Free A Pattern of Lies by Charles Todd Page A

since vanished. All the way to Calais, where the stones had shored up the harbor? Or to some house or shed or pigsty that had benefited? In the dark, there was only a vast emptiness, enclosed by the black line of the wall. I heard a fox bark in the distance, but couldn’t conjure up the evensong of the monks.
    The cool night air was refreshing, and I left my windows wide.
    With a sigh I turned away and undressed, washing my face and hands before climbing into bed. Someone had thoughtfully left several books by the carafe of water on my table, but I wasn’t in the mood to read. I set my watch beside them and blew out the lamp.
    For a moment my thoughts wandered to London, where I had lived in lodgings in Mrs. Hennessey’s house since the first weeks of the war. Had one of my flatmates come in on leave? And where was the Colonel Sahib, or for that matter Simon Brandon?
    He now lived in the cottage just through the wood behind our house, and in India he’d taught me to ride and shoot, shielded me from retribution for the worst of my childhood transgressions, and, young as he was, served as my father’s Regimental Sergeant-­Major. That was, until a few years before the war, when my father had retired from active duty. Recalled to special duty in 1914, they were often off on some mission or other, much of it secret. My mother and I never asked where or why.
    Or had my father and Simon spent the evening with my mother? And where was she? In Somerset, or visiting a recent war widow, giving her consolation and support?
    With a sigh, I scolded myself for feeling a twinge of homesickness, and instead thought about the evening here at Abbey Hall.
    I could commiserate with the Ashtons, trying to keep up appearances as Mrs. Ashton had put it. But it had been even more painful for her and her son, I thought, than just giving in to the moment and dining in our street clothes. It had only emphasized the fact that Mr. Ashton was not in his customary seat at the head of the table. Or his usual chair in the drawing room. And Mark had not presumed to sit in either one tonight.
    I turned and tossed for a bit, unable to settle in the unfamiliar bed—­even though it was much more comfortable than my usual hard cot. And the soft down quilt over me was a far cry from the rough, harsh blanket I was accustomed to. The pillow was bliss, compared to what might just as well have been a wool sack beneath my head in France. Very different too from the hotel I’d have had to find in Canterbury late in the day when the stationmaster finally admitted that my train wasn’t coming through. Assuming even the worst rooms hadn’t all been taken by that time. No worries about bedbugs and cockroaches in the Ashtons’ house.
    I drifted into sleep.
    Late in the night, I woke up with a start at the sound of breaking glass. It wasn’t in my bedroom, but it was loud enough that it seemed to come from just below my windows. And that must mean in Mrs. Ashton’s sitting room.
    My first thought was that as a guest in the house, I shouldn’t go dashing down to find out what it was. But I wondered if it was another egg tossed into the room for someone to discover in the morning, a sticky smear on the polished floors or the edge of a carpet.
    I had just settled back against my pillows, on the verge of drifting off to sleep again, when I sat bolt upright, my nose twitching. Surely what I smelled, wafting up from below through my open window, was a strong whiff of smoke.
    Pushing aside the last shreds of sleep, I sniffed the air.
    It wasn’t the odor of tobacco. Something was burning .
    Shocked wide awake now, I whipped the covers off, caught up my dressing gown, and ran for the door, not bothering with my slippers.
    â€œ Fire! ” I shouted down the passage as I headed for the stairs. “ Hurry! ”
    I was halfway down them when I heard Mark calling, “What is it, what’s happening?” He was