Hannah jerked the door open, hugging the girl to her. “Olivia! I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been worried sick.” She drew back and held the girl at arm’s length. “How’s … um—Colette, wasn’t it? Is she better now? Oh, I’m so glad to see you. Slade is impossible as a lady’s maid. Did you even know we’re married? You couldn’t have picked a better day to return. I’ll need your help right away—Isabel says we’re to expect hordes of callers.”
When the girl’s eyes brimmed with tears and her chin dimpled, Hannah’s expression wilted into a mask of sympathy. “Olivia, what’s wrong?”
She put her arm around the silent girl and led her to a grouping of delicate chairs around the fireplace. Hannah sat on the edge of her chair, soberly noting several things at once. If it were possible, the girl was even thinner. Her brown hair hung in strands around her face. There was no color in her cheeks. Neither was she in uniform. She wore a faded blue, very worn wool skirt and basque, and scuffed boots. Hannah looked deeper. The child’s face was … careworn, drawn. And she kept her gaze centered on her lap.
A tenderness piercing her heart, Hannah reached over and clasped Olivia’s thin, cold hands. “Olivia, look at me.” When she did, it was with more of a skittering, sliding glance than a direct stare. “Whatever it is, Olivia, we’ll help you. I mean that.”
Olivia finally settled her gaze on Hannah. Who nearly gasped at the flatness that pervaded the little maid’s brown eyes. “There’s nothing wrong, miss. I’m just tired, is all. And … and glad to be back.” She looked down at her lap again.
Hannah sat back in her chair. The girl obviously didn’t want to talk. Hannah knew she could make her, being her employer, but she wasn’t the heartless sort. Perhaps some cheeriness and pampering from the Garrett domestics would bring her around. Maybe Olivia’d talk to one of them. “I’m glad you’re back, too. I’ve missed having you to talk to. Remember, you’re one of the few people I can trust.”
Olivia flinched visibly and looked up, shaking her head vigorously. “No, miss—I mean, madam. I don’t think you should talk to me. Or tell me things. It ain’t fittin’ for—for your new station.” She stood up. “If that’s all, I’d like to go to my room and get into my uniform. And then I’ll come back and help you dress.”
Smarting more than a little bit from Olivia’s chastisement of her, Hannah spoke quietly. “All right, Olivia. Thank you.” The girl remained silent. Hannah sighed deeply. “That will be all, then.”
Olivia nodded and made as if to leave, but then she hesitated and shot Hannah a glance. She looked on the verge of saying something, but then she paled and dipped into a curtsy—the first one Hannah’d ever seen her execute.
Hannah dipped her head in acknowledgment and watched Olivia walk out of the room. The girl’s shoulders sagged with the weight of the world. Once Olivia closed the door behind her, Hannah turned back in her chair and stared at the empty fireplace. Thinking back over the past few minutes, she realized that Olivia hadn’t answered a single one of her questions.
That brought her to the edge of her seat. Clapping her hands on her knees, she turned to stare at her rumpled bed. A smile came to her face. Maybe Olivia hadn’t answered her, but she knew someone who had promised to get her those answers.
* * *
Never should have left her alone. His heart in his throat over Hannah’s cryptic message, Slade yanked the carriage door open, left Dudley in his wake, and bounded up the wide steps of Woodbridge Pond’s front entrance—almost before Rigby could bring the brougham’s team to a halt in the circular drive. “Send Jonathan to the club to get Champion for me,” he called over his shoulder to his bruised driver.
Slade grabbed the door’s handle, depressing the latch as he threw his weight and momentum into expecting it to open. It didn’t. He slammed into the unforgiving wood, very nearly dislocating his shoulder. He bellowed out as he clutched at his numbed arm and danced around in agony.
“I say, that looks painful. Teach you to be in such a hurry that you won’t allow Rigby to drive around to the porte cochere.”
Slade glared at the cheerful Dudley, who stood next to and dwarfed a huge flower urn on the ornamental landing. The senator’s son nonchalantly removed his gloves, slapping them against his other palm while he considered Slade with an arched auburn brow.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Ames?” Slade neither expected nor got a response from his gloating friend. The guttersnipe loved catching him in a mishmash of emotions over a woman. Still, Slade was in no mood for his friend’s taunting attitude. “Don’t help me. Just stand there like the bastard you are.”
