Read Online Eloisa's Adventure by Rebecca King - Free Book Online

mattered
to her more than she cared to admit. Although she wasn’t entirely
sure if it had anything to do with what she had just
witnessed.
    “No, why
do you ask?” Simeon answered as he walked toward her.
    Eloisa
turned to face the house and nodded to the window on the first
floor. To her horror, the shutter now stood open. She ran her gaze
over the entire façade of the building. Every window was
un-shuttered now.
    The
finger she pointed to the house shook uncontrollably and, for a
moment, she couldn’t speak past the fear that almost swamped her.
She had watched the shutter close. She had seen its slow and steady
glide across the window with her own eyes. Hadn’t she?
    “I just
wondered,” she whispered.
    Simeon
studied her and knew she wasn’t being honest. He frowned at her and
waited for her to expand but, when she didn’t, he turned to look at
the house.
    “It is
just you and me, I think. However, there have been odd things
happening,” he replied quietly. He knew he had just hit the nail on
the head when she suddenly jerked and looked at him with wide eyes.
“You saw something, didn’t you?”
    Eloisa
nodded hesitantly. “Above the doorway.”
    “To the
kitchens, yes,” he encouraged when she didn’t seem inclined to
speak.
    “Two
windows across on the first floor,” she murmured.
    “What
did you see?” Simeon kept his gaze locked on her rather than taking
a look at the window she mentioned.
    “Someone
slid the shutter closed. I turned around to look at you but when I
turned back, it was open again. I didn’t imagine it,” she
whispered. “I swear that I didn’t imagine it. I watched it
move.”
    Simeon
bit back a curse and briefly contemplated whether to saddle the
horse back up and take her into town. However, the storm was still
raging overhead. They would be taking a stupid risk with their
lives to venture anywhere else on a night like this. Taking refuge
in the house was by far the lesser of two evils.
    “I am
sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t think I imagined it.”
    “It’s not your fault,” Simeon sighed. It galled him to think
that he owned the damned property yet didn’t want to spend the
night there either. This was his house. He had the right to stay there if he
wanted to.
    “I
definitely saw that shutter move,” she repeated.
    “I can
take you to town if it would make you happier. However, I would ask
you to consider that it is dark now and dangerous to be out on the
roads on a night like this,” Simeon said softly. He turned to look
at the house. “There are odd things going on as I have said. I do
suspect that someone else is there, but I just don’t know where. It
is a large house for one person to search thoroughly
single-handed.”
    He
smiled at her audible gasp. “I don’t expect you to help me,” he
countered ruefully and watched her heave a sigh of relief. “The
house was built during a time when secret passageways were being
put into almost every nobleman’s house. I am sure there are some in
that house too. Unfortunately, I cannot find them.”
    Eloisa
felt as though she had just jumped from the cook pot into the
fire.
    “I don’t
want you to take any chances, Eloisa. I am going to put you in a
room that links directly to mine. If we stick together then nobody
can creep up on us. We will be as safe as we can be. At some point,
I am going to have to get a veritable army of people into this
house and sweep through it from attics to cellars. However, I need
to try to find the passageways to make sure that no stone is left
unturned. Until I do, please don’t lean on the walls or anything.
If you fall into one of the hidden passages, I don’t know how to
get you out.”
    “Good
heavens above. How on earth do you live here?” she burst out,
shocked that anyone wouldn’t just put the horrible place up for
sale as soon as it was acquired.
    “I
don’t,” he replied ruefully. “I have inherited it, remember? I came
here, just for a brief visit, not