Chapter 18
Eighteen
Jade had about ten seconds to hide without a trace.
She shoved the paper down the front of her dress, clicked off the lamp, and dove behind a heavy, patterned curtain that covered one of the war room’s windows.
As silently and swiftly as possible, she unlatched the window and stepped out onto the narrow ledge beyond, keeping the window open a crack but concealed by the thick curtain.
She found her balance at the same moment that a key turned in the lock, and she heard the door swing open.
“If your information is good, I’m sure there will be no trouble.” Jade didn’t recognize the male voice that murmured as a lamp was switched on.
“Of course my information is good.” Lord Grannam, without a doubt. “And you will do what has to be done with the utmost secrecy.”
“Naturally, Your Grace,” the other man crooned, confident.
A drawer was pulled open. Unable to see anything through the thick curtain, Jade could only assume they were retrieving the same poison she had just discovered.
Jade clung to the stonework surrounding the window frame, her feet one in front of the other on the narrow ledge. This would be so much easier if she weren’t in an evening gown and high-heeled shoes.
“I’ll want this done as soon as possible,” Grannam continued from within the room. “No delays. We have no time to waste.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” the other man replied. “It will be done at the next opportunity.”
Without a line of sight into the room, Jade had no idea who this associate of Lord Grannam’s might be.
The two men she’d been unable to get a good look at in the sitting room earlier were easily identified at dinner: Phillipe, Grannam’s son and husband to Helene, and Harold of Remcourt, Grannam’s cousin and the father of Harrison, Simon, and Cecile.
Jade doubted the man in the war room with Grannam at the moment was either of those men, but she couldn’t say for sure without laying eyes on him.
Grannam spoke frequently to them at dinner, and their conversation in the shadows of the sitting room appeared suspicious now in retrospect.
Both were likely on Grannam’s side and working with him, but did that mean he had employed one of them as an assassin?
No, the assassin was clearly a trained killer.
But either one could be simply another link in the chain that led to him.
“And what about payment?” Nothing in the man’s tone betrayed fear at such a bold request. If anything, he was self-assured.
“Payment will be sent when the job is done. No sooner.”
“It’s as though you doubt my abilities.”
A pause, the tension in the room evident even without Jade witnessing the scene.
“Don’t play me for a fool. You know I am going to be king,” Grannam said, his voice pointed and low—a warning. “You don’t want to cross me.”
Blood pounded in Jade’s ears. Grannam was going to be king. Was that his own wishful thinking, or did he have it on good authority somehow? It might explain his and Arabella’s moods at dinner. What had transpired between them? Was he planning to kill Arabella?
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Your Grace,” the man said, unperturbed, his voice as slippery as before.
Jade itched to peer past the window and see who spoke.
She didn’t know the voices of every member of the royal family, but she’d heard each of the men present for dinner, and this voice didn’t match any of them.
This man had either been waiting somewhere or had arrived for a clandestine meeting with Grannam after dinner.
Jade made a mental note to ask Theo if he saw anyone new come to the palace after the dinner had begun.
“After you, then,” Grannam said as the door latch clicked.
Footsteps shuffled before darkness shrouded the room again. Another click and a soft thud told Jade the door had closed, and the bolt slid into place, locking her back inside.
Jade’s shoulders fell, and she allowed herself to take a full breath. She crept along the ledge, peeking through the gap in the curtain to assess the room, but she saw no trace of its previous occupants.
She shuffled back to the slim opening she’d left between the large window panes and pushed the open one, but her slick-bottomed shoe slipped on the stone.
Jade’s heart dropped. Her body tipped backward, and Jade reached out in front of her, grabbing the wooden window frame and pulling her body through.
She stumbled onto the floor but managed to keep her footing well enough.
The noise she had made worried her the most. Without another move, she stopped and listened, waiting to see if anyone came rushing back to the war room.
But no one came. Jade’s blood pumped wildly through her veins, and she inhaled deeply to bring her heart rate back down as she returned to the cabinet where she’d found the poison. She switched on the lamp again and opened the drawer in question to confirm Grannam had given the poison to the man.
But the box sat untouched where Jade had left it. She reached in and flipped open the lid, finding the same amount of poison as before. Her mouth fell open as her brows pulled together.
If Grannam didn’t give the strange man this poison, what had he given him?
Jade couldn’t linger and try to find out. After being trapped in the room by the appearance of the two men, she’d spent entirely too long away from the group. Marguerite had likely sent a search party out for her by now, and Jade didn’t want to be found lurking on the second floor.
With a sigh, Jade shut the drawer, turned off the lamp, and crept to the door, unlocking it as before with her hairpins.
She peered into the corridor and found no one, then stepped out and locked the door once again.
Keeping her eyes peeled and her ears perked, Jade rushed to the back staircase and to the first floor, thankfully not encountering a soul.
She fell back into the character of Elena Tavigne, who had unfortunately lost her way trying to return to the sitting room from the lavatory.
When she rounded the corner that took her down the passage with the lavatory, she found Marguerite approaching the door and raising her hand to knock. Jade let out an overdramatic cry of relief and rushed toward Marguerite.
