by D D Croix
“I know what you were doing. Is it done?”
“Yes, sir. Just as you asked. Everything is as you requested.”
“Good. Mr. Jameson, would you mind if I borrowed Mr. MacDougall? There’s a matter concerning the Queen’s masquerade, if you don’t mind.”
The words were polite enough, but there was no mistaking that Mr. Jameson was being dismissed.
“Of course, sir,” he said. “If you won’t be needing anything else then, Mr. MacDougall?”
“No, no, Jameson. And thank you again.”
“Quite all right, sir. Quite all right.” Then he made a clicking sound through his teeth that sent the horses lurching onward.
At that, the men said their goodbyes, and we heard the gate close and the cart trundle away. When the low voices and footsteps faded, Mr. Wyck peered around the corner. Then he stepped away from the wall.
I did the same.
But I still had questions.
“You truly did not know about the girl?” I asked as he continued to watch Jameson lead the horse cart toward the mews.
He wheeled on me. “Are you accusing me of something, Miss Shackle?”
I froze. I wasn’t even sure anymore, but I hated the feeling of not knowing. Of being afraid. I did my best to stand my ground. “Should I?”
“Absolutely not.” His cheeks flushed, his eyes flared, and his anger wrapped about him like a suit of armor.
It was an emphatic denial, and it was difficult to reconcile that earnest expression—that pained expression—with one who could carry out such a despicable act.
Could he look me in the eye and lie so convincingly? I simply didn’t know.
“I should get back to the kitchen,” I said. I had no more courage to press the matter. “Thank you for your help last night, but I won’t trouble you any further.”
He stepped aside to let me pass. He didn’t smile or even nod. Instead, he glanced away and muttered, “Somehow I doubt that.”
The insult twisted a furious knot inside me, but I swallowed my snide reply before it could slip off my tongue. Let him have the last word. I’d be lucky enough to get away.
~ ~ ~
I cursed Mr. Wyck’s audacity all the way to the kitchen. And where was my dragonfly? Why wouldn’t she show herself when I needed her? She knew something about Mrs. Crossey she wasn’t telling me, and probably something about the girl on the Slopes, too. A dozen times I thought I caught her buzz, but each was something else. Leaves rustling. A bird chirping. A gardener whistling in the distance.
When I finally reached the kitchen gate, there was still no sign of her.
“Where are you?” I whispered through gritted teeth.
By now I was long past tardy and well into dereliction of duty, but I had to find her. I wouldn’t have another chance until after nightfall. So, despite the fury I knew I would face, I went through a back corridor to the East Terrace and the Slopes, where I’d seen her last.
In the garden, I shaded my eyes and peered around the rosebushes. “Dragonfly, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
I followed the path I had taken the night before. I called out at intervals with no reply. At the castle wall gate, I grabbed the usual rock to prop it open and lifted the hinge.
As I did, I saw someone standing on the other side. A tall, uniformed someone with his back to me, and beyond him a half dozen others wading through the tall grass with sticks.
The one in front of me turned and held out his hand to stop me from coming any closer. “This area’s off limits, Miss. No one’s allowed past this point.”
“But why?” I faked an innocent look. “Did something happen?” I rose on my tiptoes to see over his burly shoulder. How far had they searched? Were they at the trees?
“Nothing for you to be concerned about. Just go back inside.” He shooed me with a flutter of his sausage-sized fingers.
I stepped back and stumbled on a pebble. I thought he reached out to steady me, but he grabbed the edge of the door instead and yanked it shut.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mrs. Crossey was tending a fresh batch of porridge when I reached the kitchen. Without disturbing her, I went to a pile of day-old bread loaves on our table. A bundle of herbs, cream, butter, eggs, and sausage links sat nearby. So it would be a savory bread pudding in the Servants’ Hall tonight. I picked up a knife and set to work dicing a bread slice into cubes.
“You’ve been in the Queen’s room all this time?” Mrs. Crossey slanted a look my direction.
“Not exactly.” I scraped a handful of cubes into an empty bowl before starting on the next slice. I glanced around, making sure no one was near enough to hear. “Did you hear about the girl on the Slopes?”
Clank!
I whipped around to find Mrs. Crossey fishing her ladle out of the pot.
“How did you hear about that?” she whispered back, wiping the wet handle with a dishtowel draped over her shoulder.
“The Queen’s ladies mentioned it. Not to me, of course. I overheard them.”
“Gossiping as usual.” She sighed in a way that made her whole chest heave. “Still, you should have been finished and back an hour ago. Mr. MacDougall has already been by. He wants to speak with you.”
“Just now?” I asked.
She nodded.
That must have been a quick conversation with Mr. Bailey. “What did he want?”
Her forehead wrinkled beneath a silver curl that had escaped from her bonnet. “Who knows, but he didn’t look happy. Did something happen? I mean, with the Queen.” She gave me a pointed look.
I deposited another handful of diced bread into the bowl and dodged her gaze. “Of course not. It was only firewood.” There was no point mentioning that awkward moment with Her Majesty. “I did see Abigail, however. So she’s a parlor maid now?” I tried to keep the envy out of my voice, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding.