Dudley chuckled out loud. “As you wish.” And remained standing there, like the bastard he was. He whistled a jaunty tune and reached up to remove his top hat, so he could scratch at his scalp. The sun’s rays glinted off his unruly thatch of kinky-curly, carrot-red hair, creating the effect of his head being aflame. Suddenly he turned to Slade, wearing a mock-injured expression. “By the bye, I am telling Mother what you said about me being a bastard. That doesn’t speak well of her morals.”
“Tell her. I still say it would explain a lot. And put your hat on before a passing fire brigade throws water on you.” With that, and still holding his stinging, tingling arm hard against his side, Slade stalked back to the door and kicked out a knocking tattoo with his booted foot.
The retaliation against the door seemed to ease his pain. But not to bring Pemberton. However, following his kicking with a substantial amount of voluble cursing, coupled with banging on the door with his one viable fist, finally brought the old man around. The sounds of the lock being worked from the inside … and worked and worked … caused Slade to exchange glances with Dudley. His own, fatalistic. Dudley’s, amused. The door at long last opened.
Pemberton, all starch and polish, and with a gravy-stained napkin tucked into the too-big collar of his shirt, squinted into the bright sunlight and looked down his long, thin nose at the interlopers. “I’m sorry, sirs. But the Garretts are not receiving guests at the moment. They’ve had quite a full morning and are now taking their luncheon.”
Muscles bunched to barge in, but stopped by this bit of unexpectedness, and by twenty-five years of minding Pemberton, Slade stood rooted to the landing of his family’s estate. He shot Dudley another look. Then, working the last vestiges of numbness out of his arm, Slade turned to the butler, who effectively blocked the entry with all ninety pounds of himself. “Pemberton, you old caution, it’s me—Slade Franklin Garrett.”
Pemberton blinked, lowered his head, and shaded his watery blue eyes with a brown-spotted hand. He frowned as much as he peered at the face before him. In a moment, his face lit with recognition. “I say, sir. You’re absolutely right. You are the young Mr. Garrett.” He then immediately reverted back to his butler pose, formally intoning, “One would therefore think you’d be aware of the visiting hours. The family is having luncheon. You’ll have to come back later.” He started to close the door.
Slade wedged his foot in the jamb and nearly got it smashed for his efforts. “Ouch. Dammit, man, I live here. Now move aside.” Slade wedged a shoulder around the old man and carefully pushed by him, stalking across the black-and-white marble-tiled entryway. “Where’s Mrs. Garrett, Pemberton?”
“Which one, sir? And who shall I say is calling?”
Slade stopped in his tracks and turned around—again to stare in disbelief at Dudley. That reprobate grinned a big-toothed smile and encouraged, “Well, don’t just stand there, Garrett. Tell him who’s calling. Can’t you see the man is trying to have his luncheon?”
Slade got no further than poking his index finger at his friend before feminine steps, accompanied by the one voice in all the world that could make his heart skip and stutter, echoed behind him.
“Pemberton, what is all the fuss? Is that Mr. Garrett at long last?”
Slade pivoted. And caught his breath at the sight of her. How could he have ever thought he’d simply marry her and ignore her? The Lawlesses had the last laugh again on the Garretts. For if she ever knew how gut-wrenching her effect on him was, he was doomed to a life of dancing attendance on her and being very foolish with his time and money. Somewhat like now.
But not allowing one trace of lovesickness to shade his manner, he affected a stiff posture and an instant scowl. “At long last, is it? I came as soon as I received your note, madam. And all the fuss, as you say, is due to me rushing home from the club, thinking you’re injured or dead, only to find you happily engaged in luncheon.”
“Happily engaged? I’ve been receiving callers all morning who’ve all wanted ‘all the details,’ as they put it, and I’ve been dealing with a fortune in arriving gifts. And where have you been, sir? Gone, that’s where, leaving me to fend for myself—all while being exhausted from a sleepless night last night—” Her eyes went wide and her face colored prettily.
Slade grinned evilly. “A sleepless night last night? How so?” Putting his hands to his waist, he watched her color deepen and her mouth open and close in embarrassment. Until her gaze shifted just to his right, her eyes narrowed, and her attention stayed focused there. Slade turned, too.
Dudley and Pemberton stood side by side, looking like an advertisement for a circus sideshow, what with the disparity in their sizes. Dudley’s orange and brown plaid suit next to Pemberton’s black clothes and dirty napkin only intensified the effect. Slade cringed with Dudley at Hannah’s sweetly sarcastic greeting to the senator’s son. “Why, there he is—my husband’s best man. So nice to see you on your feet and aware of your surroundings, Mr. Ames.”
