The Marquess Read Online Free PDF

their
new circumstances further, Dillian slipped through the secret passage at dawn
to check on Blanche. She tripped on a misplaced piece of lumber and caught
herself on the filthy wall, cursing lightly under her breath. She
wouldn’t remain a secret for long if she kept this up.
    A distant female squeal made her grimace. Someone had heard
her. Now they would send a squadron of servants to flush her out.
    Dashing to the end of the passage, she listened at the
wardrobe door. Hearing only Blanche’s rustlings, she stepped into the
early morning light. Apparently, gathering an army of servants took a while.
She heard none rushing up the stairs.
    She found Blanche sitting up in bed, her singed hair
tumbling across a wealth of pillows in the early morning light.
    “I must look for a place to sleep,” Dillian
whispered. “I don’t know when I can come back to you, but I
won’t be far. Just scream if you really need me.”
    It made her heart ache watching Blanche’s proud head
nod sadly, but she could do nothing about their predicament now. Blanche had
more courage than ten people. She would hold up for a few hours more.
    Examining the burns on Blanche’s palms, applying the
unguent Michael had apparently stolen, Dillian did all she could to make
Blanche comfortable before leaving. Then slipping into the hall, she headed for
the servants’ stairs to the upper stories before the hounds could catch
her.
    On second thought she needed food to fortify her for the day
ahead. Instead of taking the stairs up, she hurried down them. She’d
already discovered from the layers of dust that no one used these back stairs.
If they sent an army looking for her, they’d have to climb up stairs
wider than these. She hadn’t grown up in a military family without
learning the meaning of outflanking the enemy.
    She heard two women murmuring to each other in the kitchen
but no more shrieks of alarm. She had located the pantries and cellars in her earlier
explorations. Dillian knew how to reach them without walking into enemy
territory.
    Capturing one of the pastries that she hadn’t seen in
the pre-dawn darkness, she almost made it back to the stairs when she heard the
sound of someone coming down the passage. Obviously not their host, she thought
dryly as she slipped into the dumbwaiter and pulled the door. This intruder
wore shoes.
    “Ach, no, child, ye’ll not find one to deliver
anything here. The cowardly lot of them would see us starve first. Now, go and
ask Mac to go down to the village for ye. I’ve not heard of one objecting
to taking the master’s money yet.”
    Dillian’s sleepiness faded beneath this more
interesting topic. She listened eagerly as the voices drew closer.
    “I heard the lady walking last night,” a faint
voice whispered. “They say she walks before disaster strikes. Perhaps
we’d best do like the others and leave this place.”
    The voice of the older woman scoffed. “And where would
ye go, then? Enough with the foolishness, child. Leave the ghosties to
theirselves and go about yer business. The master doesna’ ask ye to go
about where ye dinna want, does he, now? My lady says he is a good man, and
I’ve seen naught to say otherwise. It’s a good position, and
ye’re lucky to have it. Now, go away with ye.”
    Dillian held her breath as the steps approached. She had
thought the dumbwaiter unused, but perhaps the master even now waited in the
deserted dining hall for his breakfast. Remembering the mess in the formal
dining room, she shook her head. No one in their right mind would eat there.
    The steps passed on by. Dillian settled down to eat her
pastry as she heard the sound of the “master’s” voice
rumbling through the wall on her other side. The monster kept early hours.
    * * * *
    “My lord, ye should have knocked me up if ye wanted
something to help tide ye over the night. It’s my duty to see that
ye’re proper fed,” the cook remonstrated as she set out platters of
eggs and toast on