The conversation reminded me that I still hadn’t told him that Crispin had recognized him as Kitty last night, but when I glanced at the small ormolu clock ticking away on the mantel, I came to the conclusion that it had to wait, again. “We’d better hurry, or you’re going to be late for the meeting.”
Christopher took his eyes off his own reflection to check the time. “You’re right. Ready?”
We opened the door again, carefully, and Christopher stuck his head around the frame and looked back and forth down the hall in both directions before he waved me out. “Go on. I’ll be right behind you.”
I scurried past him into the hallway. Behind me, Christopher shut his door and followed. We vanished behind the door into the servants’ staircase, and I took the time to slip on my shoes before we headed down. Nobody was likely to hear our steps through the thick stone walls anyway, so I figured it was safe. I wasn’t planning to go outside, of course, but the floor in the conservatory is tile, and cold, and sometimes wet from the plants, so I’d really rather have shoes on my feet than not.
Besides, just because you don’t plan on doing something—like going outside—doesn’t mean you won’t find yourself out there after all. Might as well be prepared.
Christopher had brought a torch, which he used to light the way down the worn stairs, before clicking it off again as we reached the bottom floor. “We’d better make sure no one’s walking around before we pop out.”
He suited action to words, and then dragged me out of the staircase and through the door into the conservatory when he had determined that the coast was clear.
Here, we didn’t need the torch. There was light coming through the glass panes above our heads, not only from the stars and moon, but from Francis’s lighted window.
It wasn’t enough light to see much, of course. The plants and flowers were black outlines along the windows, just a bit more solid than the darkness beyond, and they moved slightly in what I had to assume was some sort of breeze. There was a faint rustling as leaves and fronds brushed. It sent a shiver down my back. Perhaps we were the ones who had set them off with our passage, or perhaps there was a window open somewhere in the conservatory, which wasn’t impossible. But whatever it was, it was eerie. Movement where there shouldn’t be movement. When we stopped beside the door at the other end, the one leading out into the formal gardens, part of me wanted to beg Christopher not to leave me behind.
I didn’t, of course. Christopher had to keep his appointment with Grimsby, and I couldn’t go with him. And I didn’t want him to feel bad about leaving me when I was scared, so I pushed the feelings of unease to the back of my mind and gave him a brave smile. “Go on. It’s almost eleven. Don’t keep him waiting.”
Christopher nodded, and glanced around the dark conservatory. “Tuck yourself away among some of these bigger plants. If anyone comes through, you don’t want to be standing here in full view.”
No, I didn’t. Because if that happened, then someone would surely ask what I was doing, and I would have to admit that I was waiting for Christopher, and then I’d be asked what Christopher was doing, and then I’d have to lie.
So yes, much better to avoid the entire scenario.
“I’ll be back here,” I said, taking a few steps away from the door, into the dark corner where I would be half hidden between an orange tree and what felt very much like some sort of prickly pear. A cactus of some sort, or perhaps something more like a yucca.
Christopher stared for a moment at the place where I’d disappeared, and then he nodded. “Don’t follow me.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ll see you in a bit. Hopefully I can talk sense into him. Or at least convince him to keep his mouth shut until I can get my hands on a thousand pounds.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, hidden among my fronds. “Just go get it over with, Christopher. It’s late. I want to go to sleep.”
He nodded, and turned towards the door. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” I said. “I’ll be here when you get back. Just be careful, Christopher. Don’t say anything that’ll make him want to spill the beans to anyone else. Even with your grandfather dead, this news probably wouldn’t do you a lot of good with anyone else in the family, either.”
Christopher nodded before ducking out the door and shutting it behind him. I melted into the corner behind the plants and tried to make myself as comfortable as possible while I waited for him to come back.
At first nothing at all happened. I stood there for what felt like an eternity, shifting from foot to foot, and then I checked my wristwatch, and saw that only a few minutes had passed. We were past the scheduled meeting time now, but there were no sounds from outside. However, the formal gardens took up enough room that if Grimsby was on the far end, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to hear anything that happened anyway.
I shifted back and forth again. Outside the conservatory, the wind rustled through the trees. Inside the conservatory, the plants made the occasional sound, like a sigh or smallplop, perhaps from a dry leaf hitting the floor.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, I was plunged into darkness. It was so sudden and so shocking that I let out a gasp, loud in the silence. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust—it was a cloudy night, and something was covering the moon, so it was even darker than it might have been otherwise—and then it took me a few more to realize that the reason for the sudden descent into darkness was bog simple: the light had gone out in Francis’s room upstairs.
As my pupils dilated, I heard a sound outside. I spun towards the panes, so close that I could feel the tip of my nose brush against the cold glass, but there was nothing to see. It had sounded like the scuff of a foot on the gravel of one of the pathways, but I couldn’t see anyone or anything.
I stood there for what felt like a long time, several minutes, just staring into the darkness. Trying to discern movement, or anything else that might help me figure out what might be happening outside.
And then there was another sound, louder, but from farther away: this one a sharp crack, like a gunshot.
I jumped and scanned the side of the house and what I could see of the gardens frantically.
The moon peeped out from behind cover, and illuminated the area of the lawn beside the house. There was no one there.
I closed my eyes again and forced myself to breathe slowly and regularly while I waited for my heart to settle back down. Standing here in the dark telling myself stories about gunshots wasn’t helping my state of mind one bit. Besides, what was more likely, was that Christopher, or perhaps Grimsby, had trod on a dry branch, and it just sounded like a gunshot.