“Abigail is not your concern,” Mrs. Crossey snapped. “Tell me what delayed you.”
“Nothing. I told you.”
Mrs. Crossey set down her spoon and waved me to a more private corner. “You’re lying. Don’t pretend otherwise. Now tell me why.”
How did she know? There was no earthy reason she should, but she did. Excuses raced through my head—some outright lies, some only partially so. I settled on a partial truth. “I needed some fresh air. It frightened me. That girl on the Slopes. What if it had been me? What if it was supposed to be me?”
She watched me as she mulled that over. “It is rather upsetting,” she said at last.
I bit my bottom lip.
Her suspicion returned, and she didn’t so much look at me as bore holes through my skull. “There’s still something you aren’t telling me. What is it?”
I cringed. How in the world did she know? “While I was out, I saw Mr. Wyck.”
Her eyes widened then her face reddened with fresh rage, and in that moment, I saw an unmistakable family resemblance. Headmistress Trindle had turned that same furious look on me many times over the years. “I told you,” she said, “and quite clearly that you were to stay away from him.”
She paused and pulled back to allow a cook to pass us on his way to the pantry. When he was out of earshot, she resumed with only slightly less anger. “I specifically said you weren’t to speak to him.”
“It wasn’t my fault. He approached me.” I could see that didn’t appease her. “If it’s all the same,” I continued, “I hope I never speak to him again. I don’t like him. He’s rude, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one responsible for what happened to that girl.”
That got her attention. “Why? Did he say something?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
There were so many reasons, and they all swept through me, a churning sea of anger and frustration. But at the center of the storm, at its very core, one complaint rose above the others because it terrified me. I lowered my voice to little more than a breath. “I told you
already. He touched me, and there was no vision. Absolutely nothing.”
“That’s your concern?”
Wasn’t it enough? “Yes, and he was there. He was on the Slopes when the attack happened. If someone murdered that poor girl, it had to be him.”
“Murdered? How do you know she was murdered?”
“What else could it be?”
“Any number of things, I suppose. You shouldn’t jump to such a conclusion without good reason. Do you have any proof?”
I didn’t, of course. And what was worse, now that I’d heard the accusation aloud, it sounded insane even to me. “You’re right. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what came over me.”
Mrs. Crossey closed her eyes and shook her head. I could see her shoulders sink beneath an invisible weight. “I filled your head with fear, that’s what did it. It’s no wonder you’re seeing danger at every turn. Maybe I was wrong to drag you into this.”
“Don’t say that.” I didn’t like seeing her this way. Broken, discouraged. “Perhaps I said more than I intended. I do want to help the Queen, especially if she’s in danger.”
She looked at me as though she were trying to decide if I was telling the truth. It was a surprise even to myself, but it was the truth. At least I was starting to think it was. I was always grateful for my job. I knew what ills befell many of the girls like me, orphans with no family or prospects. But the job was just a job. A simple reprieve from the streets or a workhouse.
I had no particular love for it, but being in the Queen’s presence today, hearing her speak to me no less, made it all feel different somehow. Not like I was important or anything so grand, but like what I did mattered, that it had purpose. Yes, that was the word, purpose, and I hoped Mrs. Crossey sensed my sincerity.
The way she scrutinized me now, I couldn’t tell.
“When you were in the Queen’s room, did anything happen?” she asked.
“Like I said, Abigail was there.” I considered telling her about the girl’s accusation but thought better of it. “But I didn’t feel anything.”
“Are you sure?” There was that strange, unblinking stare again. The muscles in the woman’s cheeks twitched.
“Abigail accused me of stealing, but I only wanted to touch one of the framed photographs on the mantel,” I blurted then gasped. Why on earth had I said that?
“Photographs? Why did you want to do that?” Her eyes remained fixed on me in that peculiar way.
Say nothing. I pressed my lips together, but the answer burst out anyway. “I thought I might see something about the Queen.” My hands shot to my mouth. What was happening to me?
“But you didn’t touch anything?”
I shook my head.
Finally, Mrs. Crossey looked away. She tapped her lips and muttered, “So Abigail is assigned to the sitting room now. How unfortunate.”
When her gaze left me, so did the strange compulsion. “You did something to me, didn’t you? How did you do it?”
She shook her head and led me back to our stove. “A conversation for another time.”
I watched her return to the porridge and our ordinary routine, but I was now absolutely certain that this woman was anything but ordinary.
~ ~ ~
The hours passed quickly in the Great Kitchen as work progressed on the nighttime meals, the centerpiece of which was a royal reception in the Waterloo Room for a contingent of German and Austrian dignitaries.
All around Mrs. Crossey and me, cooks and sous chefs and assorted maids worked on a trio of potages, a poisson, a goose stuffed with wild mushrooms and rice, asparagus with a frothy mousseline, a mocha souffle, and an array of jellied fruits and ices for dessert.
I, however, worked on batch after batch of savory bread pudding for the Servants’ Hall, baffled at the way everyone carried on without the slightest acknowledgment of the tragedy that had struck just beyond the castle wall.
