Free A Duke Never Yields by Juliana Gray

similar arrangement, and . . . perhaps you can find Signore Rosseti, and he can explain . . .”
    Morini’s brow had furrowed in thought. She tilted her head to one side and pushed at a few strands of black hair that had escaped from her headscarf, looking as if she were attempting to solve a large and complicated puzzle. “I see, I see. Is very strange. The master, he is very careful, very particular. Is very strange mistake.” She straightened and clapped her hands. “But is good! Six English is very good! We have talk, laughter. The castle will be . . . transform. Buon . I will find your rooms.”
    Morini turned with an air of unshakable purpose and headed for the staircase, homespun skirts swishing against her legs. She lifted her arm and summoned them to follow her.
    Abigail leapt after her.
    “But, my good woman!” Alexandra called out desperately. “What about servants? Has the place been readied for our arrival? Is there dinner?”
    Signorina Morini, striding across the hall at a brisk pace, did not stop to answer. She turned her head and said, over her shoulder, “We are expecting you tomorrow. The servants, they arrive in the morning, from the village.”
    “In the morning?” Alexandra demanded. “Do you mean there’s no dinner? Is nothing ready?”
    “Where is Rosseti?” added Abigail.
    “He is not here. I make all arrange. Come, come. Is growing late!” Morini had reached the staircase and was positively bounding up the stone steps, propelled by purpose.
    Not here , thought Abigail, leaping up after her in a surge of excitement.
    Then where the devil was Rosseti?
    *   *   *
    T he lantern cast a shimmering glow around the stable entrance, causing the very stones to move about in the walls.
    Or so it seemed to Abigail.
    For the first time, it occurred to her that it might perhaps not have been her cleverest notion, to steal out of a strange castle at midnight and across a courtyard to a building she had never before entered. One, moreover, that she suspected to contain ghosts and specters of all sorts, to say nothing of some eternal mystery that hovered just out of her brain’s perception.
    But what else was she to do? She had clearly seen a light wobble across this courtyard from her bedroom window; she had clearly seen it enter the stable. If she meant to discover the source of the mystery, she might as well begin now. The thought of danger hadn’t entered her head. This was not a malevolent sort of mystery, she was sure. Mischievous, perhaps even tragic, but not cruel.
    Still, she couldn’t deny the shiver that coursed down her body just now. And her body, Abigail knew, was seldom ever wrong.
    She reached out and pushed open the stable door anyway.
    She was, after all, Abigail.
    “Who’s there?” someone snapped, in a loud and commanding voice.
    Abigail felt her shoulders sag in relief. “Oh, it’s only you,” she said. “I might have known you’d be skulking about the stables at midnight.”
    “I might have known you’d be doing the same, Miss Harewood.”
    Abigail worked her way toward the pool of lantern light at the far corner of the space. Around her, the horses whickered in subdued welcome. “We seem to share the same habits, then. Is he settling in all right?”
    “Quite all right.”
    His shape was visible now, tall and dark, covered rather romantically by a long cloak. His face turned away from hers, toward the dark shape of Lucifer’s head, with its long white blaze gathering the feeble light.
    “He was a very brave fellow tonight, weren’t you, my lad?” she said, stopping just short of them, breathing in the comforting scent of horses and hay. “Bore up like a trooper.”
    “What are you doing here, Miss Harewood?” Wallingford asked with a sigh.
    “I saw your lantern, heading for the stables. I wasn’t sure what it was.”
    “So you decided to investigate? At midnight?” He turned at last. “In your nightgown?”
    She shrugged and smiled.