Page 60 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

That night I could make no attempt to search the library. The “small reception” that Helena was giving the next day turned out to be much larger that I had thought, with at least a few hundred guests – which meant the servants would be up most of the night preparing. I suppose one didn’t entertain royalty in the neighbourhood very often.

I knew it would be far too risky to go snooping around in the dark. Instead, I stayed in my room and worked on Sophia’s gown.

Matilda had not missed a beat when I introduced her to Sophia as an incredibly skilled seamstress, and together we had taken Sophia’s measurements. Despite what I had said, the gown was in bad shape, and I had to unpick most of it. It was hard work – particularly without the assistance of a sewing machine – but by the time my candle had guttered down I was pleased with the outcome. That would take some of the sting out of Agatha’s remarks, I hoped. Sophia deserved to feel beautiful.

I had spent the last two nights chasing shadows into the early hours of the morning and that night I fell asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow. Unfortunately, dreams raced after one another through my head: Agatha’s cruel smile as she tugged at Sophia’s new gown, tearing it to ragged strips. Stefan holding out a book of poetry to me. I could read the words now and they were all about me. He held me in his arms. And then we were dancing, but it wasn’t Stefan at all, it was Nick, Nick with those ice-cold eyes, and I was drowning in them, and – somewhere far away – Helena was laughing and laughing.

I woke with a start.

Matilda was there, drawing back the curtains, and she had set up a tray beside the bed. Hot chocolate from a silver pot.

“Thank goodness for you, Matilda,” I croaked. I had asked her to wake me early, and she had taken me at my word.

“Did you really do this, miss?” I lifted my head from the pillow to see Matilda standing in front of Sophia’s gown.

“No,” I sighed, sinking back. “You did.”

There was a pause. “That’s right kind of you, miss,” Matilda said finally. “Lady Sophia is a nice lady from what I’ve seen, and she deserves to have something beautiful to wear tonight.”

“It was nothing,” I said, embarrassed.

“I don’t think it will be nothing for Lady Sophia,” Matilda replied, her eyes still on the gown. She had that same look that Mrs Turnbull had worn when she saw me in my ball gown, the same outstretched fingers, not quite daring to touch.

“I can make one for you, Matilda, if you want,” I said. “A dress, I mean. If you’d like. When this is all over.”

The words came out before I had thought about them, and I frowned. What was I doing, offering to make dresses for people? Madame Solange was going to have me chained to my workbench as it was. All this high living was making me soft.

Matilda smiled. “I’d love that, miss. When this is all over.”

Although she was only repeating my own words back to me, they still sent a shiver down my spine.

When this is all over.

Time was running out. I had been here for almost a week now and while Nick’s plan might be coming together nicely, I was no further along in my investigation. Despite what Tookes and Mrs Chambers had said, I still felt certain that my father’s death was no accident.

I had to find that will. It was my only lead.

I threw back the bedcovers. If the staff had bumped into me or seen me rooting around in the library in the middle of the night, it might have caused a scandal. But no one was going to bat an eyelid if I was in there in the morning, looking for a book. That was why I’d asked Matilda to wake me at this ungodly hour.

“Right,” I battled a yawn. “Help me throw something on, and fetch me two bedsheets. I mustn’t waste any time.”

If Matilda was confused by this request, she didn’t show it. Instead, she helped me to get dressed in record time, in a particularly pretty smocked lilac gown, and I left the room not five minutes later without a hair out of place.

On winged feet I made my way downstairs. It was not even seven o’clock. I was willing to bet that most of the house party guests were sound asleep. The colonel and Cassie were the only ones who tended to rise early, and it was extremely unlikely they’d be downstairs yet.

I passed several members of staff, but kept my gaze haughty, my steps firm, as though I had every right to be going where I was going – which I suppose I did; after all, I was a guest, and guests were perfectly welcome to use the library. I’ll admit that the fact I was clutching a pair of bed sheets probably was unusual, but none of them turned a hair, not even the maid who was actually in the library pulling the last of the heavy curtains aside.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Sorry, miss. We’re a bit behind because of the party, but I’m all finished now.”

“Thank you,” I said with my most gracious smile and a slight incline of my head. “That will be all.” I was perhaps laying it on a bit thick – I sounded like a member of the royal family – but the girl looked suitably awed and scurried off at once.

I shut the door firmly behind her, dragging a chair in front of it for good measure. Then I stood in the middle of the room for a moment, listening hard for anyone who may be like to come in. Now that the room had been opened up for the day, it was unlikely. It would just take a bit of nerve, that was all, and I straightened my shoulders, reminding myself that I had plenty of that.

When my father had been alive, his desk had stood in a large recess created by the tall bow window near the mantelpiece. There were, I knew, at least two secret places where he may have hidden important papers.

First I headed straight for the mantelpiece. It was an enormous carved affair, covered in a design of climbing vines and very ripe fruit and stalks of wheat – the kind of thing that usually had some hidden message about prosperity and fertility and long healthy family lines. As far as I knew the fireplace had stood there for the past two hundred years, though it could have been older – the oldest part of the house was over three hundred years old.

I felt my way down the right-hand side of the fireplace, peering closely at the carvings until I spotted it. There, hidden in the vines, was a tiny pair of crossed keys. I ran my thumb over them, and pressed. A small square button – only visible now that I had put pressure on it – sunk into the wood, and there was a tiny clicking sound, followed by an almost inaudible groan, as a panel swung open in the side of the fireplace surround.