There were no inquiries into the comings and goings of the staff to discover if anyone had witnessed anything that might be useful to the investigation. There was no call for vigilance. Nothing.
It was all so peculiar.
I would have thought no one even knew except by mid-afternoon the whispers and huddled conversations, meaningful glances, and conspiratorial visits to the pantry were unmistakable.
But rather than discuss it, it was as if everyone was holding a collective breath. Was it possible they all believed, as Mrs. Crossey seemed to, that it was merely an unfortunate accident?
I certainly didn’t. And I couldn’t stop myself from watching every door that opened and eying every person that strolled through our midst. Perhaps my suspicions would come to nothing, and if that was the case, then no one would be happier than I.
Until then, I watched and I listened and I waited.
After the final batch of bread pudding was dispatched to the oven, I gathered my dirty bowls and utensils for the washing maids. I cleaned the cutting board as Mrs. Crossey assembled the leftover ingredients. “I can return those to the pantry, if you like,” I said.
She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “No. I can take it from here. You’ve done enough for today.”
I had?
She gave me one of her motherly looks. “You need to rest,” she whispered. “We have a long night ahead.”
I was too tired to argue. After two nights of little sleep and a long day on edge, the thought of crawling into bed made me weak in the knees. I yearned for my pillow. I nodded and scraped the last sausage nubs free from the board. “Midnight, then?”
She shooed me from my place and took the cutting board. “Midnight. Mr. MacDougall’s office.”
I grabbed a clean dishtowel, wiped off my gloves, and headed for the door.
“And, Jane,” she said, a warning in her voice, “no side trips tonight.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After midnight, after all the meals have been served and all the sous chefs and cooks and maids and pages have retired for the night, a certain stillness descends on the Great Kitchen. The busy worktables and stoves stand empty, the copper pots and pans hang silent, and an eerie darkness fills the lantern roof windows that usually glow with sunlight.
At least that’s how it seemed when I slipped in at the witching hour on my way to meet Mrs. Crossey. The only soul in sight was the nighttime cook, who was already propped back in his chair beside a stockpot, a simmering beef broth by the smell of it, probably for the next day’s use. He appeared to be asleep.
Lucky man. Every time I drifted off, I inevitably returned to images of the attack. As if they were always there, waiting for me. And now, to know a young woman had lost her life out there certainly didn’t help.
As much as I didn’t want to believe Mrs. Crossey’s warnings, that girl’s death had given them credence.
I tried to console myself with the reminder that the Constable and his men were investigating and the castle guards would be on high alert. It was the only thought that gave me comfort as I waited in the darkness, watching the moon creep across the starry sky through our room’s sliver of a window.
It had seemed an eternity before that glowing crescent finally crested, when I could slip out of bed—quietly so as not to disturb Marlie’s sleep—and make my way to meet Mrs. Crossey.
Passing the snoring cook on tiptoes, I had nearly reached the corridor that led to Mr. MacDougall’s door when the sound of slow footfalls stopped me short.
I turned, expecting to see Mrs. Crossey, but I saw no one save the sleeping cook. I listened again but heard only the thumping of my own heart. Then the cook’s long, sonorous snore.
My fears really were getting the better of me.
“Roaming again?”
The familiar tenor stopped me mid-stride. I resisted the urge to run. It would do no good anyway. With his larger size, he could catch me if he wanted.
Carefully, I turned to find Mr. Wyck leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and his lips tucked up in a sly grin.
> “I’m not roaming.” I hoped the irritation in my voice masked my trembling.
He pushed off the wall. “Then what else could you possibly be doing here at this hour?”
My cheeks burned. I tried to swallow and failed. “What’s it to you?”
He straightened, making his already greater height even more so. He sensed my fear. I could see it in the way the light danced across his dark eyes.
I swallowed hard and backed away.
“Oh, there you are!”
The cheerful voice sent me spinning again. In the darkened hallway near Mr. MacDougall’s door, Marlie appeared. My roommate strode toward me with a bright smile and a happy bounce in her step.
I stared at her, dumbstruck. Hadn’t I left her sleeping in our room? I was certain I had, but here she was as wide awake as ever. She looked from me to Mr. Wyck then approached us both. In an exaggerated whisper, she said to me, “Did you find the leftover scones? I found some lemon curd.” She lifted one of the canner’s prized jars and waved it.
“I was just about to.” I didn’t know why I was playing along or why she was pretending to be my friend, but there seemed no other choice.
She glanced coyly at Mr. Wyck. “Will you be joining us for a midnight snack, then?”
Was she flirting with him? I wanted to stop her, warn her, but I could only stare in horror.
To my relief, he retreated to the shadows. “I was just on my way back to the mews.”
“Are you sure?” She wagged the jar again. “There’s more than enough to share.”
Let him leave!
She paid no attention to my silent plea.
He backed away until he was at the door. “No, but thank you.”
“Your loss,” she demurred. “And you won’t tell anyone where this jar disappeared to, will you?” She gave him a dopey, guilty grin.
“Won’t say a word. If you’ll excuse me.”
He pushed out the door and disappeared into the darkness. Only when he was out of sight did I realize I was holding my breath. I let it go with an audible gush of relief.