Free A Death in the Loch by Caroline Dunford

giant leafy thing I got it back on its pedestal. Once it was back in position the loudest sound was my breathing.
    The thought of how Merry would have reacted to this silly scene made laughter bubble up inside me. The more I tried to suppress the more the chuckles pushed at me from within. I was becoming hysterical. I dug my nails into my palm until I felt wet beneath them. I scolded myself internally, ‘this really will not do’, but I sounded so like my mother in my own head that I was forced to stuff my fist into my mouth to stop any sound escaping.
    I crouched beside the plant and tried to pull myself together. The giggling began again. No one had heard me. Considering it was a happy sound the noise sobered me. It came from one of three doors ahead. I could hear the low voice of a man murmuring now too. I felt myself flush as embarrassment washed over me. Though it is fair to say the couple I could hear should have been the ones feeling embarrassed. I needed to get closer to establish whose bedroom it was. I hadn’t been involved in their allocation, but once I knew which room the liaison was taking place within I felt sure I could discover its occupier discreetly tomorrow. My plan would fail only if Miss Flowers’ lover had gone to her room.
    My family had kept some livestock so I was not wholly without knowledge of what the man and woman were indulging in in that bedroom. But being so close was painfully awful. I needed to get it over with quickly. I stood up from my hiding place.
    As I did so one of the three doors opened. Like a rabbit retreating down a hole I crouched at once. A figure came out. I could tell it was a man by the silhouette. He checked up and down the corridor. Then pulled the door quietly behind him. With a brisk confident stride he glided quietly past me to the staircase. He did not see me as he passed the plant stand, but I saw him. It was Rory.
    Shock rooted me to the spot. Of all the clandestine lovers I could have imagined, Rory had never figured among them. But then he had recently returned from butlering for an Earl of a great house, where doubtless liaisons among the guests were common. Perhaps it had gone further. Rory is extremely handsome, but I had thought better of him.
    From being near hysterical with laughter, I now found silent tears were streaming down my face. Had I ever been so disappointed in a fellow human being? It wasn’t even as if she was pretty. Let alone intelligent or having a modicum of breeding. Just the type, I thought depressingly, to seek a liaison with a handsome male servant. But Rory! How could he?
    I slunk back along the corridor and made my way back down the main stairs. If I had found Rory would I have confronted him? I honestly don’t know. I know hindsight is a poisonously insidious thing, but if I had taken the path to the butler’s pantry and demanded to know what was going on right then it is more than likely a lot of what later came to pass would never have taken place.
    But instead I pathetically and sadly fled to my bed. The moment I closed the door behind me the room was flooded with light. Mussy-haired but furious, Merry sat up in bed and demanded to know what was going on.
    So I told her.
     
     
     
    [7] To be honest, I had never been that subservient.

Chapter Eleven:
    It all gets worse (as it always does)
    ‘Rory? Doing the dirty with that woman? I don’t believe it!’
    I had, of course, limited my story to my night-time wanderings. It pained me greatly not to tell my best friend of the government’s involvement in the Lodge party, but Fitzroy had been at pains to stress the severity of the repercussions should I break the Official Secrets Act. Though, on reflection, I can’t recall him ever saying exactly what they were other than dire. Much as I loved Merry, I also knew she kept secrets about as well as a bootboy could be relied upon to guard sweets. They might set out with the best of intentions, but it would all go horribly (and in