Pampered young ladies usually didn’t find themselves responsible for putting an entire castle in order that hadn’t seen a broom in forever, nor did they ever have to make do with a skeleton staff to accomplish that—how many rooms actually needed to be cleaned, she couldn’t say as of yet, although she’d wandered through thirty-two at last count. She had the sneaking suspicion there were at least thirty-two more to go, if not more, given the size of the castle.
“Missed one,” Annaliese said cheerfully as she plucked a spider from Drusilla’s sleeve, yanking Drusilla straight out of her thoughts.
Annaliese set the spider down and straightened. “I’m sure that’s all of them, but you might want to consider changing your clothes soon, and perhaps take a bath just to be on the safe side, although I wouldn’t advise you asking Mrs. O’Sullivan to heat up the water since she is, as I mentioned, testy.”
“Sound advice, but know that I’ll talk to Mother and encourage her to avoid being a nuisance with the annunciator, which might have Mrs. O’Sullivan’s testiness abating.”
Annaliese leaned closer. “Mother might not be able to be a nuisance with it for much longer because when I left the kitchen a few minutes ago, Mrs. O’Sullivan and Mr. Grimsby were in the process of trying to disassemble the lever that’s connected to Mother’s room.”
“I’m sure Mother will simply resort to ringing for Miss Tremblay, who’ll then become testy as well, since Mother set her lady’s maid the daunting task of unpacking and findingproper storage places for all of our clothes, the only thing of value we were able to salvage that the bank didn’t demand we hand over to settle some debts.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what Mother will do, but it’s better if Miss Tremblay gets annoyed rather than Mrs. O’Sullivan because I shudder to think how we’d survive if we didn’t have Mrs. O’Sullivan around to feed us.”
“We do seem to be rather deficient in kitchen skills,” Drusilla muttered.
“I believenonexistentwould be a better way to phrase that.” Annaliese brightened. “But at least we can now claim to have the basic rudiments of cleaning down, something I never imagined either of us would ever obtain and...”
The rest of Annaliese’s words got lost when the sound ofkraasrang out, a term her sister had told her was the call ravens made. In the blink of an eye, the ravens came swooshing into view, where they promptly swooshed directly up to one of the turrets and got themselves settled on their roosting spot of choice.
Annaliese shaded her eyes with her hand and directed her attention the ravens’ way. “Is it just me or have you been wondering if our dear aunt Ottilie might possess a bit of a macabre nature, given that she adored living in a creepy old castle that unquestionably possesses a rather sinister air about it?”
“It’s not just you,” Drusilla said right before the sound of a loud gong echoing through the air caused the ravens to take flight, and a second gong left her blowing out a breath. “Any guesses on who that’ll turn out to be at the front gate? Another merchant, perhaps, or yet another developer who stopped in at the Mead and Vittles and had Gus or one of the other hack drivers apprise them of the fact we’re now the owners of the castle?”
“My money’s on a developer, although let’s hope if that’s the case, and Norbert turns them away, that they’ll simply resortto pressing their face against the bars of the front gate and looking longingly at a property they covet instead of being like that man who worked for Mr. Loughlin MacSherry.” Annaliese gave a shudder. “That man was lucky he didn’t suffer a serious injury when he tried to scale the gate after Norbert told him we weren’t receiving callers and ended up slipping and almost impaling himself on one of the iron spikes.”
“I’m sure his boss wasn’t happy to learn Norbert had to cut off the man’s trousers to set him free, or happy to learn that man told Norbert that Loughlin MacSherry had sent him in the first place.”
“At least we know now that Rhenick Whittenbecker wasn’t lying when he told us that members of the criminal underworld are keen to acquire this property, since Norbert told us that Loughlin MacSherry is one of the most ruthless crime bosses in the area.”
Drusilla lifted her chin. “Rhenick Whittenbecker might not have been lying about that, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t lying about stopping by here on the pretense of merely wanting to see if Aunt Ottilie had returned home. Given that the man had the audacity to tell me that I needed to marry him—and for my own good, no less—he’s fortunate I didn’t try harder to shoot him.”
“Was it that you weren’t trying to aim at him, or that you’re really far more inept with handling a weapon than I imagined?”
Drusilla’s lips twitched. “I’ll own up to ineptness, which is exactly why Seraphina promised, after she discovered that weapons room down by the dungeons, to train me up just as soon as we find some spare time.”
Annaliese smiled. “She promised to do the same with me, as well as work with the ferrets to see if they’re capable of learning how to attack on command. It was sheer luck they took my snapping of fingers as a sign to chase off Mr. Whittenbecker.”
Drusilla returned the smile. “They did turn out to be amazinglycompetent at ridding us of that insufferable man’s presence, just as they’re turning out to be competent with ridding the castle of rodents, which has allowed us to concentrate our cleanup efforts elsewhere. But speaking of those efforts...”
She propped the handle of the broom against the now hopefully spider-free tapestry before fishing a list of chores she’d compiled that morning out of her apron pocket. After glancing over it, she lifted her head. “Next up for me is to investigate the giant fireplace in the great hall, since Norbert doesn’t know if the coal furnace is still safe to use and the nights are still rather chilly.”
“Does a fireplace need a specific investigation? I always thought you just piled logs into the grate and lit them on fire.”
“That’s what I thought as well, but Mr. Grimsby, who evidently knows a thing or two about chimneys because proper butlers are apparently supposed to be knowledgeable about such matters, believes something is blocking what he called the flue. The last thing we need is to burn the castle down, since that will truly leave us homeless and will also dash our hopes in opening up our academy.”
“Too right it would, although I’m not sure the castle, since it’s made of stone, would be easy to burn down, but there’d undoubtedly be smoke.” Annaliese’s eyes began to twinkle. “And not that this is something I’d normally recommend, but perhaps we shouldn’t clean out that flue thing completely because if Mother smelled smoke, she’d leave her room in a heartbeat.”
“Or she’d decide that Ottilie’s ghost started a fire to force her out of her room, just like she’s claiming that ghost drove her out of her first choice of rooms, those being what used to be Ottilie’s personal suite.”
“It still seems slightly suspicious that no one besides Mother has spotted so much as a whisper of an otherworldly being, which suggests that Mother either allowed the eerie nature of the castle to influence her imagination, or she feigned a ghostsighting as a way to convince you to take Mr. Whittenbecker up on his marriage proposal.”
Drusilla allowed herself the luxury of an honest-to-goodness snort. “It was a ridiculous proposal, but since the mere mention of Mr. Whittenbecker sets my teeth on edge, I’m now going to hie myself off to the great hall to inspect a fireplace.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, but you might want to check on Seraphina. She was heading back to organize some of those weapons she found, and that was a good hour or so ago. Might be best to make certain a ghost hasn’t locked her in that dingy room where the weapons are stored.”
“I don’t believe even being locked in a dingy room by a ghost would bother Seraphina. She’d probably just find a weapon capable of blasting a hole in the wall, and blast herself out of there,” Annaliese said before she turned and walked across the courtyard, disappearing a moment later.