Mr. Ames turned bright red and belatedly yanked his top hat off. “Good day to you, Mrs. Garrett. May I say you look especially fetching in that watered silk?”
Slade rolled his eyes. “No, you may not, you fool.” You look especially fetching in that watered silk, he mimicked in his head. His terse words garnered for him Hannah’s renewed attention. Her beautiful Madonna face glowed with an inner light all its own—in Slade’s suddenly poetic estimation.
“You shouldn’t insult your friend, Mr. Garrett.”
“I assure you, I’ve said worse to him—and only a moment ago on the front landing. Now, tell me about your note.”
She twisted her fingers together and cut her gaze from him to the two men behind him, and then back to him. “Can we speak alone, please?”
“Certainly.” His stomach tightened. But now that he knew this woman was safe, he could handle—and gladly—whatever might be awry in her world. He turned to the butler and his friend. “Pemberton, take Mr. Ames to the dining room and have Rowena fix him a plate. I trust Grandmother is still at table?”
Pemberton managed a stiff bow—with Dudley snaking a hand out to steady him—and then straightened up. “One doesn’t trust the elder Mrs. Garrett to be anywhere, when she’s out of one’s sight.” He turned to Dudley, again bowing dangerously. “This way, sir.”
Dudley waved the butler ahead of him, following him like a giant, ungainly puppy. “What has Mrs. Edgars cooked up for the menu today, old boy?”
“Some sort of charred animal carcass, surrounded by the fruit of the land.”
“Oh, bully! What rare luck—my favorite. I only hope it’s not Esmerelda. And for dessert, we’re having…?”
The two wandered off down the hallway, leaving Slade and Hannah to stare after them. But Slade ended up staring at Hannah, as always. He took a deep breath. She was more intoxicating than any liquor. With her deep-dark and shiny hair piled high on her head in thick ringlets, her sweet, creamy neck was exposed and needed kissing. She turned then, catching him.
He immediately scowled, widening his stance and punctuating his feigned displeasure with her by crossing his arms over his chest. “Now, then, what is the meaning of all this? First you push me out of bed and tell me to go away—on only our second day of marriage. Highly irregular. But I nevertheless go away.
“Then, when I’m pleasantly engaged in occupying my time—again, at your urging—you send an urgent message with Rigby telling me to come home. Which I did—pell-mell and leaving Champion hitched at the club, I might add. Only to have you chastise me for being gone. So, what in the name of all that is holy is going on?”
“Are you quite finished?” She poked her bottom lip out, which only accentuated its sensual fullness.
“No, actually, I’m not.” With his arms still crossed, Slade frowned down at her, surreptitiously clutching at his own coat’s fabric to keep from grabbing her right here—in the foyer, in broad daylight—and having her on that damned table in the center of the room. One day, he would. “I find I have one more thing to say to you. Dudley’s right. You look lovely in that watered silk. The fabric’s turned your eyes a deep green that I find … arousing.”
He watched her pinken. When she looked up at him, innocently provocative with her mouth open and her wide eyes glittering, he frowned fiercely, barely maintaining his stern pose. “Well, madam? I’m waiting.”
He watched his wife make two attempts to speak, and fail. Immediately alarmed, Slade dropped his pose, lowering his arms to his sides in an attitude of readiness. When her expression clouded and her eyes teared, he unraveled, as surely as any ball of yarn in a kitten’s clutches. He reached her in one step and held her by her arms. “For God’s sake, what is it, Hannah?”
She put trembling hands to her mouth and sniffed. “Oh, Slade. I’m so glad you’re here. It’s just been awful.” She took a deep shuddering breath, releasing it in a rush with her next words. “Olivia is back.”
“Olivia is back?” Slade repeated stupidly. He looked askance at this emotionally overwrought woman in his arms. And admitted to himself that he had no idea how these lovely creatures worked.
He did know that he’d slay dragons for her. Fight armies single-handedly and unarmed, one hand tied behind his back and blindfolded, if she asked him to. He’d even figure out this lady’s-maid dilemma for her … if he could begin to understand it. He shook his head, thinking that nothing in his previous experience in life had prepared him for Hannah Wilton Lawless … now Garrett. “But aren’t you happy about that?”
She nodded vigorously, loosing a long chocolate curl to trail over her shoulder. “I was,” she sobbed, turning a frowning mouth and quivering chin up to him. “But she’s changed. She … she doesn’t like me anymore and says nothing’s wrong and she won’t smile or chat on or race about the place and not even Esmerelda can get a rise out of her and she’s so thin and she looks so sad and then I saw Rigby and he’s been beaten by someone and is all sullen too and I just don’t know what to make of it all.”
