A Cold Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

followed her out of the foyer.
    We were left alone in the silent hall. Watery old portraits hung high above our heads, looking down on us with eyes that seemed all too real. My skin rippled as if the house had eyes and ears, and all were trained on us.
    At last Lucy broke her silence to stomp off toward the fire. “Would it kill them to offer us a towel?” she hissed under her breath. “Some tea? You’d think we were lepers.”
    I was glad, at least, that she’d found her voice again. We huddled around the fireplace, holding our hands toward the flame. Montgomery hung his oilskin coat on a hook by the fire.
    â€œElizabeth warned me they were out of practice with polite society,” I offered.
    Lucy scoffed. Behind her, a faded threadbare boar loomed in the heavy tapestry. “Out of practice? More like they were both raised by wolves. I can’t imagine, if Elizabeth were here, she’d tolerate their behavior. A rifle to Montgomery’s head!”
    I rubbed my hands together in front of the fire and thought of the first time I’d met Elizabeth. She’d dragged me through a kitchen window and dumped me on a hard stone floor. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by our reception after all.
    â€œWell, we are imposing on their goodwill,” I said. “I’m just grateful to be out of that carriage. Besides, Elizabeth should arrive in a few days—”
    A door slammed again and Valentina returned, though without any sort of towel or blanket for us to dry ourselves. If she noticed that we were all soaked to the bone and shivering, it only seemed to give her perverse satisfaction. “Carlyle will help your associate unload the carriage and carry the sick gentleman upstairs. McKenna said to bring you down to meet the rest of the staff. You’ve arrived at an unfortunate time. We’re in the middle of a funeral.”
    Lucy’s face went white. “Who died?”
    Valentina’s mouth quirked, the first flicker of emotion we’d seen other than sullenness. “The last group of strangers who came to this door.”
    I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
    â€œFollow me,” she said. “The ground is frozen until spring thaw. We can’t bury our bodies until then, so we hold our funerals inside.”
    I hesitated. “ Inside? But where?”
    Valentina met my eyes, and I realized that I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know where, exactly, the bodies were kept. Nor that Ballentyne Manor was anything like the safe haven I’d expected.
    â€œYou’ll see for yourself. I hope for your sake—if you truly are the mistress’s ward—you have as strong a constitution as she does, Miss Moreau.”

FOUR
    V ALENTINA LED THE WAY down the damp cellar stairs with a candle in one hand, despite the line of electric lights running alongside us.
    â€œBest not to rely on the electricity,” she explained over her shoulder. “The lights have gone out on me too many times when I’m down here alone, and it’s blacker than the devil.”
    The farther we descended, the colder the air grew. My breath fogged in the dim lights. No wonder they stored the bodies here—the temperature and sulfuric gases released from the bogs would preserve them in near perfect condition until the spring thaw, and the stone walls would keep away the vermin.
    Montgomery was close behind me, but Lucy trailed at a distance, holding her hem high so as not to drag it on the slick stones of the spiral staircase. At last we reached the bottom, where the distant sound of a droning voice came from a room ahead that glowed faintly in the electric lights.
    â€œIt was the plague,” Valentina said.
    â€œPlague?” Lucy asked.
    â€œThe ones that died. The plague killed them. Beggars following the winter fair circuit. Several women and children among them, too.”
    She spoke casually enough, as though dead children were