Page 34 of Alpha's Touch

“Yes, Your Lordship,” I said, rushing forward and clearing away his bowl. “Right away, sir.”

I left Nolan to clear the woman’s dishes away and rushed back down the stairs to find his Lordship’s dinner. There was a huge beefsteak waiting on the warming pan, with some side dishes and another bottle of blood red wine. I quickly loaded my tray and raced as fast as I dared back upstairs to that ugly dining room, passing Mr. Nolan on the way.

“Have a care,” he whispered to me. “The baron is in a rare mood tonight.”

I went up to the dining room and served him, flinching a little as he cut into the steak and made me watch to make sure it was cooked just the way he wanted it, which was extremely rare. The bloody juices oozed out on the plate, but he swallowed the meat with apparent satisfaction, then waved me away. I stood back against the wall and watched him carefully, in case he needed anything at all.

Or in case he made any sudden moves.

Thank the gods he ate quickly and then sat back in his chair for me to clear his plate away. I knew there was one more dish left downstairs—some kind of cake for his dessert—but he scooted back his chair and abruptly stood, throwing down his napkin and getting to his feet to stride from the room without a word. I took his plate back to the scullery and it felt like a lucky escape.

Mr. Nolan told me to help clean up. “The cook may need help with the heavy pots and pans, so that will be your job too. We don’t have the luxury of only doing one task around here.”

“Of course, sir. But what about the Vicountess? Should we take a plate of something to her? She never finished her meal.”

He looked at me like I was insane. “No,” he said, already turning away. “The Vicountess is none of my concern, nor of yours.”

I didn’t say a word back to him, but I knew he was wrong. The lady, if I had to guess, was none other than the Viscountess Camilla from Sudfarma—the one that Asher and Brandon, and eventually Wyatt, had come to Crillia to find. I was almost sure of it. And if she was, then she was very much my concern, and I needed to find a way to speak to her alone to find out what she knew.

Chapter Eleven

Darcy

Later that night, when the house was dark and silent, I crept downstairs.

The old castle was even more imposing and terrifying in the dark, like all places where many people have lived and died, and some of them unhappily. They leave behind impressions on the air and sometimes a sense of something moving around in the ether, as silent and inoffensive as the old portraits on the wall. Except for the ones who died violent deaths. I had always believed they weren’t at rest, and something told me there were many of those lost souls in this house.

My aunt and uncle lived in an old house, and yet no ghost ever bothered me there, or came to stand jeering over my bed at night. This house was different, though—darker somehow and more breathless. It sounded foolish, even to my own ears, except I felt that this house contained terrible secrets. Was that why Barbarosa Lagoon had called the baron a “beast?” What did she know about him that I didn’t?

I shook off the thought as I made my way down the stairs, holding tightly to the railing so I wouldn’t break my neck. I went to the scullery first and to the door I’d seen the maid go through earlier, when she went to “give some scraps to the dogs.” I’d watched her get a key from the pantry where it hung on the wall that day, but when I opened the pantry door, no helpful key was hanging there. Who had moved it? Nolan? The housekeeper? Mrs. Lumpkin? Or the baron himself?

What were they hiding in the cellars, or should I saywho? I made up my mind to get that key if it were the last thing I ever did. And in the meantime, I‘d go see the viscountess. It hadn’t been that long since both she and the baron had retired for the night, so I thought there was a good chance she might still be awake.

Unless, of course, the baron had kept his promise to come to her. At the time, I hadn’t believed him, and thought he was only saying that to scare her, but what if he’d been serious? If he found me upstairs, and even worse, inside the Vicountess’s room, it wouldn’t go well for me, and I knew that for sure. If he didn’t kill me outright—which he probably would—then he would throw me down some dark, damp stairs to the cellar and leave me there to rot.

Was that what he’d done with Wyatt and his cousins? Were they down there even now, suffering and waiting for someone to come help them? The idea made me moan softly and wring my hands, but that kind of weak behavior would do no one any good. I made myself stop breathing so hard before I hyperventilated, because it would be all I needed to pass out in the middle of the scullery floor, hit my head and still be lying there when Mrs. Lumpkin came in and found me in the morning. I tried to slow my breathing down and calm myself.

I needed to find some food for the viscountess anyway and take it to her and hope like hell that I didn’t get caught. If I could make the lady a friend, and let her know I was on her side, she might be able to give me information about what had happened to her guards and her attendants and even more important—at least to me—maybe she could tell me what had happened to Wyatt and his cousins. I needed whatever information I could pry out of her.

When I was calmer, I went back to the larder and found the makings of a small meal—nothing fancy, just cheese and bread and a big slice of the fruit cake the baron hadn’t touched at supper. I bundled it all up in a napkin and gathering my courage, I made my way to the main stairs in the foyer.

The big house was as dark and quiet as a tomb, and every creak of the old stairs sounded to me like the crack of gun fire. Even so, and as frightened as I was, I kept going, creeping up to the second floor. I made it all the way to the next floor landing, with no sign of doors flying open in alarm and large, scary barons storming out, brandishing a weapon. It was only as I reached it, though, that I realized I had no idea which room might belong to the Vicountess. I cursed myself silently for my foolish lack of preparation, and then I decided I was already in the middle of this thing, so I may as well see it through. I could at least try to investigate and figure things out.

The baron had promised to go to her after supper. Was he just trying to scare her and intimidate her or was he with her right now? I pressed myself against a shadowy wall by a window and stayed still for a few minutes, waiting and listening.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have too long to wait. From the end of the corridor, I head a door open and then close again. A huge, dark figure came striding quickly toward me, his face illuminated by the candle in his hand. If it were possible, he looked even more frightening by the light of the candle. I shrank farther behind a set of curtains covering a big, mullioned window, pressed my back to the glass, trying to hold my breath until he passed by.

Suddenly, the curtain was ripped aside, and the baron peered in at me. I thought for a moment that my heart would stop.

“What are you doing up here, little omega?” he said, his voice menacing, yet not overly loud. He leaned in, sniffing at me. “Are you snooping?”

“N-no, sir. I-I can explain, sir,” I stammered. “I went downstairs to fix myself a small snack. I was too nervous to eat my dinner. And-and when I finished, I got turned around and came up the wrong staircase. When I realized what I’d done, I was going back down but then I heard the door and saw you coming.

“So you hid from me?”

“Yes, sir. I’m so sorry.”

He kept glaring at me, shaking his head. “The main staircase looks nothing like the servants’ stairs. Why are you lying to me?”

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