Twelfth Night Secrets by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page A

such constant vigilance so exhausting. However, she didn’t think she’d slipped up so far.
    “Shall I help you to bed, m’lady?” Agnes jumped up from an ottoman in front of the fire, where she’d been waiting for her ladyship.
    “Just help me into my night robe and brush my hair, and then you may fetch me up a glass of warm milk with a little brandy and go to your own bed,Agnes.” She began to unpin her hair, running her fingers through it to loosen the tight knots.
    Agnes unbuttoned and unlaced her gown and helped her into the muslin nightgown and warm velvet robe before taking up the ivory-backed brush and beginning to draw it through Harriet’s wheat-colored hair, which now hung in a shining curtain to below her shoulders. It was a little darker than the twins’, Harriet thought, watching the candlelight catch the reddish tint amidst the fair strands. But their heads would darken as they grew older, just as hers and Nick’s had.
    A sense of loss washed through her as she thought of her brother, saw in her mind’s eye the lively sparkle in his green eyes, the little hazel glints in the background. She heard his voice as clearly as if he were in the room with her, sitting as he so often did astride a chair, his arms resting along its back, chatting with her as she got ready for the evening.
    Had Julius Forsythe been instrumental in Nick’s murder? If Harriet could find one piece of incontrovertible evidence during these twelve days when she and the Earl were under the same roof, it would be over. The whole wretched mystery, the twists andturns . . . over. And she could grieve for her brother’s death without any of the questions and ambiguities that made simple grief so difficult to embrace.
    “Is everything all right, ma’am? Do you feel quite well?” Agnes’s concerned voice interrupted her reverie.
    She managed a smile. “Yes . . . yes, of course. I am quite well. I was just thinking about something.” She must learn to school her countenance, she thought guiltily. How could she expect to fool as skillful and experienced a spy as Julius Forsythe if her expression revealed her thoughts to an innocent child like Agnes?
    “You seemed sad, ma’am.”
    “A little, perhaps. That will be all for now. You should seek your bed.”
    “I’ll fetch up your milk, then, my lady.” Agnes set down the brush on the dresser and hurried to the door.
    Harriet remained at the dresser, examining her reflection critically. Her green eyes, flecked like Nick’s with hazel, were large and luminous, something she had always valued, but now she thought it a grave disadvantage. They were far too expressive for a spy. And her creamy pallor was far too quick to flush up with anger or embarrassment. A positive curse in thepresent business. How did one control these natural responses?
    She got up restlessly and walked to the window, moving the heavy velvet curtain aside. The glass panes were freezing, needles of cold air creeping around the window frame. Shielding her eyes, she pressed her forehead against the glass. A few faint specks of white were drifting against the darkness. The twins would be ecstatic if it really snowed, but it would play havoc for their guests in the morning, making already tedious journeys utterly miserable.
    “ ’Tis snowing, m’lady.” Agnes’s voice, sounding almost jubilant, came from the room behind her, and Harriet backed out, letting the curtain fall again.
    “Yes, so I see.”
    “Oh, I do ’ope we ’as a white Christmas, my lady. My brothers and me, we love to ’ave snowball fights.”
    Harriet laughed. “Yes, we used to as well. And the twins will be over the moon if it settles.” But maybe it won’t, she thought to herself. It was a shame to be so grown up that one wished away snow over Christmas, but that was the reality. And the Duke would be mad as fire if snow prevented the Boxing Day hunt.
    Agnes set down the silver tray with a glass of hotmilk and a plate of mince