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“My thanks, but I’ll be staying with a friend.” She smiled, though it looked to be more from nerves than humor. “Well, I don’t know how to dance, and I was wondering if you did.”
Hulda softened. “Do you need lessons?”
She nodded, eager. “I mean, I know how to dance, but not like they do in Portsmouth. No one danced like that in the South, I mean.”
“I’m happy to teach you. And perhaps you could teach me as well.” She moved to pull a shawl closer, only to realize she wasn’t wearing one. “Tonight after the men go to bed, hm? In my room.”
Miss Taylor beamed. “My thanks.”
Waving away the gratitude, Hulda merely said, “I could use the exercise.”
After dinner, while Mr.Fernsby enjoyed a game of cards with Mr.Babineaux, Hulda went upstairs to compile an official record of her attempts to categorize the house, as well as write up the symptom she believed indicative of a secondary source of magic. Symptom, singular, because she had yet to witness a repetition of the wardship spell, and she’d been testing the doors and windows often. Whatever the source, it was likely small, possibly wavering. Her best guess was a wooden beam or floorboard made from a tree that had absorbed magic during its lifetime. The inconsistency suggested it might be beginning to rot. She had yet to prove the theory correct, however, which rankled her. Seldom had she ever expended so much effort to diagnose an enchanted house, and this one wasn’t even particularly large.
Setting down her report, she worked her hands, rubbing growing cramps out of the muscles. Perhaps she should stay up tonight and see if the magic was more active after sundown. Miss Taylor would keep her company for a little while, with this dance practice of theirs, and afterward she could roam the house in her socks, padding around so as not to disturb anyone. She’d been sewing together some charms to tuck into out-of-the-way places in the hopes of finding the wayward spell, and with a little more work, she could be hanging them before dawn.
Deciding to document that undertaking as well, Hulda retrieved her pencil and began writing, only to have the tip snap on her second line. Sighing, she searched for the Lassimonne sharpener, but it wasn’t in its usual place. Likely Mr.Fernsby had taken it. Miss Taylor always put things where they belonged, and Mr.Babineaux never wandered upstairs.
Standing, Hulda stretched out her back as much as her corset would allow, then made her way down the hall, pausing at the top of the stairs, where Owein was twisting the carpet downward in the semblance of a whirlpool. Not to bother her, she thought, but because he was bored.
“Evening, Owein,” she said, and a narrow path of still carpet stretched across the way, allowing her passage. Nodding her thanks, she crossed the hall, stopping at Mr.Fernsby’s office. The door was ajar, the room half-illuminated by orange sunset. Lighting a candle atop a table by the door, Hulda ventured to the cluttered desk. There werethreecups left there, along with a handkerchief, a smattering of pens and pencils, and a few crumpled pieces of paper, which were not cheap. She’d have to suggest a means of reusing them, for the backsides were perfectly functional. In truth, though, something about the mess was oddly endearing. Beside the crumpled papers sat a blue-jay feather, of all things, a single shoe without laces, a chunk of Mr.Fernsby’s manuscript, and, yes, the pencil sharpener.
She noticed his ink vial was depleted.Hard at work.She picked up the bottle and slipped back into the library, exchanging it for her own,and then set her mostly full vial beside his papers. As she picked up the sharpener, her candlelight spilled over his manuscript, illuminating,But a creaking in the dark told Elise she was no longer alone,on the topmost manuscript page.
Hulda paused. This was not the first page of the book—where that was, only Mr.Fernsby might know. This was midchapter, with a handwritten102on the top of the sheet. It was fascinating that a person could just sit down and write an entire novel. That all of these words, and the pictures they painted, had only existed inside his head before he put them to paper. That he could create something from nothing.
She held the candle closer.She feared to speak; the dark corridor carried sound, so much so she swore she heard echoes of her own breath. She waited, back pressed to the wall, until the creaking happened again.
“You said they wouldn’t look down here.” Her voice was barely perceptible. It had to be. Without light, Warren couldn’t read her lips.
His response was close enough to her ear to make her jump. Anywhere else, she’d have been embarrassed by the close proximity. But here in enemy territory, it was a comfort. “Don’t move.”
Hulda lowered herself into the vacant chair. He was rather good, wasn’t he? She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—if the man made a living off his words, of course he had to be good. She found herself wondering about his first published novel and whether she’d be able to locate and read it. But curiosity gripped her about what was causing the creaking in the darkened corridor, and why these people—Elise and Warren—were there to begin with.
Setting down the candle, Hulda tilted the page toward the light and read to its end, which was midsentence, so she put that page aside and picked up the next. Apparently these two were in a crime lord’s lair. Was this the same woman who’d witnessed the robbery Mr.Fernsby had mentioned earlier? Who was the man?
She flipped to the third page. Exhaled sharply. Theyweren’talone. Someone else was down there. Someone who smelled of figurado cigarsmoke, which was written like it meant something. Hulda guessed if she’d read earlier pages, she’d know exactly who was following the protagonists, and she had a feeling he wasn’t a man of exemplary character.
She turned the page, holding her breath along with Elise as she and Warren ducked into a closet. The man was coming closer. Elise reached for the closet door, but Warren held her back. She squeezed his arm, reassuring him. What did she intend to do?
Good heavens, now she was running out into the hallway in a different direction to distract the cigar man! Hulda turned the page. It was working. He was giving chase. But where would Elise go to escape him?
The same stench from before assaulted her—rot and feces, underlined with old urine. This time she turned toward it, her shoe catching on a divot in the flooring, which nearly sent her toppling. Was that running water? If the canal ran through here, she might be able to escape. Lord knew what diseases she’d picked up along the way, but better a disease than a bullet to the—
“Mrs.Larkin.”
Hulda screamed and jumped in the chair, coming very close to ramming her crown into Mr.Fernsby’s chin. Her hand rushed to cover her galloping heart. “Merritt, do not creep up on me in such a manner!”
Merritt—Mr.Fernsby... goodness, she hadn’t called him by his first name, had she?—grinned like a lethargic crocodile and folded his arms. “I did notcreepin the slightest. You were merely preoccupied.”
She glanced to the book and felt her entire body heat. She’d just been caught snooping through his manuscript. “I-I apologize.” She simultaneously rose to her feet and slapped the papers back onto their proper stack, but the movement was so emphatic she knocked her spectacles off her nose. They clattered to the floor. “I was coming in for the pencil sharpener and got distracted. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Mr.Fernsby bent over to pick up the spectacles from the blur of the carpet. “Most people start books from the beginning.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“Mrs.Larkin.” He reached forward and set her spectacles upon her nose himself, causing her to flush even more.God help me, please let the dimness hide it.But surely his knuckles felt the heat as they brushed her temples. “I am not and will never be upset when someone loses themselves in something I’ve drafted. Especially considering it’s only a draft. Stories are always terrible as drafts.”
Stepping away, she smoothed back her hair. “I did not think it terrible. And in my defense, the beginning of the book was not here.”
