Bisclavret

Chapter 16

I'm wrenched awake as a hand clamps down on my mouth. Mallory leans over me in the dying firelight, a finger pressed to her lips to indicate silence. I try to struggle up and get nowhere. She easily holds me down, the strength in her limbs shocking.

"You're to come with me," she says in a whisper. "Don't scream." She pulls her hand away as if she can sense I'm a heartbeat away from biting her.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?" I seethe, voice low as I scramble upright.

"He's waiting for you," she tells me, and I go still, knowing immediately who he is.

"Have you lost your mind?" I demand. "I'm not meeting him at this hour."

She clucks at me and shakes her head. "You thought your training would take place during the day?"

I open my mouth. Then close it. Well, yes, I suppose I had thought that.

She must see the confirmation in my eyes because her own crinkle with dark humor. "Spies live at night."

"I'm not a spy," I say. "This is completely improper. What if I get caught out of bed?"

The look she gives me makes it clear she thinks I'm an idiot. "I've locked both of your doors, and someone will be here to watch. If anyone should try to enter, you'll be back quick enough to open your own door with none the wiser. Now get up. You have work to do."

Maid, my foot. She's no more a maid than the marquise. Muttering, I get out of bed, and she hands me my dressing gown. I pull it on without argument. What choice do I have? "I'm to go to him in this?"

"No one will see you," she says.

"I don't want him to see me." If his gaze felt like a brand when I wore layer after layer of clothing, I can only imagine what it would do to me now.

Mallory shakes her head. "He won't see you like that. You'll change before we get there." Her expression turns serious for once. "And you should know, propriety has nothing to do with our line of work, so you might as well get over it."

I glare at her back as she turns from me. She walks to the wall and pushes something. To my shock, a panel at the bottom of it slides open.

"You have got to be joking," I say, grabbing a second candle and marching over to her.

After my first suspicions that I was being watched, I checked every nook and cranny of this room. I found nothing. Not only that, but there is a room next to mine, opposite Livy's, which I snuck into one day. I didn't see anything suspicious in there either, certainly no hint of hidden depths that might excuse the sudden appearance of this door. The dimensions of the house must be different in places, allowing for passages to fit between rooms in a way that's difficult to detect. It certainly fooled me.

"After you," Mallory says, a challenge in her voice.

Not willing to let her under my skin any further than she already is, I light my candle on hers and duck down to crawl through the panel. As soon as I clear it, I'm able to stand. The soft light of my candle fills the narrow corridor. It's unfinished, with the studs and wood framing exposed, reminding me of a ribcage. I turn and notice a spiral staircase to my right that leads up and away. My head spins. Even in my most paranoid state, I never could have imagined what hid behind my bedroom wall.

Mallory joins me and turns to tap a rather obvious-looking knob. I suppose there's no need to hide the closing mechanism on this side. The panel swings back into place, and I follow her when she passes me and begins to take the stairs. We ascend for nearly two floors, reaching a small platform halfway between to turn 180 degrees and take the next flight up. It deposits us in front of another door, and we pass through it into a finished hallway that's so narrow it feels like we're walking through the dark arteries surrounding the very heart of the chateau. She leads me to a door on the left, and I step inside a surprisingly large room. The walls are lined with bureaus, barely an inch of the whitewash visible between them.