Her breathing came hurriedly as sounds began to imprint themselves over pictures in fractured segments: the pad of a bare foot.

The creak of a floorboard.

The rustle of a sheet.

A breath in the dark.

Her eyes flew open as she gasped. Silvered light. A pleated ceiling. Curtained walls. Where was she? Her heart was like a caged nightingale, its wings beating frantically, urgently, as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. This was no byre, no closet, that she knew.

The fireplace. The oil paintings.

Her body softened as it all came back. She was safe. It was just a bad dream. She closed her eyes again, allowing her head to sink deeper into the pillow once more.

Just a bad dream—

A door clicked shut.

Not any door. The door. Her door.

She sat up with another gasp, fully awake now, the nightingale frantic again as her eyes strained in the gloom looking for a shadow, as her ears strained for another breath in the dark.

Nothing stirred, the night holding itself in perfect contraction. For several moments she was held too, her body rigid and tight – but then she threw back the covers and ran across the carpet. She flung open the door and looked out.

The long jade-green corridor didn’t even blink back: ancestors on the wall, ancient chairs, polished tables. No signs of life. No fleeing figure on either the stone staircase or its wooden counterpart at the opposite end. Everyone was sleeping, all doors closed. She had no idea who was in which rooms – was it Sholto beside her, right there? Or was it Lady Sibyl? How many bedrooms were there in this vast house? She stared at the door opposite, then beside her, but there was not so much as a creak to suggest anyone else was up.

Heart thudding, she stepped back into the room and shut the door, turning the key in the lock behind her. She crept back into the soft feathered bed and pulled the silky sheets around her neck. Was she imagining things? Going mad? Had the steward got into her head, as she knew he wanted. Or was this the revenge of the dead, the torment of sleepless nights? She’d not rested well in weeks now, her spirit heavy with malaise.

She closed her eyes but saw only the scene she had left the last time she had seen the factor – his body on the ground, blood on the rocks. Her eyes opened again, her gaze falling dully on the far wall. No, there would be no rest in sleep. She could do nothing but wait for the sun to come up.

Chapter Twenty-Five