of the viscountess?
“And the reticule?”April asked.
“Impulse,” said Lady Temperley without shame.
“And a bid to annoy the intruders in your home?”Piers guessed.
The old lips twitched.“Perhaps.At any rate, the girl took them away again, put them back as if no one would have noticed.That was probably funny too.I imagined your faces.”
“What a refined sense of malice,” Piers marvelled.
“Thank you,” said Lady Temperley, apparently pleased.“Now do me a favour, young Petteril, and make those lazy girls bring me my breakfast.Better still, send the boy.At least he’s got some spirit about him.”
“The boy is—er...hors de combatright now.”Piers was inspecting her walking stick for signs of blood and hair, but in truth it was beyond imagination that she was the attacker.Despite her solid aim and the devil’s own spite.“But we shall certainly pass on your message.Good morning.”
He bowed and swept April in front of him toward the bedchamber door.
“You may call on me for tea occasionally,” came the grumpy old voice.“Since you don’t bore me.”
“Thank you,” April replied.She even smiled over her shoulder, although once the door was shut, she reached up with a worried frown, touching the cut on his chin with gentle fingertips.
“It barely touched me,” he said grimly, “but it would most certainly have struck you full in the face.”
“I think it was luck,” April said ruefully.“She’s like a furious, lonely baby.”
“They lock her in,” Piers guessed.“Though I suspect the routine failed at first.”Which was how she got the candlesticks and the reticule.
Instead of returning to the staircase, he went toward the double doors at the end of the passage.They were indeed locked.And there was no sign of the key.As one, he and April walked on up the staircase.It was quite bare, though clean enough.Until recently at least, someone had swept and dusted in this part of the house.
None of the rooms on the floor above appeared to be in use.They were just storerooms for unwanted and broken furniture.Piers was more interested in the narrow stairs at the end of the passage.He led the way up, and this time found the key in the door lock.
“She can’t climb up all those stairs,” April said.“So the servants only use the attic door to move between here and the main part of the house.”
Piers unlocked the door and opened it.
As he had expected, he found himself on the same forked landing as they had discovered from the other side, one door leading to the maids’ quarters, the other to the old lady’s effective prison.
“So, Edward wasn’t actually bothering the maids when I saw him,” April murmured.“He was coming from Lady Temperley.”
