A Cold Legacy Read Online Free PDF

as common as the sheep dotting the landscape. Lucy gasped, but Valentina’s straightforward attitude didn’t bother me. Back in London, it was all high tea and polished silver. Very refined, very polite. At least these people, sullen though they were, didn’t deny the dangers around them.
    Lucy lifted her skirts higher, as if the plague might be lurking in the damp stone underfoot, and Valentina smirked. We followed her through an open doorway into a chamber where a dozen or so servants, most of them young girls, gathered around a brass cross set on an altar.
    â€œA chapel?” Lucy whispered to me. “In the cellar ?”
    I nodded. I’d heard about places like this. In such cold climates, when going outside was nearly impossible half the year, old households had built chapels indoors. Parts of this one, crumbled as it was, looked as though it dated back practically to the Middle Ages.
    A few of the girls looked up when we slipped in, curiosity making them fidget. None were dressed as puritanically as Valentina, though all their clothes were rather dour and old-fashioned. It was a stark contrast to their bright eyes and red cheeks. Clearly they hadn’t known or cared about any of the deceased, because I caught a few excited whispers exchanged about Lucy’s and my elegantdresses, and Montgomery’s handsome looks.
    Valentina shushed them and they snapped back to attention.
    At the head of the room stood an older woman with a red braid shot through with white hairs, who wore a pair of men’s tweed trousers tucked into thick rubber boots. She was reading a few somber verses from a leather-bound volume in a heavy Scottish accent. She hadn’t yet noticed our presence.
    On closer inspection, I realized all the servants were women, most of them barely more than children. Where was the rest of the male staff, besides the old gamekeeper?
    Montgomery stood just in the doorway, as though it would be trespassing to go any farther. When I met his eyes, he was frowning.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked.
    He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “The bodies. I didn’t expect so many of them.”
    The servant girls shifted, and I caught sight of the bodies he was talking about. A dozen of them were laid out on stone benches and the floor, covered with white sheets. My stomach knotted, reminding me of the King’s College autopsy room, where Edward’s victims had been laid out the same way. Dr. Hastings and the others I’d killed would have been laid there as well, after the massacre. Their wives and children would have come to identify the corpses. I suddenly felt sick.
    Lucy drew in a breath and crossed herself.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Montgomery whispered to her. “Thegerms will be long gone by now. There’s no danger of us catching it.”
    Valentina walked among the servant girls, stepping unceremoniously over one of the bodies, and whispered to the older woman, whose eyes shot to us as she said a few final words. As soon as the brief service had concluded, the red-haired woman motioned for us to follow her into the hallway.
    â€œGoodness me,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Strangers during such a storm? And to arrive during these poor souls’ funeral—you must never have suffered such shock. Look at you, frozen through and through. You must be starved.”
    The woman had a motherly way about her that made me feel safe even standing among the dead, and an enormous weight shifted off my shoulders. At least someone was giving us a warm reception.
    â€œAre you Mrs. McKenna?” I asked.
    â€œI am, my dear. My family has helped the von Steins with the management of this household for generations; you’re in good hands, I promise, and if the mistress has sent you, then you’re more than welcome here.” She turned back toward the chapel. “Lily, Moira, you girls go make up the rooms on the second floor for