Page 23 of The Rented Bride

Cassie’s stomach took a queasy turn as she walked a few paces, and surveyed the other closed doors. “Have these doors been closed all along?”

“As far as I know.” Meg replied. “They’re guestrooms, but Trent doesn’t have any quests staying with us right now.”

A tremor rippled through Cassie’s stomach at the mention of Trent Weston. “It sounds like we have to search pretty much every room on this floor,” she said.

Worry creased Meg’s brow. “I suppose so.”

Cassie grasped the library door and inched it open, then peeked inside. Nothing. She opened the door wider and entered with Meg close behind. She closed the door behind her.

“How would someone have smuggled an iguana into the castle?” Cassie asked as she scanned the desk and couch, which looked like the only places an iguana could hide.

“I guess with three hundred people it’s possible. It’s not like we frisk them.”

“Doesn’t someone meet them at the door and escort them into the ballroom?”

“Sure,” Meg said. “But some of these women wear huge fur coats.”

“This really does go too far,” Cassie said. The five minutes it had taken them to reach the library had sobered her up and she’d gotten angry.

“Where do we begin looking?” Meg asked.

“You take that side.” Cassie pointed left. “I’ll take this side.” She hurried to the desk, then paused at the edge and peered around the corner. No iguana.

She walked around the desk and tilted her head to look beneath it. Empty. Cassie took three steps around the desk, then surveyed the room. Meg knelt beside the couch, bent low, looking beneath the couch.

“Anything?” Cassie asked.

Meg pushed to her knees. “No.”

“Do you think it could get behind that sideboard?” Cassie pointed to the piece of furniture in the far left corner.

Meg rose. “No. The sideboard is flush against the wall.”

“Shoot,” Cassie muttered. “We’re going to have to do a room by room search.” She strode to the door and stepped into the hallway. “How did it get onto the second floor? Can iguanas climb stairs?”

Meg went to the doorway. “You got me.”

“If they can’t, that means someone carried it up here. Would one of the guests staying here do that?”

“I don’t know them well,” Meg said. “But Trent is very particular about whom he calls friends and, in my experience, he wouldn’t let someone he didn’t know well stay at Brettonwood. And, of course, some of the staff live on site.”

Cassie looked left, then right. The rear stairway they’d climbed was the one to the right. “The thing didn’t come down the stairs we came up. At least not while we were on them.” She looked at the other stairs. “Where do those stairs lead?”

“Third floor. The family’s private bedrooms, study, a private parlor.”

“We need someone to watch the stairs we came up,” Cassie said. “I’ll head upstairs. Can you get someone to start searching the lower level?”

“How many people do you want to pull off the party?” Meg asked. “I have Henry and Doris looking. All the temporary help is serving dinner. Celina, I doubt you’ve met her, but she’s searching the ground floor without bringing too much attention to herself.”

“Well, it’s up to us then.” Cassie hurried past her. She turned, but kept walking backwards. “Do you know what to do with an iguana if you catch it?”

“I used to stroke the belly of the little garden lizards I caught as a kid. Puts ‘em right to sleep. Think that’ll work?”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Cassie would clobber it with the first thing she could get her hands on. “I draw the line at stroking a reptile.”

***

Trent reached his grandfather in the ballroom to find him sitting on a chair at the bar. A glass of what he knew was scotch sat on the counter in front of the older man. Celina stood to his right.