Was that all? And all in one impressive breath, too. Blinking, relieved to his toes, he told her, “Rigby, that young cuss, got himself beat up getting his horse back from some street toughs. His pride is more bruised than his face.”
Slade relaxed. There was nothing wrong here that he couldn’t fix for her. But even more importantly, instead of acting rashly on her own, instead of dashing off headlong into danger with that little peashooter of hers, she’d sent for him. Her husband. She’d placed her problems in his hands to be solved.
She wanted, even needed his help. To Slade, it meant she trusted him. Finally. He was trusted and, yes, loved. She’d already told him that. A chip of armor flaked away from his heart. A tiny door opened. This woman loved and trusted him.
“Well, I feel better about Rigby, at least. But what about Olivia?”
He started to smile, but the new-husband voice in his head warned him that would be a big mistake. So he became appropriately serious and head-of-the-household authoritative, striving to show that her concerns were serious and important to him. “I’ll get to the bottom of this for you, Hannah. Don’t you worry.”
She firmed up her chin and shook her head at him. “You don’t understand. Something is very wrong. Very. I wrote Glory—”
“Glory?”
“My baby sister. I wrote Glory and Jacey a—”
“Oh, yes. Now I remember.”
Her voice rose impatiently. “Quit interrupting me, Slade. This is important.” To prove it, she looked all around them and then clutched at his sleeve, dragging him into the privacy of the small family salon and closing the door after them.
Slade’s eyes popped open wide at the mountain of wrapped and unwrapped gifts claiming every surface in the room. He made a sweeping gesture with a pointed finger. “All this came this morning?”
Hannah turned to him. Gone were the tears and the uncertainty. Back was his pistol-packing spitfire. “This and more. The formal parlor is full, too. I told you it’s been loco here.” Then she poked a finger at his chest, speaking in low conspirator’s tones. “Now, listen to me about Olivia. I wrote my sisters a letter this morning and asked Olivia to post it. When she left to do that, I came downstairs to help Isabel with her plans for that dinner ball—”
“Aha! I knew it. You couldn’t stop her, either, could you? And here you were ready to leave over it last night. Now you’re helping her.”
Her chin came up. “I just happen to think it makes sense today.” That settled, she launched into her story again. “At any rate, I was in the sewing room with Isabel, working on the menu for the party, when I got a chill. So, with Olivia on an errand, and me not wanting poor Serafina or Rowena to walk up all those stairs … They’re so old and their knees aren’t what they used to be. Besides, fetching for me isn’t really part of their duties. So I—”
Why do women have to give all the details and the emotions involved and every person in the house’s ailments and duties and whereabouts? Why don’t they just spit it out? Oh, well, at least I can enjoy myself watching her talk. So, with stance firm, arms crossed, Slade nodded at the appropriate moments and battered his will into forming an expression of rapt attention to her words and not her person. If Hannah ever lied, he’d know it in a moment. Her face gave her away. She wore every emotion on the perfect oval of her sweet face.
“… when I heard Esmerelda outside and raising a fuss. Afraid she’d gotten into the flower beds again—she digs something terrible—or maybe had another rat, I went to look out the window. And what do you think I saw?”
How come I haven’t noticed before now that she has a tiny mole on the highest point of her right cheek, almost to her hairline?
Hannah smacked his arm. “Slade! Are you listening to me?”
Slade jumped and focused on her. “Of course I am. Aren’t I standing right here?”
She frowned out her vexation. “Then, answer me.”
He blinked, realizing he had no clue how, and then made a sweeping survey of the room, detail by fine detail, as he desperately searched his memory for anything he recalled her saying. Finally, he looked at her and placed his newly knighted husbandhood on the line. “Esmerelda?”
Hannah laughed. Slade let his breath out. “Of course Esmerelda, silly. Didn’t I just say she was in the gardens?” Then she turned serious and still. “But, Slade, she wasn’t the only one.”
Now she really did have his full attention. A creeping coldness clutched his belly. “Who else was out there, Hannah?”
Wide-eyed, fingers all but covering her mouth, she whispered, “Olivia.”
Slade stared at her. At the silver and white wrapped packages. At the comfortably shabby damask sofa behind her. He stared as if he expected them to interpret this woman for him. He finally swung his gaze back to her. “But didn’t you send her to post the letter to your sisters?”
Hannah nodded, darkly … deeply. “Now you see. I knew you would understand. That’s why I sent for you and waited.”
