I was supposed to be asleep, along with the rest of the guests at the Duchess’s house party. From the sounds I heard behind several doors I passed, other guests were also awake, and many in rooms other than those allocated to them.
If what I had to do had been less important, less urgent, I might have taken a little time to discover identities. That most certainly was not Lord Bromstor’s voice in his wife’s bedroom, since Lord Bromstor was currently in London, and we were two days south and west of that city. Not that I’d betray the lady, she had quite enough to put up with as wife of that overbearing bore, she should be allowed a little fun. But, knowledge is power…
Enough, I had a place to be and a person to meet. I knew the first, the library – of course, where else would one hold a clandestine midnight meeting – but I did not know who had requested this rendezvous, so I needed to be there early, and hidden. I do not like secrets I do not hold.
I slipped through the doors as the clocks struck eleven, the room lit only by the moon through the open curtains. As I ghosted through the shadows towards the nook I’d scouted that afternoon, a voice came from one of the high-backed chairs by the fireplace. “You’re early, Miss Saunders.”
The DNA of Stories 