Yours Until Dawn Read Online Free PDF

through each room for the earl to traverse.”
    “The earl spends the majority of his time in his bedchamber.”
    “Can you blame him?” Samantha asked, blinking incredulously. “How would you feel if every time you stepped outside your own bed-chamber, you risked barking your shins or cracking open your skull?”
    “The master was the one who ordered that the drapes be kept drawn. He was the one who insisted that everything be left as it was before… before…” The housekeeper swallowed, unable to finish. “I’m sorry, but I can’t be a party to defying his wishes. Nor can I order my staff to do so.”
    “So you won’t help me?”
    Mrs. Philpot shook her head, genuine regret darkening her gray eyes. “I cannot.”
    “Very well.” Samantha nodded. “I respect your loyalty to your employer and your devotion to your job.”
    With those words, she turned on her heel, marched to the next window, and began to tug at the heavy drapes.
    “What are you doing?” Mrs. Philpot cried as the curtains came cascading down.
    Samantha tossed the armful of velvet on top of the heap, then wrenched open the window to invite in a flood of sunshine and fresh air. She turned to face Mrs. Philpot, briskly dusting off her hands. “ My job.”
     
    “Is she still at it?” whispered one of the scullery maids to a rosy-cheeked footman as he entered the expansive basement kitchens of Fairchild Park.
    “ ’Fraid so,” he whispered back, stealing a steaming sausage from her tray and popping it into his mouth. “Can’t you hear?”
    Although darkness had fallen nearly an hour ago, mysterious noises continued to echo through the first floor of the house. The bumping, jingling, grunting, and the occasional scrape of a heavy piece of furniture being dragged across a parquet floor had been going on since morning.
    The servants had spent that day as they’d spent most of their days since Gabriel’s return from the war—huddled around the old oak table in front of the kitchen fire in the servants’ hall, remembering better times. On this chilly spring evening, Beckwith and Mrs. Philpot sat directly across from each other, drinking one cup of tea after another, neither one speaking or daring to meet the others’ eyes.
    After a particularly jarring thump that made them all flinch, one of the upstairs chambermaids whispered, “Don’t you think we should—”
    Mrs. Philpot turned a basilisk glare on her, paralyzing the poor child where she stood. “I think we should tend to our own affairs.”
    One of the young footmen stepped forward, daring to ask the one question they’d all been dreading. “What if the master hears?”
    Drawing off his spectacles to polish them on his sleeve, Beckwith shook his head sadly. “It’s been a long time since the master has paid any heed to what goes on around here. There’s no reason to believe tonight will be any different.”
    His words cast a cloud of dejection over them all. They had once prided themselves on their devotion to the great house entrusted to their care. But with no one to see how the woodwork gleamed beneath their loving attentions, no one to praise their efficiency in keeping the floors swept or the fireplaces laid with fresh kindling, there was little reason to bestir themselves from their moping.
    They barely noticed when one of the youngest housemaids came creeping into the kitchens. Going straight to Mrs. Philpot, she bobbed one curtsy, then another, plainly too timid to ask for permission to speak.
    “Don’t just stand there bobbing up and down like a cork on the water, Elsie,” Mrs. Philpot snapped. “What is it?”
    Wringing her apron in her hands, the girl curtsied again. “I think you’d best come, ma’am, and see for yourself.”
    Exchanging an exasperated glance with Beckwith, Mrs. Philpot rose. Beckwith shoved himself away from the table to follow. As they left the kitchens, they were both too preoccupied to notice when the rest of the servants fell in