The Notorious Bridegroom Read Online Free PDF

Green’s newest still-room maid. She stretched her weary arms above her head, stiff from polishing the last looking glass with wine spirits, then added whiting for a final shine.
    Finished earlier than expected, Patience had helped rub and sift sugar for cake, although the cook complained that Patience’s cake dough could be used as cannon fodder to shoot at the unsuspecting French enemy. Perhaps next time she could remember to add the yeast, the cook hinted scornfully.
    But Patience’s mind was not on baking a better cake. Like Pandora with the key to her box, she wanted to unearth the earl’s secrets in his locked study; it had been secured, no doubt, to keep out prying still-room maids.
    After she helped Lem cut the cotton tops off the candles and change the lamp oil, Mrs. Knockersmith sent her to bed with a warning to be up earlier than the sun. Patience wearily climbed the stairs, scratching her head through her large mobcap.
    Lord Londringham, a subject never very far from her mind. What kind of a man was he? He was certainly guilty of espionage, but murder? She shivered as if ghostly hands had reached out to her from the grave. Biting her lip, she realized resignedly that she would have to get much closer to the earl if she wanted to discover the answers she sought.
    Although the hour grew late, Patience decided to take a quick nap before attempting her first foray into spying. She had thought about it all afternoon and planned to eavesdrop on the earl and the captain when they met tonight in the earl’s rooms. With any luck, she could secure evidence to be used against the earl.
    Once safely inside her maid’s room in the attic, Patience threw off her mobcap and spectacles, and in relief, unbuttoned the maid’s uniform before pulling on her thin blue lawn nightdress. She unpinned her hair, then combed the thick strands through her fingers, as she massaged away the slight pain from the cap and pins. She promptly curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Just for a few minutes, she promised herself.
    An hour later Patience awakened, slowly, then jolted into a sitting position. It all came winging back to her on a cry.
    Tonight. The earl’s room.
    A glance at the clock showed almost half-past eleven. She grabbed a pale blue wrap and slipped quietly out the door, not giving herself pause for failure, and winked three times for luck before hastening toward the stairs.
    Patience thought her frantic breathing would awaken the dead. Lips dry and hands trembling, her bare feet whispered across the moonbeam-lit wooden floor as she ran down the hallway. She prayed the shadows would hide her as she hugged the cool walls on her descent to the second floor, forcing her cowardly feet forward step-by-step.
    When the longcase clock in the Grand Hall began to chime, she stopped to take quick, shallow breaths, keenly listening for any sleepless companions in the night.
    What if she was too late? What if the earl had not returned yet? Too late for a change of heart. A spur of righteousness lit her heels and with frantic archangels beating in her heart, Patience began her secret advance toward the enemy. As she crept down the long corridor in the west wing, she noted the ornate pillars standing sentinel outside every other door down the hallway, which would provide a perfect refuge if needed.
    Luckily, nothing disturbed the night. Wax candles nestled in their wall sconces flickered from the slight breeze through the open window at the end of the hallway. The dim light slightly illuminated the path to the earl’s door.
    Stealthily she continued on, her palms dampened, as she moved closer, four doors, then three doors away. Not far from his suite of rooms, she could see a light under his door. Was success near at hand or was disappointment about to send her scurrying back to bed? On tiptoe, she crossed the hallway to his door to listen.
    All quiet. At the point of deciding whether to wish for better luck tomorrow, someone made the