9
Durand Manor was dark as Iris and the Widows emerged from the tree line late that night, a hulking edifice rising over the shadowy landscape and blocking out the meager light from the stars.
The moon was a mere sliver, a lopsided grin that did little to illuminate their way.
Which was a blessing. Better to have to take extra care in picking a path through the brush than to chance being seen.
Or so Iris told herself as her shin came up against something hard and ungiving.
Swallowing a curse, she rubbed at her leg and glanced sideways at the other women.
Dressed all in black, with voluminous hoods and masks secured across the lower portions of their faces, they were barely discernible in the shadows.
Even so, Iris felt incredibly vulnerable as she turned to look up at the face of the manor house.
The windows winked fitfully with weak starlight, and for a moment she imagined Lord Durand, with his overbright smile and disturbing pale eyes, staring down at her from one of the dark rooms. With shaking fingers she pulled her hood more firmly over her face, checked her mask, felt for the blade secured in the collar of her jacket and then down, across the boning of her corset and the lock-picking tools hidden within.
Everything was as it should be. Why, then, could she not shake this sense of foreboding?
Sylvia sidled up to her. “Heloise concluded during her survey of the landscape this afternoon that the study is that way,” she whispered, pointing off to the side of the house that faced a sunken garden. “There’s an arbor that will hide us from view while we gain access. You are ready?”
Iris nodded jerkily, taking a steadying breath as she crouched low and hurried off in the direction Sylvia had indicated.
Sure enough, there was a rose arbor right against the house face, the deeper gloom beckoning her within.
She did so, willingly ducking into the darkness, daring to let out a breath only when it fully swallowed her.
She heard the faintest sounds of shuffling as the others followed, their soft-soled boots moving with impressive silence over the gravel path.
“The door is here,” Heloise said close beside her, her voice barely discernible over the sigh of the wind rustling in the leaves and several exuberant crickets close by. With gentle hands she guided Iris to the building, brought her hands to a latch. “Do you need light?”
Iris nearly laughed, though whether it would have been because of the absurdity of the question or pure nerves she didn’t know.
“I have told you I can do this type of thing with my eyes closed,” she whispered back, reaching into the channels of her corset and pulling out the long lock-picking tools.
Using the sensitive pads of her fingers, she found the opening of the lock and inserted the thin lengths of hooked iron.
In seconds she heard the faint click of the mechanism within, and for the first time that evening she smiled.
Wordlessly she turned the latch and swung the door wide on thankfully silent hinges.
Which was when the golden glow of lantern light, bobbing along on the other side of the garden, caught her attention.
Her heart made a heavy thump in her chest, stalling ever so slightly before beginning up again at a rapid pace.
They had been so thorough in their study of Mr. Beckett’s habits when patrolling the grounds.
And one of their findings was that he never came to this portion of the property this time of night, ever.
Which was the very reason they had chosen this particular hour for their plan.
Yet that lantern light proved that they had made a fatal error.
“Sylvia,” she choked.
The pitch dark of the arbor prevented her from seeing the other woman’s reaction, but she heard it plain enough in her voice. “Damn it,” she hissed, tension and a faint fear threaded through the words. “He should not be at this side of the garden now. Everyone inside, quickly.”
They slipped through the door and hurried to close it.
But not before Iris cast a quick look back.
A flash of Mr. Beckett’s face in the lantern light, his eyes intense as he scanned the surrounding landscape, had her gasping.
And then Laney closed the door, and they all stood frozen in the dark of the study.
For several agonizingly long moments they hardly dared to breathe.
Iris’s heart drummed in her chest, echoing in her ears, making it hard to hear anything else.
But as the seconds passed, and there was no pounding of feet or hue and cry, she gradually released the breath that had become trapped in her lungs. He had not seen them. Thank God.
She took that moment to look about. Or at least attempt to. It was nearly as dark here as it had been in the arbor. Eyes wide and useless, she reached out, hands blindly searching, her questing fingers finding someone’s arm. A warm hand covered hers in comfort.
