Ingrid took a panicked glance behind her. The door to the library was too far away, but there was another, closer one off to the left. She went for the handle, twisted, and let herself in. A few lightbulbs overhead hummed with power, and thankfully, no one was inside.
The shouting continued, and Ingrid was frozen with indecision: Should she go into the hallway and risk running into someone? Or stay here and risk having her father discover her gone from the parlor?
She needed better options.
A chill ran through her, lifting the small hairs on her arms and neck. Whatever this room was, it was cold. At least ten degrees cooler than the hallway. The room was a laboratory of sorts, with long metal tables, microscopes, beakers, and machines that Ingrid couldn’t begin to identify. Along one of the walls were two rows of wide, square, steel-fronted doors, each one nearly as tall as Ingrid, and with a combination lock. There had to be at least ten of these doors in each row.
She had to leave and make her way back down to the parlor. But those steel doors were too curious to ignore. Ingrid crossed the room, walking around a table strewn with tubes and piping. Each steel square had been engraved with a number, and in the center of each combination lock, there was a little temperature gauge. Inside one, an arrow trembled toward the negative-twenty-degree-Celsius mark.
Ingrid regretted putting her finger to the steel door the second her skin came into contact with it. It was freezing. She pulled her hand back, now even more curious. What could the Alliance be keeping inside such cold compartments?
She didn’t have time to investigate any longer, though. She heard footsteps coming from the hallway, and as she went to the door, heard Rory’s harsh whisper: “Lady Ingrid?”
She whipped the door open and came face to face with him and her sister. He frowned, looking over her shoulder into the odd laboratory. “I didna say ye could go in there.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that I heard a crash and loud voices, and … didn’t you hear them?”
Rory shook his head. “The fifth floor is insulated better than the others—it’s where we train, and we tend to make a lot of noise.” He looked again into the cold room. “Come.”
Gabby remained unusually silent on their return to the parlor. She met Ingrid’s questioning gaze with a small shake of her head. Something had happened. And she was the wretched sister who had let Gabby go off alone with this bulging, dagger-strapped stranger. Had Rory made some sort of pass at Gabby? They took the narrow servants’ stairs to the parlor, where Rory stopped at the door and listened. The room sounded quiet enough. Rory whistled lightly and the door winged open.
“Hurry!” Chelle growled, and Ingrid and Gabby toppled inside. Chelle slammed the door in Rory’s face just as the parlor’s main door flew open.
Lord Brickton was the first to enter, followed by Grayson, then Carrick Quinn, and last, a bloody-nosed Nolan.
Gabby surged toward him, but their father blocked her path. “Gather your things. We are leaving.”
The charade had most definitely ended.
“What has happened?” their mother asked, rising from the sofa, right where Ingrid and Gabby had left her.
Carrick worked his hand into a fist, curling, then uncurling each knuckle. “Nothing but a little bit of Scottish discipline. My apologies again, Lord Brickton.”
Ingrid and Gabby stared with open mouths. Carrick had hit his own son? Nolan pressed the sleeve of his dinner coat to his bloody nose. Strands of black hair had fallen into his eyes from the tussle with his father.
“Well, you don’t have my apologies,” Nolan said to Lord Brickton before turning to Gabby. “You don’t need surgery, lass, and you shouldn’t listen to anyone who tells you different.”
“It is none of your concern!” their father shouted.
“You have no idea how wrong you are, do you?” Nolan threw back.
Gabby’s face flushed crimson. The veil of her hat obscured most of her scarring, but there was a small line near the corner of her mouth that stayed white. Ingrid felt her eyes water for her sister, who was no doubt festering with humiliation.
Their father practically ran Grayson down as he barreled through the door out into the foyer. Lady Brickton quickly followed her husband, failing to make the necessary compliments about dinner and their hospitality. Gabby fled the room next, unable to meet Nolan’s gaze again. Grayson took Ingrid’s arm as she approached the door, and pulled her to his side.
“I’m glad that’s over,” he mumbled as they all hurriedly wrapped themselves in cloaks and gloves. The footmen who had appeared at dinner had mysteriously disappeared.
“Are you?” Ingrid whispered back. “I thought you rather enjoyed ogling Nolan’s dear sister all evening.”
Ingrid felt a strong pinch just above her elbow and jumped away. “Stop it!”
“You stop it,” Grayson jested.
He was smiling. For the first time in a very long time, her brother was smiling.
Perhaps dinner at H?tel Bastian hadn’t been a complete failure after all.