The Vanishing at Loxby Manor by Abigail Wilson (grave mercy .TXT) 📕

of, I decided to forgo any time in the drawing room and made my way upstairs to my bedchamber where Iflopped on the bed. A part of me wanted to revel in Piers’s and my newfound connection, but the duel tainted everything. Icould not allow myself to dream, not yet.

The hours grew stagnant, the room suffocating, and I rose to see if I could find Snowdrop. She’d been missing from my roomthe last few days, but I’d seen her near the stables when I watched Piers leave. Though I enjoyed her presence many of thenights I spent alone, on this one I needed her.

I began my search on the ground floor, scouring the house, the front portico, and the back terrace. I dared not go too far in the blustering night, but I had to try, meowing as I liked to do to get her to follow me. But there was no sign of the little white cat.

It wasn’t until I scaled the central staircase that I heard a faint meow on the still air. So she had found her way into thehouse once again. I started for my room, but I realized all too quickly that the sound had not come from my hallway at all,but rather from the family wing.

I crept from one room to the next, straining to hear another call. It was near Seline’s room where I was finally rewardedby Snowdrop’s sweet meow. But all too quickly my heart turned cold. The sound was coming from Mrs. Cavanagh’s room.

I inched forward, hoping I had misheard the cat, certain I would never enter Mrs. Cavanagh’s domain again. My heart couldnot take another lashing from Piers’s mother, not after what she had said to me earlier.

But as I reached Mrs. Cavanagh’s closed door, I realized the cat’s plea was coming from somewhat behind me.

In Mr. Cavanagh’s room . . . Not again.

Surely not. I made my way closer to his door and a similar deflection of echoes resulted. I stood there a moment in confusionuntil the answer came to my mind.

The connecting room between Mr. and Mrs. Cavanagh’s bedchambers.

Somehow Snowdrop had found her way in there. I might have a chance to recover her after all, and if Snowdrop had got herselftrapped, Mrs. Cavanagh would not react kindly. It was a wonder she hadn’t heard the cat already, but if she was asleep, itwas possible.

I stood there for several seconds debating my next move. Both bedchambers connected into the shared room, which was likely to be an intimate space. I could be discovered at any moment. But with any luck, Mr. and Mrs. Cavanagh would already be sound asleep, and I could tiptoe my way in and out without anyone the wiser.

I held my breath and cracked open the slender door. The dressing room lay dark within, and slowly, carefully I tiptoed intothe drab, motionless interior. The back drapes were drawn tight, leaving me little to no light to work with, and I was forcedto stand still in the entryway, my back pressed to the door until my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

The door to Mr. Cavanagh’s room stood ajar, and through the opening, I could see his curved silhouette highlighted by themoonlight on the bed. His nasal breathing surged in and out of the transient silence.

A chill roamed the small chamber, which appeared to be more of a dressing room for Mrs. Cavanagh alone than a shared space.A portable hip bath stood to my right and a dressing table filled with feminine luxuries to my left, flanked on the far endby a large painted screen.

“Snowdrop,” I whispered, moving at once to locate the cat.

The room was eerily quiet, the shadows far more menacing. I knelt and tried again. “Snowdrop.”

Then I heard it, a small pitiful meow, coming from the far side of the screen. Carefully I inched around the partition, thefeathered moonlight playing tricks with my vision. First I thought I saw her in the corner, then beneath a small cushion bench,but it was behind the slim wardrobe that she’d managed to wedge herself.

I attempted to coax her out of the slit between the furniture and the wall, but she would have none of that. I gave her a faint meow and was pleased to see her start my direction only to stop, her hind legs caught up in some clothes that had slipped behind the wardrobe. All I needed to do was grasp her middle and pull her toward me, the piece of clothing still hooked by her back claw.

I cradled her to my chest. “You silly little kitty. I wonder how long you’ve been sleeping back there. You’re lucky Mrs. Cavanaghhasn’t found you before.”

As I reached to disengage the piece of clothing, something shifted in the dim light. Slowly, carefully I lifted the heavyfabric into the threads of moonlight and gasped.

My cloak. The one Seline had borrowed that fateful night. Snowdrop had been using it as a bed.

I felt dizzy and fell onto the bench, my hand pressed to my forehead. How in the world had the cloak made its way into Mrs. Cavanagh’sdressing room? Thoughts stormed through my mind, each far more unsettling than the last. Was Mrs. Cavanagh somehow involvedin her own daughter’s murder?

I thought back through each painful detail of the night Seline went missing. I’d heard someone in the hallway, someone I’dnever identified. Could it have been Mrs. Cavanagh on her way back to her room? She had been awake that night, and I had beensurprised to find her dressed when I entered her room.

But what possible motive could she have had for killing her own daughter? Surely Seline’s scandal could not be the incitingincident that brought about something so horrific. My heart lurched. Mrs. Cavanagh had been at Whitecaster Hall when Mileswas found dead, and her behavior was certainly odd at the time.

I heard the floorboards creak in the adjoining room, and my heart snapped to life. Mrs. Cavanagh was not asleep as I had supposed, and here I sat in her very dressing room. My cloak felt like lead in my hands as I thrust