“Let us proceed,” she said, with all the confidence she could muster.
They entered the house and all was quiet. Mrs. Right sent Thomas and Charlie downstairs to see if Cook had heard any word of a butler or seen any sign of Lady Marchfield. As Winsome and Valor raced up the stairs to claim their bedchambers and the duke poured himself a brandy in the drawing room, Mrs. Right peered around for any sign that a butler had been there.
Nothing was out of place. Maybe Lady Marchfield had really given it up. If she had, she would not write the duke about it. After all, the countess was a proud woman. She’d just drop the matter and pretend she’d never had anything to do with it.
Thomas and Charlie ran back up the stairs from the kitchens. “Cook says he’s not seen hide nor hair of a butler,” Thomas said breathlessly. “But, he’s convinced there is something awry.”
“Awry?” Mrs. Right asked. She did not like the sound ofawry.
“A few days ago,” Charlie said, “he began to suspect that someone was in the house. He’d hear a sound but could not determine where it was coming from. He’d look around and there was nobody.”
“He began to doubt the amounts of food he had in the kitchens, as if somebody was taking things,” Thomas said. “All the doors and windows were secured so he could not work it out. He was beginning to imagine he was going mad.”
“Then last night, before he retired, he measured the length of the loaf of bread on the counter.” Charlie took in a deep breath. “This morning, the loaf was shorter.”
Mrs. Right felt a chill down her spine. They all gazed round as if the mystery was somewhere waiting to be discovered nearby. “Have you checked the men’s quarters?” she asked.
“Cook says there is no sign of anybody having been there,” Charlie said.
“He says he’s checked everywhere,” Thomas said. “Now, I don’tlike to say, but could it be…a ghost?”
“A ghost who steals bread?” Mrs. Right asked. “Now, if thereissomeone in the house, they cannot stay hidden forever. I reckon it is some poor street urchin who has slipped in for warmth and food and will slip out again now that the house is full.”
This seemed to greatly relieve the footmen, though Mrs. Right was not nearly as confident in the idea as she sounded.
She hurried down the stairs to the servants’ hall, determined to speak with Cook directly. Perhaps the fellowwasgoing mad? It could not be a rational idea to go round measuring loaves of bread, after all.
“Did they tell you, Mrs. Right?” the cook said, twisting his hands together. “Did they tell you that something is awry in this house?”
“They did,” Mrs. Right said. “But you are sure? You are sure that someone is—”
“In the house? As sure as the nose on my face. Why are they here, though? Who is it? Why is someone here, somewhere, hiding away and chilling my blood? I’ve hardly slept in days, what with worryin’ over being murdered in my bed.”
“Now as I told the boys, if there is somebody here, it could very well be a street urchin slipped in for warmth and food,” she said, not any more convinced than she had been when she said it the first time.
“An urchin,” Cook said thoughtfully. “I suppose it could be. Where is the rascal hiding though?”
Mrs. Right and the Cook both looked round the kitchens.
“And then, there is also the smallest possibility that you’ve been greatly affected by coming here alone,” Mrs. Right said. “In other years, some of the grooms have come ahead too. Perhaps I ought to have sent your kitchen maids, but then they are two young girls and to send them with no matronly supervision, well it would not have been seemly.”
“You hint that I may have imagined it all?”
“It is only a possibility. This house does creak, which could prompt ideas.”
“But the bread, Mrs. Right. I was very careful about measuring the bread.”
“Ah, yes, the bread.”
They both gazed round the kitchens, wondering about the bread.
*
Winsome examined herdress. She would be inclined to think that there had never in all the world been such a monstrosity made, had not Madame LaFray mentioned that she’d constructed more than a few of them in her time.
It was the dreaded court dress.
Valor had spent the past quarter hour rolling on Winsome’s bed and laughing hysterically. Now that Mrs. Right had, with a great deal of trouble, got Winsome into the dress, Valor cried, “It looks like a pile of curtains fell on you.”
