Page 27 of Black and Silver

“What a damnable disappointment,” Lawrence said just as Minnie opened the door.

She was deeply afraid that the loud peal of laughter she let out just as she stepped into the hall would wake Lady Jessica and Lord Otho, wherever their chamber was located. It was enough so that she slapped a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter. That gesture only made Lawrence giggle, though, and as that sound was so boyish and at odds with Lawrence’s age and appearance, it set Minnie off all over again.

At least if they were caught, they would seem more like mischievous children than serious housebreakers.

The western wing of Tidworth Hall seemed to be far less lived-in than the eastern wing, where Minnie and Lawrence had been given a room. The house was enormous, and after climbing to the topmost floor they could reach and pulling open a few doors with creaky hinges to see where they led, Minnie becameconvinced very little of the west wing was used for anything besides storage.

“I’m surprised Lady Jessica went through the trouble of remaking this part of the house at all,” Minnie said after the third door they opened led to another unused guestroom. “It has the feel of a place that has not been used in decades.”

Lawrence hummed in agreement. “It seems to me as though Lady Jessica threw her efforts into renovating the house so that she could avoid being trapped in conversation with her husband.”

Minnie laughed as she poked her head into a fourth room. “That will certainly never be our fate,” she said before stepping out into the hall. When she found Lawrence looking at her with a combination of curiosity and hope, she added, “We will never run out of things to speak about.”

Lawrence’s uncertainty turned into a smile. “No, I believe we never will.”

It shouldn’t have, but the short exchange pinched something within Minnie’s heart. She was certain Lawrence meant that they would never grow bored, but a part of her knew that the truth was they would never have a chance to know, one way or another. There would be no future for the two of them. They would travel on, she would carry out her plan to make it appear as though she fell from a cliff, she would be declared dead, and he would move on.

Somehow, as they continued down the hall in silence, her grand plan did not feel as exciting or perfect as it once had. She would have an entirely new life in Sweden, but Lawrence would mourn her passing so. And while once she would have thought that a broken-hearted man who had lost his love was one of the most romantic things imaginable, now a deeper part of her felt as though a long, cozy life of mischief and storytelling was by far the more romantic option.

“Good heavens, this looks promising.”

Minnie pushed those troubling thoughts far to the back of her mind as Lawrence opened a door at the end of the hall that revealed a narrow staircase going up. There would be time to agonize over the conflict in her heart later. For now, they had thievery to do.

“This must be it,” she whispered, holding her lantern high and peering up the cold, drafty stairs.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Lawrence said, taking the bold first step forward.

The stairs creaked horribly, and there were cobwebs and other signs of infrequent use all around, but Minnie followed Lawrence up into the attic regardless.

Once they reached the intimidatingly massive space, Minnie gasped in amazement, then coughed as she breathed in dust.

“It’s like something out of a novel,” she croaked as soon as she had the power of speech again.

The attic was everything she could ever have desired in creepy and disturbing spaces. The light of their two lamps was barely enough to illuminate masses of muslin-covered furnishings, old crates held together with rusted nails, and various piles of broken stair railings, bits of metal that might have been from destroyed chandeliers, and other items whose former use was a mystery.

Lawrence inched boldly forward and lifted the corner of one muslin covering to reveal a tattered couch of an antique design. Its cushions were clearly the home to some sort of undesirable creature that Minnie did not want to think about.

“As deliciously decrepit as this place is,” she whispered, “I should very much like to find your statue and be done with the place.”

“You do not like a spooky attic now and then?” Lawrence asked with all the casualness of someone asking if she liked an anise biscuit on occasion.

“I much prefer a rain-soaked landscape to a stuffy room filled with someone else’s detritus that threatens to inflict some disease of the lungs if I stay too long,” she said.

Lawrence laughed, but that caused him to breathe in some of the dust in question, which caused him to cough sharply. Once he recovered, he said, “Perhaps you are right. We should find the statue and get out.”

They spent the next half hour pulling back coverings and moving stacks of crates in an attempt to locate the statue. Logic told Minnie that if Prissy and the other servants sometimes sought it out for a bit of ogling and fun, it could not be stored deep in the vast space. Their initial efforts to locate it didn’t come to much, though.

“Part of me is certain that I will knock my lantern over and begin a blaze that will burn the entire estate down,” Minnie said as she helped Lawrence push an old chair aside. “And as romantic as the notion of being rescued from a conflagration is, it also seems as though it would be a terrible bother.”

“Not to mention a waste of all Lady Jessica’s decorating efforts,” Lawrence said.

Minnie snorted with laughter, which caused her to breathe in dust that made her sneeze.

That proved to be a stroke of luck, however. When she reached for a nearby bit of muslin with which to blow her nose, she revealed the very thing they’d been searching for.

There, under the dusty muslin, was a shocking, white marble statue of a couple entwined in a passionate embrace. There was no mistaking what activity the two were engaged in, particularly in regard to the woman’s position. The man’s carved body was firm and muscular, but his face was mostly buried in thewoman’s neck and hidden by her hair. The woman had her neck extended and her face contorted in a look of ecstasy…and she was unmistakably a young Lady Jessica.

“Good Lord!” Minnie exclaimed, reaching for her lantern and holding it up so she could get a better look at the sculpture. “Are you really that adept?”

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