Page 2 of Crying Wolfe
Reaching the observatory window, she slid a butter knife from the pocket of her wrapper and poked it through the casement to lift the latch from the inside. That done, she swung the glass pane open and peeked into the dimness below.
Empty, as always.
Lady Clarkwell was too old and rickety to climb the stairs to the fourth floor, and the staff never ventured here at night.
Rosaline had always thought the precious room seemed not only deserted, but dejected.
Lonely. Abandoned.
Her heart had ached at the vastness of treasure she’d spied within, all barely given a proper dusting, let alone appreciation.
Such a room was the manifestation of her most earnest fantasies. Had she owned a place so grand, she’d never leave it. She’d spend all day sleeping in a puddle of sunshine allowed in by the glittering skylights, and all night charting the stars.
Discovering the undiscoverable.
Leaping onto the windowsill over which Rosaline leaned, Nova—or Orion—rubbed a whiskered cheek against her shoulder. Deftly, the accursed animal danced out of range when she swiped for it and landed somewhere in the gloom below.
Wriggling in through the casement, Rosaline’s slippered toes found the top of the bookshelves lining the walls of the observatory. She made her way to the rolling ladder with featherlight steps, careful only to put her weight on the load-bearing seams of the shelves. Gathering the wisps of her nightshift and wrapper, she descended the ladder and found purchase on the plush, exotic rug beneath her.
Lord it was cold in this wing of the house. As chilly inside as it was out there… She should have brought something heavier than her wrapper, but had worried the weight would make her travel across the ledge more difficult.
After breathing on her hands to warm them, she extracted a taper candle from her wrapper pocket. She found the holder she used perched upon a decorative table and replaced its candle with her own before lighting it. When she left, she’d extinguish hers and take it back to Cresthaven, careful to leave no trace of herself behind.
A metallic glint caught her eye.
This was what she’d come to find…
Drawn as if by a night witch’s spell, she drifted forward, gaping at the reflections of gleaming candlelight off the magnificent marvel before her.
Telescope. What an utterly unromantic name for such a miracle of modern technology crafted from the visions of a millennia of astronomers.
Her fingers itched to tinker with it.
Tonight, however…they burned with a different need. One far more insidious and undeniable.
Lifting her candle, she traversed the room, a marvelous structure with two-story-high ceilings and rows of more books than a person had years to read them. Columns and diverse display cases were crowded amongst writing secretaries, comfortable chaises, and several velvet-lined chairs, creating a fascinating obstacle course for the uninitiated. The room was part library, part study, part observatory, and might have once served as a salon to any number of societies. Archeological. Astronomical. Artistic.
A dreamy sigh expelled from her breast as she stopped to press her fingers to a glass case containing an ancient-looking map of constellations. What she wouldn’t give…
Then she saw it.
Something out of place from her previous excursions here.
A long, narrow table draped with cobalt velvet cloth upon which several things were randomly strewn in disarray.
These were not protected or covered, neither were they even catalogued or arranged with any sense of care. She surveyed the chaos with a gasp. It was as if someone had dumped an ancient pirate treasure chest on the table and forgotten about it. Misshapen coins of varied colors became the ground soil out of which sprouted gleaming urns, rusted weapons and rudimentary jewelry, along with several warped figurines of mythical creatures and patrician-looking people. Decorative ornaments of nondescript origin leaned against clayobjects d’artdipped in aged or tarnished precious metals.
Rosaline’s detested demon roared.
A greedy, carnal, appalling part of her she had never been able to fully restrain thrashed and cried and yearned. It set her skin aflame and swirled in her psyche like a whisk through thick, reconstituted soup.
With desperation, she scanned the tabletop. Some things were crusted with gems. Especially the dishes. Goblets with rough-cut gemstones inlayed with heavy prongs. A large one with what might have been a ruby. And a slightly shorter, slimmer piece, adorned with a crystal clear emerald. She couldn’t stand to take anything so costly.
Please. Please. Please. Let there be an item that would be—oh yes.There.
Reaching forward, she wrapped her fingers around the cool alloy of a plain bowl. It might have been intricate once, but the prongs were broken off and it had no stem or handle. The curve fit into her small hands as if it’d been made just for her. The surface had once been etched with writing, but was now faded and encrusted with some sort of green gritty substance. The inside, however, was remarkably smooth, and it pleased her to run her fingers over the rim. It was a texture she couldn’t identify. Not hard like brass. Copper, maybe?
Some of the gleaming treasure might very well be gold, which was why she touched nothing that seemed valuable.
