Page 36 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

“And I rather suspect he won’t be returning,” Annabeth said, stifling a smile.

“I should think not.” Her grandmother’s sharp gaze fell on Annabeth, taking in her nightgown, loose hair, and bare feet. “Really, Annabeth, you shouldn’t be running about dressed like that. Go put on your slippers and dressing gown.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Annabeth ducked into her room to grab her dressing gown.

When she came back into the corridor, Verity had returned, breathing almost as hard as Petunia, and was receiving a similar lecture about proper attire from Lady Lockwood. Verity gave her a curtsy, murmuring an apology, and started back toward the servants’ staircase, but she stopped when she saw Annabeth and said in her maid’s voice, “I’m sorry, miss, I couldn’t catch ’im. Are yuh all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Did that man attack you, Annabeth?” Lady Lockwood said.

“No. Not at all. I think he was a thief. I woke up because he was rummaging around in my room. I screamed and threw something at him, and he took off.” Annabeth thought it was best not to mention that first move he had made in her direction.

“How did he get in here, anyway?” Lady Lockwood demanded. She sent a sharp look at the butler. “Are we in the habit of leaving our doors unlocked?”

“No, ma’am,” Cartwell replied, sounding just as dignified as if he wasn’t dressed in his nightcap and nightgown with his white, spindly calves showing below it. “I locked it myself.”

“He picked the lock, ma’am, and came in that way,” Verity explained.

“I see,” Lady Lockwood sniffed. “Well. Then I am going back to my bed. I would like to get at least a few hours’ sleep.”

She thumped back to her room, talking in a low voice to Petunia.

Annabeth retreated into her bedroom. She picked up the candlestick and now-broken candle that lay beside it and, reinserting the largest piece of candle, she lit it and walked over to the fireplace. The small old trunk stood open. It was the one she had taken from the rental house a few days before.

She was startled by the sound of her door opening, and she turned to see Verity, now in Lady Lockwood–approved attire of a blue flannel wrapper, lugging in a folded cot.

“I don’t care what you say. I’m sleeping here tonight,” Verity said pugnaciously as she set down the cot and faced Annabeth, arms crossed. “Lady Lockwood ordered it. So if you don’t want me in here, I’ll make my bed across your doorway in the hall.”

Annabeth nodded. Frankly, after tonight’s adventure, she would prefer to have Verity sleeping here. Somewhat stiffly, she said, “Thank you for coming to help me. Were you sleeping on that window seat?”

“Trying to.” Verity gave her the quick, infectious grin that made it so easy to like her. She came over to stand by Annabeth and gazed down at the trunk, her hands fisted on her hips. “What are you looking at that for?”

“Clearly the intruder was rummaging through it. I wasn’t sleeping with papers strewed about the floor. And that—” Annabeth pointed at the glass paperweight “—was probably what made the thud that awakened me.”

“Did they take anything?” Verity asked.

Annabeth sifted through the odds and ends and letters, running her fingers over one of her father’s small clever wooden boxes. “I don’t believe so.”

Annabeth reached into the box and pulled out a very poorly knit mitten, misshapen and marked with holes where a stitch had been dropped.

“I can see why he gave up knitting,” Verity said with a small smile.

“It was one of my first childish attempts at knitting.” Annabeth tightened her fist around it, her eyes dampening at the thought that her father had kept the thing.

“I figured. I was just trying to get a smile out of you. I can tell by the tears that I’m doing a bang-up job.”

“Logically I know it’s been five years since he died, but sometimes it feels as if it was just yesterday. Whatever my father’s faults—and I can admit that he had several—he was a kind and loving father, and I adored him.”

“That can make up for a lot.” Verity nodded.

“He might have been careless and irresponsible, his head stuck in the clouds, as Lady Lockwood is fond of pointing out, but what I remember was his smile, his tolerance, his sense of fun and curiosity.”

“I can’t say I have too much firsthand experience with good dads.” Verity moved over to her cot and slid a blade under her thin pillow. “But it sounds like he was one.”

Annabeth noted the weapon. “You must be a less restless sleeper than I. I’d wake up missing an eye if I did that.”

“I doubt I will be getting much sleep at all. As impregnable as Lady Lockwood thinks this house is, Sloane and I assumed there was a chance the intruder might try again.”