Free A Fine Caprice - A Regency Romance by Kate Harper Page B

her and then the woman spoke. ‘We all seem to be very light sleepers.’
    ‘It is one of my many curses,’ Ravener mourned. ‘But how fortunate that my dear cousin is also such a light sleeper. La, if I had awoken to find some strange youth wandering about the place I would have been in a dreadful state for my nerves are exceedingly delicate .’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure you underestimate yourself,’ his lordship said dryly. ‘You are made of much sterner stuff than that, surely.’
    Despite her desire for bed, Caprice mounted the stairs slowly, listening to the exchange, bewildered by the curious undercurrents that seemed to lie beneath every word. Who were these people?
    ‘On the contrary,’ Ravener insisted sweetly, ‘ it has always been my affliction. My disposition is very fragile , you know . Although I daresay you don’t. You don’t appear to possess any nerves. ’
    ‘Not noticeably. Now that we all know what the fuss was about, I suggest we return to our own bed s ,’ Lord Merridew suggested coolly. ‘I would be loathed to fray your poor nerves any further. Your highness ,’ he added, ‘I bid you goodnight once more.’
    ‘Goodnig ht,’ the lady in question murmured . ‘Sleep well, dear Lord Merridew.’
    Highness ? What on earth? Caprice shook her head and scurried up the last few steps, unwilling to look as if she had been eavesdropping . Certainly it was all very odd but she was sure to learn more on the morrow when his lordship expanded on the reasons he wished to employ her . And if he didn’t elaborate enough, well, she would just have to ask.
    O n the third floor , she spent a few minutes explor ing her surroundings . Surprisingly, the clutter that littered the two floors down below had no t migrated upwards and the floor was refreshingly sparse in its furnishings. She s elected the most comfortable bed she could find i n the largest room she could find , possibly once the bedchamber of the housekeeper although clearly long gone if the state of the house was any indication .
    ‘She was probably murde red and buried in the garden, ’ Caprice muttered, pulling off her boots and shrugging wearily out of her jacket. She thought wistfully of that warm bath she had been anticipating at her friend’s house , which would have been followed by a clean nightgown ( neither of which were likely to be hers in the near future , it seemed) and crawled gratefully beneath the blankets . They smelled musty and were just a little damp but she didn’t care. They were a great deal more agreeable than a bale of hay , which she had discovered could prickle the skin, making a good night ’ s sleep a challenge . Besides, after four days in the saddle she was hardly smelling of roses herself so musty sheets were of no consequence. She sighed, twisting this way and that, looking for the most comfortable place on the mattress.
    Then she paused, listening. Was that a creak of floorboards in the hallway? Probably not. The old place was noisy, thanks to the wind rattling its gables. But she wasn’t sure and a sense of uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach.
    So, while her eyelids desperately wished to close and her body get on with the delightful business of sleeping , she flung th e blankets to one side and regained her feet. Fetching a high backed wooden chair from beside the window , Caprice wedged it firmly beneath the doorhandle before climbing back into bed. She had learned that chairs could be used for purposes other th an sitting during her journey and had employed them to good effect if she had managed to secure a room and wanted to be sure not to be disturbed during the night.
    She might be grateful to find herself with a bed for the night, after all, but in a household that seemed to full bursting with the most extraordinary characters, she was taking no chances of a rude awakening. And that might just possibly have been a footstep in the hallway beyond her door. Unlikely, but possible.
    Having dealt