“Is it safe to light a lantern?” Laney asked from somewhere to her right.
“The drapes here are quite heavy, if I recall,” Sylvia replied. “We should be safe.”
At once there was the rustling of fabric, the sound of metal.
And then several sparks flared in the dark.
In the next moment the small compact lanterns they had packed specifically for just this purpose were lit, their soft gilded light illuminating their faces.
Sylvia’s was stark with focus as she looked at them all in turn.
“We must be quick,” she instructed. “With Mr. Beckett about on his rounds, and I suspect several servants roaming the house itself, we cannot be too cautious.”
They nodded and were off, scattering like silent specters throughout the study.
Iris hurried with Euphemia for the desk that dominated the far end of the space.
The other woman brought the light close to the front of the heavy mahogany drawers, Iris’s tools flashing as she went to work on the locks, meticulously picking each one.
She knew she was quick about it. She knew she had never been faster, her hands more sure, her heart more determined.
Yet it felt as if she were submerged in molasses. Her movements felt too slow, the time it took her to pick the locks dragging, the careful rifling through the contents of each drawer seeming to take an eternity.
And, worse, not a shred of evidence was found, not a notebook, not a paper, not a single scrap of her mother’s writing.
By the time they finished digging through the last drawer, tears of frustration burned her eyes.
As a last resort, she circled the desk, fingers skimming over every inch of the wood, looking for anything out of the ordinary, a dip in the surface or a peculiar delineation or a bit of wear on the shining varnish that might indicate a hidden compartment or secret drawer. But there was nothing.
Exhaling sharply, she looked about the room. Laney and Sylvia were just straightening from a cabinet in the corner, Heloise rubbing the back of her neck on the other side of the room. From their expressions, they had not found anything either.
Those damned tears attempted to push past her defenses but she determinedly sniffed them back. Immediately Euphemia was at her side.
“There is still time,” she consoled in a whisper. “We shall find your mother’s papers.”
Iris, however, hardly heard her, her mind on where they could search next. “Mayhap he keeps them in the library,” she said, already moving for the door. “Or in his suite of rooms. Do you think we can access his rooms?”
She reached for the handle. Before she could grasp it, however, Sylvia was there, pulling her back.
“Wait, Iris,” she whispered. “We cannot just go strolling through the house.”
“But they’re here,” Iris said, the words coming fast and desperate, her frustration overriding common sense. “I know it. I cannot leave without them—”
Sylvia’s hand clamped like a vise over her mouth, stopping the words in their tracks. Iris instinctively reached up to pry the hand away.
Until the rumble of a voice in the hall finally pierced through the haze of her frantic mind.
“—thought I found signs of trespassing in the west side of the property,” a man was saying.
A man Iris quickly realized was Mr. Oliver Beckett.
She froze, wild eyes flying to Sylvia’s.
But even in the deep shadows she could see that woman was looking not at her but at the door, her breath coming hard and fast.
“Please wake some footmen to search the house. There was no breach in the perimeter of the glasshouses, so whoever is on the property may have been headed for the manor house.”
“Yes, Mr. Beckett,” a man replied.
Sylvia let loose a hissing curse. “I knew that man would give us trouble. We have to leave, now.” She looked at Iris then. “You have regained your senses?”
Iris nodded, quick and sharp. Sylvia, after the barest moment, released her.
And then they were all moving, the others not needing to be told what to do.
Dousing their lights, they slipped out the side door, back into the protection of the arbor.
But there was no time to release a relieved breath.
In the distance, men’s voices could be heard, the flickering of lantern light seen through the trees.
Mr. Beckett had not only been busy rallying the servants within the house, but he had gathered the ones outside of it as well.
He truly was a force to be reckoned with, as Sylvia had feared.
Which meant that any future searches of the house would be nearly impossible, especially with Mr. Beckett now on high alert.
