Read Online Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel by P. S. Power - Free Book Online Page A

this in the next few hours, I'm afraid. On the good side you should only
need to do this once, and you can rest on the first train in the morning. It
isn't like we won't have days of travel to get things done."
    She
walked away, not even looking back, and worse, smiling. Hopefully over the
engagement. Gwen walked around for a while before finding anyone, since the
place was just that large, and the woman she found, a thirty-odd year old
serving maid that she recognized, but didn't know by name, pointed toward the
back of the mansion.
    "Mrs.
Vernor is back in the master office. Is there anything else ma'am?" She
seemed a bit eager to get back to her work, which seemed to be dusting at the
moment. There was no harm in taking pride in what you did though, so Gwen
nodded.
    "Just,
I know that I've been around for a while, but I'm a bit shy, believe it or not.
I don't know your name, and have been too embarrassed to ask."
    "Oh?
I'm Andrea, ma'am." She looked down, as if expecting to be punished for
having a name or something.
    "Gwen.
Well, good. That's one name down and only about eighty to go. I'll see you
around, I guess." The words felt really awkward, and the woman in front of
her, seemed to feel she was being put on the spot, so Gwen walked out, careful
not to say anything stupid, like goodbye . She hadn't realized that
people could curse others on purpose like that. From the reactions of the
others that had been there, it seemed to be about the same as pulling a knife
and slashing away would have been.
    Important,
and very serious, but not at the level of say, body theft. That was one of
their most feared crimes here.
    Mrs.
Vernor and her husband were both sitting in his office, looking worried and
tense when Gwen found them. For them. It showed around the mouth and in the set
of the shoulders mainly. It was a dark thing, and when they both looked up at
her, neither smiled.
    Gwen
did. Then she waved her left hand a bit.
    "That
thing with the letter is all cleared up. Christophe's secretary seems to have a
crush on him and heard him mention something about thinking that breaking up
with me might have been a mistake. She reacted rather harshly to that news.
Beth and I have that in hand." She waited a beat, to see if that would get
either of the others to relax a bit, and it did. In fact there was a light
chuckle from both of them, which sounded identically relieved.
    Robert
spoke first, explaining.
    "Excellent.
A secretary can be gently reminded of her place and things set to right without
much trouble. It would have been a lot harder if the threat of a dark letter
had come from a Duke. Did you see the man at all? If so, I take it that his
part on this is in the best interest of social grace?" He'd shifted into
some secret code that she didn't understand at all. She wasn't even going to
try and guess really.
    "I
don't take your meaning." It was the polite thing to say, though it did
imply that one of them was either a bit dense or being improper. She'd gotten
that one down.
    After
a bit, and taking a deep breath first, Robert tried to explain it to her.
Again.
    "Duke
Aubry isn't insisting that this is nothing but a prank on his secretary's part?
He isn't trying to shield her from correction?"
    Gwen
got it then and shook her head.
    "We
made it a matter of personal honor, so we didn't tell him all of it. I'm not
telling you either, since it would embarrass the woman, Lisa Wendell,
more than we should allow to happen. Unfortunately she got a bit angry when
Chris asked me to marry him again, and I said yes, so she sort of put a death
curse on me. Some Westmorlands are coming in soon to help me learn to break
that. So, you get the idea, another long night, probably with screaming. We
should probably set up in one of the far wings for it, so everyone can
sleep."
    She
had, she realized looking at their faces, broken the poor couple with too much
conflicting information at once. They were normally very proper and knew just
what to say,