Twelfth Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

tracking your prints in the frosty ground until I had
you in sight.”
    “Neatly done,” Perdita said in solemn admiration.
    “Thank you.”
    Perdita glanced to the cottage, but as we watched, the slender
line of yellow at the edges of the shutter was extinguished. Whoever was in the
cottage had retired for the night, and they would have a far better chance of
seeing us in the fitful moonlight than we would of making out anything from the
interior of the cottage.
    I sighed and turned back to Brisbane.”Perdita and I were just
on our way back to the Abbey for a cup of chocolate and a bit of warming by the
fire.”
    “And some toast,” she put in quickly. “The cold air is rather
hunger-making.”
    “It isn’t that cold, but yes, we shall order some toast. I had
very little supper, and I promised your Uncle Brisbane some food,” I
returned.
    She gave another wistful look at the cottage.
    “Tomorrow,” I promised her.
    We turned towards the Abbey, striking out across the fields,
and as our merry little band made our way home, Perdita’s hand stole into
mine.

Chapter Five
    ENTER Snug .
    — A Midsummer Night’s Dream , IV, ii
(stage directions)
    We slipped unnoticed into a side door of the Abbey. Aquinas had already finished his rounds, locking up the doors and windows, but he left the side door open, and Brisbane’s considerable skills with a lockpick were not required. We hurried up to the Jubilee Tower, avoiding the various members of staff who were still trotting about, carrying and fetching late into the night.
    “There!” I said to Perdita as Brisbane closed the door behind us. “Take off your coat and no one will know you’ve been out of the Abbey at all.”
    She removed it slowly as Brisbane stirred up the fire.
    “The footman is supposed to do that,” she told him, nodding to the poker in his hand.
    He gave her a serious look. “I think a man ought to be able to stoke his own fire, don’t you? A woman, too, for that matter.”
    She nodded. “We haven’t footmen at the Home Farm. Father says it’s all a silly bit of pretension. We have a cook and a maid.”
    “A much simpler way to live,” he agreed.
    They made a charming picture in the firelight, my tall, handsome husband and the serious little girl. I felt a pang then, a piercing sense of loss I could not identify.
    Brisbane quirked a brow at me. “Everything all right, love?”
    I brightened. “Yes, but I’m famished. Ring for tea and chocolate, will you?”
    He crossed the room, and the motion caused a stirring in the cage by the bell pull.
    Perdita crept near to it, her eyes round with fascination. “Grim’s awake,” she said, nodding towards my pet raven. “Must you keep him in the cage?”
    “I do when I am not in the room. I do not trust him not to make a meal on my little Snug,” I told her.
    I went to the bedside table where a silver sauce boat stood. Snug still slumbered within, tucked into his handkerchief nest. I lifted him out carefully and held him on my palm for Perdita to see.
    She nodded again, but her eyes returned to Grim. The senior footman, William IV, scratched at the door then and while Brisbane gave the order for our refreshment, I tucked Snug into my décolletage—his favourite resting place—and went to the cage.
    Grim cocked his head and gave a throaty quork. “That’s for me,” he said, bobbing up and down as his gleaming black eyes fixed upon Snug’s little head.
    “That is most assuredly not for you,” I corrected. I opened the door and stepped away. “He will come out of his own accord,” I told Perdita. “If you like, you can offer him an enticement. There is a box of sugarplums on the desk, and he is particularly fond of those. Drop one on the floor.”
    She did as I bade her, and within a moment Grim had hopped from his cage to nibble at the sweet. Perdita knelt, watching him with rapt fascination. His feathers gleamed an oily green in the light, and she put out a careful finger to stroke