Great. Slade understood nothing. Absolutely nothing. Here she’d shown her newfound faith and trust in him, and he couldn’t figure out what the hell she was talking about. Irked at himself, he frowned his eyebrows down over the bridge of his nose. “Hannah, I don’t understand one blamed thing. Not one. What have you been talking about—since I got home?”
She slumped and rolled her eyes. “For evermore. Think, Slade. Olivia was in the gardens. Do you think she’s going to post a letter in the pond? Or the summer cottage?”
He stared off blankly into space. Then, thinking he had her meaning, he looked back down at her and puffed up like an especially slow-witted student who finally has the right answer. “Ahh, you want me to berate her for not posting your letter. I’ll tend to it right now.”
Hannah screeched. Slade jumped, nearly recoiling when she gripped his arms and tried to shake him. But she succeeded only in shaking herself and getting more and more worked up. “Forget the letter! Forget it! When I saw her, she was worming her way back through the iron fence. I saw her squeeze through the bars and then watched until she ducked out of the hedges and came running back to the house. Slade, she’d been at Cloister Point.”
Slowly turning to stone as her words sank in, Slade looked right at her. And then through her. “Son of a bitch.”
Hannah exhaled a ragged breath, kept her grip on his coat, and laid her forehead against his chest. “Finally. What are we going to do?”
The despairing note in her voice only intensified Slade’s reaction. His temper reaching a quick fever-pitch, he gripped Hannah’s arms, holding her back from him. “Where is she now?”
“I sent her—” The despair on Hannah’s face suddenly bled into a wariness that rimmed her blue-green eyes in white. “No, Slade. You still don’t understand.”
Seething now, Slade gripped her tighter, roaring out, “Oh, I understand. Maybe more than you do. You’re protecting her and putting both our lives in danger. Don’t fight me on this, Hannah. Tell me! Where is she? If I have to find the little traitor myself, I’ll tear her limb from limb, I swear to God.”
“Traitor? No! Slade, you can’t. She’s not—”
Slade pulled her against him. “Where is she, for the last time?”
“I won’t tell you. She can’t be—”
“She can’t be anything but a spy for the same people who’ve had half your family murdered. And you and I are next. I won’t let that happen, do you hear me? I’ll find her myself. And when I do…” Slade trailed his sentence off, intending the ominous silence that followed.
When Hannah began to whimper and shake her head, he set her away from him, pointing at her as she backed up to the damask sofa and nearly fell over a package at her heels. “Stay here.”
Turning, he ripped open the door, held on to it, and looked back at her. “I mean it, Hannah. You put this in my hands, so now you let me deal with it.”
With that he stepped across the threshold and jerked the door closed behind him.
* * *
Sick inside, close to screaming aloud in fear as Slade slammed the door behind him, Hannah clutched at the soft and sagging sofa cushions behind her. She’d unleashed a murderous rage in Slade. He’ll kill Olivia.
That thought galvanized her into action. She jerked upright, knowing she had to stop him. But how? Being her father’s daughter, she felt in her pocket until her hand closed over the familiar shape of her pocket pistol. No. Not him. She couldn’t.
But still, she might be able to use it to get his attention. That decided, she scurried to the door and opened it. Balancing her need for stealth with her need for haste, she held her breath and listened. She heard Slade’s booted steps thundering across the foyer. Dear God. She’d never catch him. Dudley! Hannah slipped out of the room, watched as Slade began taking the stairs two at a time. She then fled down the long hallway to the dining room.
The sounds of luncheon in progress, Isabel talking and Dudley laughing, met her ears before she turned the corner into the room and grabbed their startled attention. Isabel put a hand to her throat. Dudley came to his feet and rounded the table. Hannah’s breathless momentum carried her to the table’s edge. Dudley clutched at her arms. “Hannah, what’s wrong?”
She grabbed his plaid sleeve and gasped out, “Help me. Slade’s going to … kill Olivia. Upstairs. Her room. Hurry.”
From across the table came Isabel’s shocked cry of “Kill her? Dear Lord, what on earth for?”
Hannah ignored her, knowing she didn’t dare waste time and breath on more words—or chance looking away from Dudley until she was sure he understood the urgency required. The large man stared at her for less than a second before his face hardened. “Stay here.” He let go of her, loping from the room like an angry buffalo.
Both palms flat on the table, arms straight, head hanging between her shoulders, Hannah took several gulps of air. She focused all her senses on listening for the sound of Dudley’s pounding feet on the stairs. At last, she heard him. Please, God, let him be in time. And as soon as she could get air into her lungs, she’d be right behind him. Damn this corset. She should’ve left it in the hallway where Slade threw it.
