Page 114 of The Bachelor Spy
They’d reached the newer garden building—a stone structure with a peaked roof and small windows, used now for storing garden tools and pots. Frederick tried the door. It opened with a creak that sent a shiver through Grace’s body.
Rather perfect for the surroundings.
“Mr. Leeds is losing his touch,” Frederick muttered. “Brandon says he’s been forgetting to lock things up for months.”
“He is rather distracted from his gardening work with his grandsons at the Front, I believe,” Grace offered at his side. The poor man nearly broke into tears during any conversation. Even when Grace tried to distract him with more knife-throwing lessons.
“I’ll see if the undergardener will give him a hand.” Frederick nodded, raising the lantern to shine through the doorway. The space was dim despite the moonlight streaming through the dusty windows, and it smelled of soil and old, damp wood. Shelves lined the walls, crowded with clay pots, coils of twine, rusted trowels, and years of accumulated garden detritus. A long table ran the length of one wall, cluttered and shadowed like the rest of the space.
Frederick scanned the area and made to enter when—
“My lord!” Brandon called from the main house, urgency in his tone. “Lord Astley, sir!”
Heat fled Grace’s face.
What now?
Frederick turned from the doorway, his posture immediately alert. “Brandon?”
The butler took a few steps into the garden from the doorway, light glowing from behind him, his usual composure noticeably disturbed.
“My lord, I do apologize, but there’s been a development. A rather urgent one.”
“Is it Mr. Blake?” Grace asked at once.
“No, madam.” Brandon’s face softened for a moment. “Nor Miss Gale,” he added, proving his excellent awareness. But he turned back to Frederick. “If I might have a word for guidance, sir?”
Frederick glanced at Grace, but she waved him on. “We’ll look for the key and then join you once we gather Shams. It shouldn’t take a minute to search.” She took his hand. “Perhaps they’ve found Pennington and need your approval to call the authorities.”
Frederick hesitated, clearly torn.
“Go,” Grace said gently, touching his arm. “We’ll be fine.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I hid a knife in my—”
“Two minutes,” Frederick said, sending a warning look toward Brandon before handing her the lantern. “If you cannot find the key in two minutes, I want you to return to the house.”
Grace nodded and watched him walk away before she dipped inside. Zahra was already deep in the building, along the side of the shelves.
“There,” she pointed to the upper shelf on the far wall. “A small wooden box.”
Grace raised the lantern and followed Zahra’s directive. A wooden box sat between a stack of empty seed packets and some dusty jars. Nothing ornate, just a simple, rough-hewn container with what looked to be iron hinges.
Grace set the lantern down and stood on tiptoe but couldn’t quite reach, her ability to hold herself upright on tiptoe a bit more hampered than usual.
Her hand went to her middle. How could it be that all of a sudden she felt pregnant? She seemed to go from fitting into her gowns with somewhat regularity to nearly bursting the seams within the span of a week.
After reading more about pregnancy in a few other books, she’d come to realize that some women could go without any outer recognition of pregnancy until the fifth month or later, and then, all at once, the baby decided to make himself highly evident.
Particularly for petite women.
“I can reach, Mama.” And without hesitation, Zahra jumped up on the table near the shelf in a movement as fluid as Shams herself.
Speaking of, the cat materialized on the table beside Zahra, giving Grace the smallest start. She frowned at her in rebuke.
But of course Shams arrogantly ignored her and proceeded to jump onto a nearby shelf, her feline eyes glinting in the lantern light.
Zahra clasped the box and brought it down carefully, landing on her feet at Grace’s side. Taking the little box in hand, Grace pushed back a set of old gloves and some sort of wedge-like tool to place it on a rustic table.
The box’s contents revealed several old keys of various sizes, a few buttons, some foreign coins, and—
