Again, Mrs. Sable appeared as if someone had struck her a blow. “As you wish, my lord. I shall return with Lady Caroline’s response in a matter of minutes.”
“Please do. My horse is cooling off as we speak.” He made a shooing gesture with his hands.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sable presented Annalise a warning glare. “Be about your duties, Audrey,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am,” Annalise murmured and turned again to the statue while Lord Beaufort walked casually towards the window to look out on what she thought must be his horse, though she had initially thought he had come from the watch house.
Silence filled the space for at least a minute before Lord Beaufort again crossed to her. “We have little time, so before Mrs. Stable-Faced Sable returns, is there a servants’ entrance in this room?”
“In the corner,” she whispered.
“Let us move close so you can disappear when we hear Stable-Face’s approach,” he said with an engaging grin.
Annalise clamped her hand over her mouth to swallow her laughter. “Please, my lord,” she said through a giggle.
“It is good to view a smile on your face. Marksman will not be happy with more tales of how you are treated within this household. I will be glad to tell him I made you smile. When this madness is over, I expect to claim my share of your dances and your smiles at various balls, as well as to take you riding. Though I like to tell him I discovered you first, Alexander is quite correct: You are both beautiful and courageous.”
Annalise blushed thoroughly, but she kept her happiness beneath the surface, for there were more pressing matters at hand. “I would be delighted to dance with you, my lord. Yet, for now, what am I to do? How might I communicate with you and Alexander if Moreau knows of the loose brick?”
“He does not know of the squirrel hole in the oak tree,” his lordship responded in a whisper. “There is also an unused bird’s nest in the old elm you could use.”
“I shall find it,” Annalise assured. A noise from somewhere deep inthe house warned of another’s approach. Therefore, she rushed to say, “Tell Lord Duncan something is to occur at the end of next week. On Saturday. That day is written on several pages upon Moreau’s desk, and I recently overheard Caroline ask when she and Moreau would return to France. His response was Saturday.”
“Mrs. Sable saysyou spoke to Lord Beaufort.” Moreau cornered Annalise later as she was changing out the candles in the second passageway.
She purposely kept her eyes down, but she silently cursed Mrs. Sable’s pettiness. “My doing so was not deliberately executed, sir. I stepped into the front drawing room to be out of the way when Clara responded to the gentleman’s knock. I knew you would not wish me to be known to your caller. I had no notion of his lordship also entering the room.”
“No notion, but you managed, nevertheless,” Moreau accused. “Have I not told you repeatedly, you are not to be seen?”
She instinctively stepped back to place distance between them. Moreau had been so volatile of late, she had come to fear him. “Yes, sir,” she said obediently. Annalise worried not only for herself, but also for Moreau. If the man would be foolish enough to strike her, she had no doubt Alexander would know his revenge.
“What did Lord Beaufort say to you during Mrs. Sable’s absence,” he demanded.
“Nothing. Truly nothing,” she declared. “I doubt he would have even noticed my presence in the room if Mrs. Sable had not brought it to his attention. I have heard you say many times how the English aristocracy gives no notice to the people who serve them. When Mrs.Sable left to attend to his lordship’s request, I again returned to dusting the small statue on the table. As his lordship insisted I should be permitted to continue my duties, I waited a few minutes before I slipped from the room through the servants’ passage.”
“And where was Lord Beaufort while you polished the statue?” Moreau questioned.
“He returned to the window to look out upon the street. Such was where he remained as I departed through the servants’ door,” she claimed. Her words were true; Lord Beaufort was at the window when she left the room. She wished to ask if Mrs. Sable reported otherwise, but Annalise had learned her lessons quickly regarding servant hierarchy and whom she could trust in the household, which essentially meant no one. Being too curious or providing too much information was a sign she was not speaking the truth.
Her uncle’s continued criticism had Annalise thinking back on one odd question Beaufort had asked before Annalise had departed the room.
“How long has Mrs. Sable been employed at Amgen House?”
“From the beginning,” she explained. “Why?”
“Because there is something familiar about her. I will figure it out soon. Just do not trust her,” he warned before shoving her into the servants’ passage and quickly crossing to the window when they heard footsteps coming their way.
“Lord Beaufort had no right to reprimand Mrs. Sable, especially before you,” Moreau declared, effectively dragging Annalise from her musings.
Annalise thought otherwise, but she refused to be goaded into a response. She simply took private delight in the knowledge the woman who had sided with Moreau would soon be turned out without a reference. Alexander and Lord Duncan would see to it once the net about Yates and Moreau closed over them.
When she did not comment on Beaufort and Mrs. Sable, Moreauchanged tactics. “What do you know of a loose brick in the garden wall?”
Her first instinct was to deny knowledge of the recess, but, thanks to Lord Beaufort, she now knew Moreau had discovered the hiding place. Likely, one or more of the other servants had been spying on her.
“Do you mean the loose brick near the back gate?” she asked in feigned innocence.
“Then you were aware of it?” he accused.