It was another moment before she realized that Isabel was at her side and patting her back. Hannah turned to her grandmother-in-law, and read the question in the older woman’s eyes.
“Tell me what happened, Hannah.”
Hannah shook her head. “Have to … stop him.”
“Stop him from what? What has Olivia done?”
Hannah turned her back on the table, perching her bottom against its edge. “Olivia was at Cloister Point. I saw her sneaking back through the fence.”
Isabel never even blinked. Her face became a hard mask. “Then Slade must throw her off the property.”
Hannah held the white-haired woman’s steady gaze. When her breathing calmed more, she spoke her mind. “What if she’s not guilty of anything?”
Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Your own word for her behavior was ‘sneaking.’ Now, obviously you don’t think she went over there for tea, or you wouldn’t have sent for Slade. Am I right?”
Contrition sending her gaze to her slippers, Hannah nodded.
“I’m afraid there’s only one explanation, Hannah. And you know what it is—she’s in collusion with Cyrus and Patience.”
Hannah looked up at Isabel, putting a hand on the older woman’s thin, satin-covered arm. “Couldn’t there be another explanation?”
“I can’t imagine what it could be.”
Hannah lowered her hand to grip the table’s edge. “I can’t believe there’s an underhanded bone in Olivia’s body. If she has dealings with them, they’re forcing her somehow.”
“More like bribing her. That’s their style.”
Had Olivia betrayed her? “You honestly think Olivia would accept money to endanger my life?”
Isabel shrugged. “It’s possible. Money does strange things to some people. You need look no further than next door for proof of that.”
Hannah knew everything Isabel said was true. But she just couldn’t believe it. Or accept that she might have to deal with Olivia too when retribution was dealt. “I hope you’re wrong, Isabel.” Hannah firmed her lips and shoved away from the table, heading for the room’s entryway.
“Hannah?”
She stopped and turned back to Isabel, waiting. Isabel stood where she’d left her, her hands clasped under her bosom. She appeared very small, very old. “If we act harshly with Olivia and are wrong about her, at least you’ll be alive. But I couldn’t bear knowing you died because we were right—and yet did nothing. We did that before with Cyrus. And it cost you dearly.”
Hannah held Isabel’s gaze as she took her words to heart. “Yes, it did. I understand your concern. But there just has to be another explanation.”
Isabel put a hand down on the table beside her. “But there isn’t. Olivia has betrayed you. Is not Slade’s reaction the same as yours when you found your parents? And then, was it not a desire for revenge that brought you here?”
Stung by the truth, Hannah nodded at the older woman.
Isabel went on, in a softer tone. “We feel the same way about protecting you. My grandson may not realize it yet himself, but he loves you. As do I.”
Fat, hot tears filled Hannah’s eyes. She raised her head, trying to blink them back and maintain her shaky control. “I love you, too. But this goes beyond that. Guilty or not, I can’t allow Slade to harm Olivia.”
Isabel sighed. “I tell you, he won’t harm the girl. But go, if you must.”
“I must, Isabel. You didn’t see his face or hear his words. I did.” With that, Hannah slowly turned away. Once she was out of Isabel’s sight, she took to her heels, certain the demons of hell were chasing her. Perhaps they were, and perhaps their names were Revenge.
Hannah clutched at her skirts and flew up the stairs. By the time she’d climbed almost to the third floor, her lungs burned and her legs wobbled. Gasping, holding on to the stairwell’s wall with every step, she kept her sight on the landing ahead of her. The servants’ quarters.
Gritting her teeth in determination, she triumphed over the last few stairs. Finally she stood on the landing. Clutching at her skirts, Hannah looked up and down the long hallway that stretched to either side of her. Something’s wrong. She cocked her head like Esmerelda did when she heard a bird chirping. But Hannah heard nothing, save her own rasping attempts at breathing. Sweat trickled down her spine and between her breasts. There was a faint ringing in her ears. Other than that, the hallway was ominously quiet. Hannah fished in her pocket for her pistol and drew it out.
Hannah tried not to think about whom she intended to use her weapon on as she looked at door after door after door down each corridor. All of them the same, all of them closed. Did she have time to try them all? Indecision mounted while Hannah chewed at her bottom lip, hoping for a sound. A bump against a wall. Anything to alert her to where they were.
Just then, a scream, as jagged as lightning on a summer night, tore through the hallway’s silence.