Cinderella Must Die by W.R. Gingell

Author:W.R. Gingell [Gingell, W.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W.R. Gingell

Chapter Ten

It was easier than expected to find a place from which to spy on Alaric’s men. They were, of course, spying on Alaric as well, but Jane preferred not to think of it in that way, despite Charlie’s recent approval of her supposed ruthlessness.

The chore might have been made harder if it were not for the natural cunning of Alaric’s men: they had discovered at the same time that the housekeeper was exponentially more likely to pop in with food and drink the closer the soldiers were to the kitchen—and by default, the pantry—and that Aunt Philomena’s cook and butler were both excellent in their chosen professions. This meant that the most convenient room in which to set up their base of operations was the small blue salon just a door away from the butler’s pantry and on the opposite side of the wall from which Jane and Charlie had so recently spied on Candace de Wilde and Aunt Philly as they talked in the yellow salon.

And set up base they had: Alaric aside—who probably had a suite up on the family floor—the soldiers had completely taken over the small blue salon for their eating and operations, and the rather larger salon on the opposite side of the manor for their sleeping quarters.

Jane, who had left Charlie to get a little more sleep and see for herself what problems they would face in trying to set free Harvey, slipped silently from the library exit and trod just as carefully and quietly down the hall. She couldn’t help feeling distinctly unsafe, but she tried her best to walk naturally: should Alaric have left one or two of his men in the manor and they caught a glimpse of her, she would rather they not become suspicious immediately by her demeanour.

Having discovered the happy fact that the soldiers were quartered in so convenient a place, Jane stopped long enough, listening, to find out that someone would be coming from the royal justice department to take charge of Harvey. Then she opened her area of exploration to include the other rooms along the garden side of the ground floor. Aunt Philomena kept a skeleton crew of servants around the manor, possibly as a result of living alone most often, and what servants now still remained at Brownrock were currently attending to the masses of dishes that were a natural result of the soldiers garrisoning there. That left Jane free to wander for at least the next hour, safe in the knowledge that none of the servants would leave the kitchen until the job was done: it would be too hard to catch up again if the soldiers required lunch before the dishes from the morning were cleared. Jane didn’t think there were even enough dishes to deal with such an event.

Bypassing the butler’s pantry, which she’d already had a quick look at while fetching the mead last night, Jane went further down the hall and slipped into the sunroom: a large, wide room with sage green walls and the lingering scent of boronias.

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