Frustrated tears blurred Iris’s vision and she angrily dashed them away, attempting to gain control of herself.
All hope was not lost. Common sense and experience had told her that when a door closed in their line of work, a window inevitably opened.
That, however, did nothing to lessen the hopelessness that was trying to engulf her. But now was not the time. No, now they had to escape without detection, something that would be more difficult the longer they tarried.
“We cannot leave the way we came,” Laney whispered. “We must go around, toward the east. The long stone fence has an opening about halfway down, if I recall.”
“Wait for my signal,” Sylvia ordered.
The seconds ticked past, each one excruciating.
All the while, they scanned the landscape, watching, waiting.
The lantern lights bobbed, flashing in and out of the vegetation like the ominous, glowing eyes of a hellhound, occasionally illuminating the faces of the servants.
Iris’s heart pounded in her ears, her breath ragged as it bounced against the climbing roses and back at her.
Surely someone would hear them, would find them.
Just when she thought she would go mad with waiting, Sylvia gave the signal.
“Now!”
They crouched low, following closely on one another’s heels, heading down the path that hugged the house.
Iris did not dare look back, did not dare take her eyes from the barely lit path before her.
One wrong step and she would tumble to the ground, taking everyone else with her, drawing the attention of every servant out searching.
After an agonizingly long time, they came to the stone wall.
It stretched along the garden perimeter, feeling more like the wall of a jail cell than their salvation.
Was Laney right, and there was an outlet?
Or had she been mistaken in her examination of the property?
Something that seemed more and more likely as they hurried along the wall and there was not even the slightest hint of a break.
But then, finally, there it was, a great wide mouth, a shadow that beckoned.
Nearly sobbing her relief, Iris followed the others, their steps quickening.
A glow started up then, as if it were welcoming them.
Almost too late, she realized that glow was not a welcome at all, but a warning. Sylvia stopped in her tracks, motioning them frantically to retreat. They managed to find shelter behind an obliging hedge just as a familiar form stepped through the gaping maw.
In the one corner of Iris’s brain that was not fighting panic, she could not help but admire how utterly captivating Mr. Beckett looked, with those chiseled features brought into even more stark relief by the lamplight.
But no, now was not the time to admire the man.
Not that any time she had been in his presence was the time to admire him.
Now, however, was a particularly bad time.
Especially as, with seemingly unerring accuracy, he turned down the path and headed their way.
A squeak rose in her throat, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to hold it at bay.
The others were equally alarmed, crouching down even farther in the shadows.
They were fairly well hidden here, but Durand Manor’s gardens were not exactly riddled with conveniently large and bushy specimens.
No, each plant was almost painfully tamed, and certainly not up to the caliber of something that could hide five fully grown women.
If Mr. Beckett were to come abreast of them and glance their way, he would most assuredly see something that would give them away.
The gravel crunched under his boots, the lantern swinging with each step and sending the shadows careening.
Eyes wide and fixed on him, Iris leaned back, bracing her hand on the ground to keep her balance—and came up against a fist-sized rock.
An idea took shape a moment before, hefting the thing in her grip, she pulled her arm back and flung the rock with all her might.
There was a moment of crystalline awareness as it sailed through the air.
She saw with incredible detail how Mr. Beckett started at the rustle of leaves as the rock broke through their cover, how the lamplight highlighted it as it sailed over his head, as it flew past the meager light into the deep shadows of the garden.
And then there was an overloud crash as the rock hit something that sounded incredibly breakable.
Everything happened at once. Mr. Beckett, whose head had been about to turn their way, instead whipped it in the other direction, toward the sound of the crash. “Mr. Wren,” he called out.
“I heard it as well,” the unseen man called back.
And then Mr. Beckett was off, lantern lurching wildly as he headed for the sound, the trample of feet joining in as others made for the same direction.
In the next instant Iris and the Widows wordlessly sprinted from their hiding spot, ducking through the opening in the stone wall.
Though they did not breathe properly for a very long time.