Free 0764213504 by Roseanna M. White

story, eh?”
    Deirdre folded the dress around a square of tissue and placed it on top of the first. “Hadn’t you better get back belowstairs, Hiram?”
    “I will. Should I move the trunk for you?”
    “I wouldn’t object.” She indicated a spot nearer the armoire and while he hauled the laden trunk, she moved to the smaller satchel sitting atop the bed. Inside she found the usual items a lady was wont to travel with, and a book that made her snort.
    “What?”
    She held the tome up for Hiram to see. “ Dracula . Our so-called baroness apparently has a taste for gothic novels.”
    “So do our marchioness’s daughters.”
    “True enough.” After placing the book beside the bed, she moved to the dressing table to put the brush and pins and handkerchief in their drawer. “I can only imagine having time to spend on such nonsense.”
    Hiram chuckled. “Can you imagine wearing all this fuss and bother day in and day out?”
    She spun and flew his way to snatch the pale-blue silk from his hands. “If you soil that—”
    “Easy, Dee, I wouldn’t.”
    Knowing him, he had indeed checked his hands for dirt before picking it up, but that was hardly the point. If so much as a bead were lost, she would be the one held accountable. She held it against herself, away from him, with exaggerated fervor, so it came off as a jest rather than testiness.
    Hiram’s eyes went soft and teasing. “It’s a good color for you. Do you ever wish you had such pretty things?”
    When the only way to get them would be to let Lord Pratt make a mistress of her? And then to know such a frock could have paid her family’s way for a month or more? Nay. She would sooner wear burlap. “Given that you just accused me of spying, I dare not say yes, lest you also accuse me of conspiring to thievery.”
    He chuckled, then took a long stride away. “Never. But, Dee . . . ?”
    “Hmm?” She folded the beautiful blue silk, careful not to make any hard creases.
    “Such lovely dresses would suit you. You’ve the face for them.”
    She snapped upright, but he was already out the door. Still, the words echoed in the room, tangling in the emerald-green bed-curtains and sticking to the paler-papered walls.
    Her eyes slid closed, though it was her insides that felt heavy. Heaven help them all. She hoped he didn’t mean anything by his words. Because nothing could lay down that road. Not so long as she was bound by debt to the farm.
    And worse, to Lord Pratt.
    Shaking the heaviness off, she turned back to the trunk and made quick work of storing the dresses. And then paused, fingers hovering over a leather-bound book. Its lack of words on the cover or spine made her think it must be some kind of journal. Should she put it out for the girl, with Dracula ? Or store it with the other bandboxes that she’d discovered with a glance were full of correspondence?
    Lifting it out, she weighed it and glanced inside, at the last pages, to see if they were dated. If the girl wrote in it regularly, she would want it out. But the last dates were from 1902—yet the hand was too mature to have been the lady’s when she was so young. The words looked like French.
    Slapping the cover closed again, Deirdre stood. It must be the journal of the opera singer. Which meant it might disclose who the girl actually was. If so, his lordship deserved to know. Not that Deirdre could read French to tell him anything she happened to see . . . but she knew someone who did.
    Checking over her shoulder out of habit, she slid the book into the large pocket beneath her apron. If the girl asked, she would say she had put it with the other letters. But with any luck she would have it back before it was missed.
    As soon as she knew whether the chit was a fraud or not.

Seven

    B rook jolted awake, a cry clawing at her throat, begging for release. Her chest still heaved, her pulse still galloped. It took all her might to keep from leaping from the bed and running, so fervent was the