“Oh thank goodness! I must have turned the wrong way out of the lavatory. I became completely lost trying to find my way back. I was afraid I would wander all night!”
Marguerite approached her, grabbing both her hands and holding them up in the air between them to reassure “Elena.” “I was starting to grow worried! You’ve been gone for so long!
” She turned to head in the direction of the sitting room and hooked her arm through Jade’s, strolling along the hallway with her.
“I’m afraid we played a full game without you, but I came to look for you before the second. ”
Jade smiled sweetly at Marguerite. “How kind of you. I’m looking forward to joining you for the next one.”
The door to the sitting room lay ahead, but the butler met the ladies in the hallway and stopped them before they entered. He still appeared distressed from dinner, but some new emotion edged his features. Curiosity, perhaps?
“Lady Elena, it appears your driver is at the door.”
Jade’s heart jumped to her throat. What was Theo doing there? If he had noticed something suspicious, could it not have waited until they were back at headquarters?
Marguerite frowned and faced Jade. Jade mirrored her expression, the confusion not an act.
“Whatever for?”
“He said he was feeling ill and asked to come inside and use the facilities. The doorman led him to a room to rest, and I came to inform you.”
Jade released Marguerite’s arm but cupped her hand before she walked away. “Give me a moment. I’ll check on him and return for our card game.”
Marguerite nodded, and Jade followed the butler to a small room off the front entrance, where the doorman stood in the open doorway with Theo sitting in a chair on the other side. Their eyes locked, sending unspoken messages in a matter of seconds.
A curious expression settled on Jade’s face. “I hear you’ve fallen ill?”
“I didn’t intend to bother you with it, my lady,” Theo said, his put-on accent thick Brithswaitian. “I only needed the chance to recover.”
Jade gave a small nod of dismissal to the doorman, who turned and left Jade with Theo at the threshold of the room. Jade took two steps inside, and her polite smile fell as she turned her attention to Theo.
“What on earth are you doing here?” she whispered through clenched teeth, closing the rest of the distance between them.
Theo got to his feet. “I saw you on the ledge outside a window upstairs. You were clearly hiding from someone.” His brow wrinkled with concern as his eyes searched her face.
“Who else saw?”
“I doubt anyone. None of the drivers have paid attention to the house all night, and you were in the dark, but I was keeping an eye out for you.”
“So why are you here?”
Theo’s eyebrows met as though he was confused by her question. “I was coming to help you. I’m your backup.”
Jade pressed her eyes closed. “I was fine. I’m supposed to give you a signal if I need help. Fan myself in front of the window, remember?”
Theo’s face transformed from concerned to stern. “You were in trouble. That was obvious.”
“But I was handling it. I didn’t need you to come and rescue me!” Frustration cut through her quiet words. She tipped her face up to Theo, drawing herself to her full height. “All you’ve done is draw attention to me.”
“That was never my intention,” Theo bit back. “I was just trying to help. I wouldn’t be able to live with it if something happened to you on my watch.”
Jade softened, letting an exhale flow from her lungs and carry her irritation with it. “I have to go back in there, but you need to promise me you will stick with the plan. We can’t mess this up.”
Theo nodded and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Tell them I needed some fresh air and time away from the horses. I’ll wait a few minutes to ‘recover’ and head back.”
“All right.” Jade leaned closer to him, lowering her voice even further. “But people have noticed this. It’s odd. They will remember. We have to be careful.”
Theo gave a final nod as Jade stepped back through the open door.
“I hope the fresher air is doing you some good,” she said louder with her slight Ellyrisan accent. “I won’t be much longer and we can return.”
“Very good, my lady.” Theo briefly bowed his head, and Jade left.
Jade returned to the sitting room, where the ladies sat around a circular table and dealt new hands of cards for the next game.
Marguerite wasted no time in asking what was the matter with her driver, to which Jade shrugged and said, “Apparently, he was in need of fresher air than the stables provide. No doubt he wanted to get a glimpse of the palace interior.”
Raised eyebrows and murmurs of agreement surrounded the table as Jade sat and asked to be dealt in. Her nonchalance and lack of attention to the matter should hopefully keep the ladies from considering the strangeness of it.
Jade tried to relax as she settled in to the card game, now simply Elena again. The melancholy air from the removal of the sorcerer footman had vanished, and the women laughed as they competed in the game.
This was her chance to further build a relationship with these people to continue being invited back. She would participate in the gossip and chatter surrounding their game enough to be considered likable, taking note of each lady’s preferences, habits, tendencies, and dislikes.
Paper crinkled against her breasts, and Jade remembered the note she had stuck in the front of her dress in Grannam’s war room.
Every move now made the paper exceedingly obvious to her.
She would have to be careful leaning forward for risk of exposing its hiding place to the ladies.
It wasn’t much, but it was evidence, so she couldn’t be caught with it.
And it made her night a success. How much of a success was yet to be determined, but she had something for both Nicolas and Commander Matherson. Yes, no matter what Nicolas said, she would share this with Matherson. First.