Page 21 of The Masked Baron
Hannah coughed, causing several pins to fly from her lips. “Where did ye hear of her?”
Andalin wondered whether she should tell Hannah about the book, considering the maid’s wide eyes and slackened jaw. Such a fright could kill a woman of Hannah’s age. Instead Andalin lied. “Oh, we used to tell stories about her back home.”
A guttural sound erupted from Hannah’s lips. “We don’t talk about that wicked woman in this house! Now I know why. Just the mention of her brings me temper to a boil.”
Andalin had to know more. “This witch... you knew her?”
Hannah shuddered. “Knew her? She’s the devil herself! Why she’s the one...” Hannah’s voice trailed off. She shifted uncomfortably. “We don’t talk about her in this house!”
The warning in her voice was clear. Andalin dropped the subject and held still while Hannah finished her hair.
Andalin met Hannah’s eyes before she went down for breakfast. “Thank you. My hair always looks lovely after you pin it up like this.”
The tension eased with Hannah’s smile. “It doesn’t take much talent to make hair as soft and full as yers look nice.”
Andalin made her way to the dining room. Something in this house was connected to the witch of Baltar—a story Andalin would have otherwise reasoned to be fiction. She’d heard of people playing with sorcery, but in the past a rumored witch was a dead witch. It seemed unlikely a woman would go to so much fuss just to be beautiful. But then again, didn’t every young lady desire beauty?
A woman accused of using her powers to change her appearance to trick away innocent men’s wealth was somehow connected to the manor house. And not to be forgotten, this witch had protected herself by killing a man who had once begged to marry her. It was Andalin’s turn to shudder. Hannah knew more than she was willing to divulge.
Chapter 8
After a few days andseveral tedious lessons on the proper way to pour and serve tea, the language of the fan, and the precise facial expressions acceptable in public, Andalin was ready to sneak into Ellis’s wing. She needed answers to her questions, and Ellis’s prolonged absence felt like an invitation. She noiselessly opened her bedroom door and peered down both sides of the passageway. When she saw nothing, she listened for another moment until she was completely satisfied no one could see her. She slipped the door closed and silently crept down the corridor.
The act of espionage suppressed her nerves and filled her with excitement. Andalin took one last glance behind her before turning down the corridor separating Ellis’s family rooms from the rest of the house. Her footsteps slowed. She peered into the first room and then the second, but both had furniture and wall hangings covered in white sheets. Andalin reached for the handle of the third door, but it was locked. Two more doors to go. The next was a linen closet. But the last was what she had been looking for—Ellis’s room.
The heavy drapes over the window and bed were dark and masculine. Everything about the room seemed big: the bed, the oversized mahogany desk, the bookshelf on the wall, the bear rug on the floor. She had hoped to see proof of his beastlike tendencies, but the room was relatively tidy. Deep down, she knew Ellis was not the rumored wild man, but part of her still wanted to believe he was awful. It made it easier to justify the emotional distance between them.
Not a single family portrait hung on his walls. It was all so very strange. She had peeked under many white sheets in the house, only to find landscapes. She’d been sure if there were any portraits to be found, they would be here. Were they taken down on purpose to avoid the pain of the past? The alternative of there not being any at all seemed too sad to comprehend—especially for a family wealthy enough to hire an artist.
Andalin moved to the desk and saw a large hand-drawn map spread across the top. It was absent of words and labels. There were mostly trees, a few clearings, and several faint straggly lines. The only dark line led across the bottom of the map, almost to the end, where it forked. The right fork ran off the bottom of the page, but the left scrawled upward to a box. Andalin’s breath caught. The dark line represented the road through the Black Forest. The box was Braitwood Hall. The map had to be of the Black Forest.
Ellis had spent enough time in the Forest to have been able to draw a map of it! Why would anyone want to spend time in such a dark, foreboding place? And for what reason did Ellis need to make a study of it?
A chill ran down Andalin’s spine. She stepped away from the desk and toward the bookshelf. She pulled a few interesting titles out and set them on the desk. Then she noticed a folded paper on the highest shelf. She stood on her tiptoes and snatched it down. She unfolded a pencil drawing of a tree with a large diamond-shaped hole on the base. Lost in thought at what it could mean, she became distracted by the window.
She set the paper on the books to bring back to her room to study and then crossed to the window. She pulled back the curtain and stared at the beautiful spread of trees. Ellis clearly had the best view of the estate. What would it be like to see all this rich land and to know it was yours?
“What are you doing in here?”
Andalin whirled around to see Ellis standing in the threshold of the room, his eyes narrowed and his mouth drawn tight.
Andalin’s heart raced as she searched for an excuse. “I was, ah, looking for you.”
Ellis folded his arms, clearly unconvinced. His muscles made the fabric of his shirt taut, and she took an intimidated step back toward the window.
“I wanted to tell you I finished the book you lent me. I had a few questions about it, actually.”
Ellis continued to stare hard at her, and she squirmed beneath his gaze. He could see through her lies.
Andalin hurried to explain herself. “I wanted to know if the story was true or not.”
After an uncomfortable moment, Ellis’s hands slid down to his hips. “I have been gone for several days only to return to find my ward breaching my privacy. I find myself equally astonished you cannot even honestly admit what you are doing here. Snooping, no doubt.”
Andalin bit her lower lip, ignoring his implications. “When I asked Hannah about the witch, she acted as if she knew her. As if... as if... the witch was connected to Braitwood Hall.”
Ellis did not look pleased by her attempt to continue with her cover story. “You are not a child, Annie. A woman does not enter a man’s room, nor does she receive a child’s punishment for tantrums, lies, or gossip. I have now seen all of this behavior from you and wonder if you are ready to be taken out into Society.”
Andalin’s mouth fell open. Tantrums? Surely he did not mean her reaction to being ripped away from her papa and entombed in an empty house. Lies? She hadn’t lied. She had merely avoided confrontation. And gossip? With whom would she gossip? The horses?
