Schneider sat on the floor and leaned against the panelled wall. The corridor was so narrow, he couldn’t even fully stretch out his legs. He crossed his arms and looked up at Georg.
“And you intend to remain here?” Georg demanded.
“The entire night, sir.” His jaw strained as if stifling a yawn. “Keeping guard.” He shuffled to the side, so his head could rest against the wooden frame of the door, and closed his eyes.
Georg looked down at him with a frown.
This was promising to be a very long night, indeed.
Chapter Eight
Evie shiftedfrom one side to the other, to ease the pressure of the hard floor against her body. Her entire left side felt sore; her arm had fallen asleep, and she had a cramp in her thigh, but now that she rolled to the other side, her right side began to hurt. There was nothing she could do to make herself feel more comfortable in this tiny, cramped room. She sat up and leaned with a sigh against the wall under the window. The laundry room was a narrow closet lined with shelves to the right and left from the floor to the ceiling, filled with linen, bedsheets and tablecloths. It smelled of starch, lavender, and that peculiar scent of iron that freshly pressed laundry emitted. It was not an unpleasant smell, but pungent and singular.
The floor provided barely enough space for one person. For two, it worked only if both were lying on their sides, stacked tightly next to each other.
How had she, Lady Evangeline Stafford-Hill, come to share her bed with a mere laundry maid? On the bare ground, too.
Evie regarded the girl next to her with a sigh. Mitzi hadgraciously offered to share her humble sleeping quarters after she had given up the bedroom she’d so painstakingly acquired earlier to the woman with her children. She had placed a thin straw mattress on the floor, with a thin woollen blanket, and shyly said that Evie was welcome to sleep here, for surely that was better than sleeping in the common room with the men. If Mitzi had not offered that, she would not have known what else to do but commit the unthinkable and sleep in a room filled with strangers, most of them travellers and soldiers. If word ever got out that the sister of the Duke of Aldingbourne had been sharing her sleeping quarters with these men…if her brother were ever to discover that…Evie shuddered. Best not think of that.
A sliver of anxiety trickled down her back, and she shifted to ease the cramp in her leg. Mitzi mumbled in her sleep and flopped over, now taking up all the remaining space on the little mattress.
Her reputation was hanging on a silken thread, ready to snap at any time. Evie sighed. No, no. It was better to be confined here, with that maid, safely stowed away from the others. Except then, two drunken men had attempted to come into the room, searching for the privy, no doubt, but Mitzi had pushed them out firmly and bolted the door.
“If anyone wants to get in now, they’ll have to break down the door,” Mitzi had said with confidence, but Evie had eyed the thin wooden door dubiously, thinking that doing so, in all likelihood, wasn’t all that difficult to accomplish.
Now sleep was gone and here she sat, pondering on the events of the day.
Part of her was thrilled that she was finally, finally experiencing a real adventure. All on her own, too, without her brother towering over her. Yet she wasn’t quite enjoying itas much as she ought. She pursed her lips and puckered her forehead as she thought ofhim.
Hartenberg.
Her bridegroom.
So entirely different from the man she’d always believed him to be. Not at all old and doddering, but very virile; almost annoyingly so, and with a confidence about him that she found most irritating.
He most definitely irritated her.
No, that was not the right word.
He’d irked and provoked her, from the moment she’d stepped off the carriage and he’d uttered those despicable words. He’d cast a single glance at her and judged her in the worst possible light. Merely thinking about it raised her hackles.
How Julius had ended up befriending a man like him remained a mystery to her. She could not possibly marry this man. She was determined to call off the engagement.
But only after she’d led him a little way up the garden path, as punishment for having called her a china doll.
And Clara? Poor Clara.
The girl was lying in bed, delirious with fever. Evie was upset that she could not be in the same room to nurse her. If only she could have had the measles when she was a child!
Earlier, Evie had thrown caution to the wind and tried to visit her room again, and found the door slightly ajar. She’d peeked inside to see whether the maid was there, and found herself lingering by the door when she saw the back of another woman standing by Clara’s bedside.
At first, she’d thought she was the maid. But she wasn’t.
She was clearly a gentlewoman; slender, tall, garbed in widow’s weeds. Black from head to toe in deepest bombazine, a twilled fabric commonly worn by women whowere in mourning. Evie would have said something to make her presence known, but there had been something odd about the woman. It was not only her appearance that was arresting, but the way she did not move at all, remaining there, staring down at Clara, until every hair on Evie’s body stood on end.
Evie held her breath, arrested, her eyes fixed on the woman. Who was she? What did she want? And why was she staring at Clara in that manner, as though she wanted something from her?
Just when Evie opened her lips to make herself known, the woman moved her head slightly and against the flickering candlelight, she saw that her profile was shrouded in a black veil that was attached to her dark hair.
