Free The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales by Kate Mosse Page A

did or not, where was the sense in inviting questions?
    Her bedroom was at the far corner of the south wing on the first floor. She stepped out into the dimly lit corridor, hearing sounds of the party down below, feeling a mixture of shyness and nerves at the thought of a roomful of strangers. She walked slowly, past perfectly acceptable paintings of sea and countryside, until she noticed, close to the top of the stairs, something delightful. A wonderful doll’s house, painted façade of brick, perfectly symmetrical, red tiled roof and tall chimneys. In the gable there was a clock, showing the time set at three forty-five and the date: 1810. She ran her finger over the surface. There were ribbons of dust on the slope of the red roof and chimneys, but it was still charming. Daphne had owned a doll’s house when she was little. It kept her entertained for hours, as she moved the tiny people from room to room, inventing lives for them, playing house. This doll’s house was far grander and there was also something familiar about it. Daphne wondered if she’d perhaps seen a picture of it somewhere, it was so distinctive, but she couldn’t bring anything to mind.
    The noise from the Oak Hall was louder now and Daphne knew she should go down and join the party, but instead she unhooked the latch and opened it up to look inside.
    The wooden façade swung open, revealing the entire household from top to bottom. A staircase ran like a spine up the middle of the house. At the lowest level were the working rooms – servants and a flock of geese and ducks, the mud room with harness, and the kitchen, with brass copper pots and an old rocking chair to one side. Cloth and wood figurines of a cook, parlour maids, and butler and boot boy, all perfectly dressed in black and white and green waistcoats. On the ground floor, a red and grey tiled entrance hall, a stone fireplace with marble mantel and a grandmother clock. To the left, a billiard room with the green baize table perfectly smooth and, to the right the dining room, with twelve mahogany chairs set round a polished oval table, and a maid in black and white uniform dusting the sideboard. On the floor above, the ladies and gentlemen of the house, whiskered and gowned in a drawing room and, above the billiard room, a study. A leather-topped desk, complete with inkwell and papers, bookshelves and a brass side table on which stood the smallest of glasses and a fold of paper, like a letter waiting to be read. Daphne frowned, something about this room in particular setting a memory scuttling in her mind. The chair was on its side. She reached in and picked it up, placing it back at the desk.
    On the floors above, the family bedrooms. Each perfect in their detail, porcelain washbasins and jugs, matching counterpanes and portraits in tortoiseshell frames. In the attic, the maids’ quarters and a nursery with a metal cot and blackboard and chalk.
    The gong rang for dinner, its brass song reverberating up from the hall below. Knowing she couldn’t put off joining the party any longer, Daphne reluctantly stood up and closed the glass fronted doors. She wondered if the doll’s house had been modelled on a real house, if it had been made for the daughter of the family that once owned Dean Hall, or whether it was a recent acquisition for decoration only.
    The gong sounded again.
    Daphne straightened her dress and her stockings, and was about to rush down the stairs when she noticed a pinpoint of light in the miniature study. Uneven, like the light from a candle flickering in a draught. She looked along the corridor, assuming it had to be some kind of reflection from the wall lamps bouncing off the glass frontage of the doll’s house, but the angles seemed wrong.
    She cupped her hands over the glass and looked at the room on the first floor. Now, the study was dark again, of course it was, though the tiny chair was, once again, lying on its side. As if kicked away from the desk.
    The final gong