Chapter 2
The sound awoke me around four in the morning. I sat up and listened, wondering if in my half-sleep I had dreamt the soft c***k on glass.
The sound did not repeat, but now I heard the creak of floorboards near the stairwell landing. I had no doubt Miss Pelley was on the move.
I shrugged on my robe. My slippers were nowhere in sight, drat it. Barefoot it was, then.
I’m not sure what made me decide to follow the girl in secret rather than confront her and order her back to bed. Something told me she wouldn’t be alone. Perhaps it was the tap of the glass—a bit of gravel tossed up to her nearby casement? I also remembered, when they first arrived, the girl pulling aside the curtain to look out the parlor window. What—or whom—was she looking for? The possibility of strangers lurki
