Read Online A Death in the Highlands by Caroline Dunford - Free Book Online

trousers. Never took part myself, but I imagine I’m guilty by association in his mind. But school days are about keeping your head down and keeping in with the sons of your father’s friends. That’s how the game is played, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Mr Fitzroy?’ I asked not wanting to pass up the opportunity for gathering information. I determined the wine at dinner must have loosened his tongue.
    ‘Foreign Office. Dickie’s trying to curry favour as usual. Landed a bit of a small fish, if you ask me. Nice enough bloke though. Pretty horrible being among all us lot.’ He took the tray from my hands. I beat a hasty retreat. Mr Smith had been nothing but charm itself, but naive though Rory might think me, I knew gentlemen didn’t generally gossip with female house servants unless they are interested in becoming much better acquainted.
    That night I tossed back and forth in my bed. I had chosen not to use the housekeeper’s bedroom and was still sharing a room with Merry. I cannot say if this was because I felt that although I might allowably use her parlour, sleeping in Mrs Wilson’s bedchamber was usurping the real housekeeper’s status too much, or whether I simply wanted the company. Unfortunately Merry was snoring tonight.
    Outside the rain appeared to have ceased, but the wind was whipping through the trees and rattling at the windows. I grew up in the country and the noises of the night rarely discomfort me, but tonight I was prey to grave misgivings. I searched my thoughts and could find no good reason for my fears. I therefore rationalised that I must have forgotten to do something and that it would nag at me until it was done.
    I got up and stuffed my feet into my slippers. I had brought a hearty, thick and utterly unbecoming dressing gown with me and I wrapped this tightly around me. In the distance I thought I heard a faint slam. Doubtless I had forgotten to close a shutter. Carefully I lit the candle on my nightstand, shielding the flame with my hand so it did not disturb Merry.
    Once I was sure the wick was well alight I stepped out into the corridor. It was very dark and the shadows cast by the single flame danced grotesquely around me. I decided not to take the servants’ small confined stone staircase and make use of the main stairs.
    This was a mistake. As I stepped onto the main landing, the moon came bright through the long window that illuminated the double height of the staircase. It cast into sharp relief the bone-white skulls of the dead deer that adorned the hall. The shadows of their poor stripped antlers danced like a forest of knives around me as I crept down the stairs still shielding my poor candlelight. At this moment I wanted nothing more than Rory to appear and chastise me back to my room. There was a banging in the distance which grew louder as I descended. I wished I was able to rouse Rory for support, but it was unthinkable for me to approach the men’s quarters for anything less than a fire. I could use the dinner gong that stood at the bottom of the stairs, but I could almost hear Rory’s soft burr in my ear as he explained that my desire for company in pursuit of a loose shutter would not be deemed a good enough reason to awaken the household.
    I reminded myself I had long lived by a graveyard and the dead had never troubled me. Another part of me objected that those dead, as far as we had known, had died of natural causes and not by being hunted and shot to death. Could deer come back as avenging ghosts?
    You may appreciate that I was not in the clearest of minds as I followed the increasingly resonant banging through the house. It was with both shock and relief that I found the back door was open. I was relieved there was no preternatural reason for the disturbance, but it could not but occur to me that we might have an intruder on the premises.
    I decided not to light a lamp, but to make my way quickly back upstairs. I would awaken Merry and together we would concoct a way of