“We’ll have to set reasonable goals,” Miss Pelham continued. “This castle wasn’t built in a day, and it won’t be made livable in one day, either.”
“Judging by the architecture, building it took a few hundred years,” Izzy said. “I hope making it livable doesn’t take that long.”
Miss Pelham turned at the bottom of the stairs and smiled. “You must know so much about castles. From dear Sir Henry, of course.”
Here we go.
“Yes.” Izzy pasted a sweet smile on her face. “I always loved hearing my father give his lectures.”
“How lucky you were to have him.” Miss Pelham looked her over. “And how clever you are today. I’ll have to change into my work smock, but here you’ve had the foresight to wear yours already.”
Izzy touched the skirts of her frock—her best morning dress—and tried to smile.
As they turned a corner, she recognized a familiar set of stairs. “Let’s go up here.”
Miss Pelham followed reluctantly. “There can’t be much up here. The stairs are too narrow. We’ll have to resist the urge to explore every nook just yet, or we’ll never complete our survey of the castle. We’ll walk through the main towers today, and by afternoon, we should be able to narrow down the options for your bedroom.”
Thirty-two, thirty-three . . .
“This one,” Izzy said, emerging into the turret room. “This is the room I’ve chosen.”
The turret room was even more enchanting by day than it had been by night. The vaulted ceiling tapered to a point above, and a golden shaft of sunlight pierced the sole window.
As Izzy went to the window, her heart beat faster. An inspiring green vista of rolling hills and castle walls spread below. Oh, there was even ivy climbing the walls, with songbirds nesting in it.
“This one?” Miss Pelham didn’t sound as though she saw the room’s charms. “This would be terribly impractical, what with all those stairs. Drafty, too, I’m sure. There isn’t even a hearth.”
“No hearth means we wouldn’t have to clean out a chimney.” No hearth means no bats. “And it’s summer. I can make do with blankets.” Izzy circled the room. “This must be my chamber.”
“You truly are little Izzy Goodnight, aren’t you?” Miss Pelham smiled broadly. “Oh! Shall we paint the ceiling with silver moons and golden stars?”
She referred to Izzy’s bedroom in The Goodnight Tales—the one with a purple counterpane and the starry heavens painted on the ceiling. The room that had never even existed.
“No need to do that,” she said. “At night, I can see the real stars.”
She didn’t want to feel like a little girl in this room. In this room, she was a woman. A temptress. This was where she’d had her first true kiss.
A kiss from a roguish, impossible duke, who’d only kissed her under duress. But it was a kiss nonetheless, and one she still felt at the corners of her whisker-rasped lips.
“Well,” Miss Pelham said, “eventually, on the floor below we should make you a proper suite, with a sitting room and quarters for your lady’s maid. But I suppose this room will do for a start.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it?” She linked arms with Izzy and squeezed tight. “I’m so pleased, I could squeal.”
Please. Please don’t.
“We have a hard day’s work ahead of us,” Miss Pelham said. “But tonight, we’ll have a proper bedchamber. We’ll plait each other’s hair. Dive beneath the coverlet and tell tales until an ungodly hour. Oh, this will be such fun.”
And it was fun, for an hour or two.
But in the end, that night was just like every other night of Izzy’s life.
Once again, she woke to darkness, her heart pounding with terror and her throat scraped raw.
Strange noises assailed her from all sides.
I am not alone, she told herself, struggling to master her breath. I have Miss Pelham here with me.
But she would feel much better if Miss Pelham were awake, too. Izzy tossed back and forth on the bed, hoping her movements would wake her companion.