I realized that the portrait was directly above the chest/coffin. “What’s your room like?”
“A bit like Holloway Prison, if you want my opinion. Plain and cold. And way up in one of the turrets. I don’t see myself getting much sleep up there. And you have to go round and round this windy staircase to reach it. I got lost several times on the way down. I’d have ended up down in the dungeons by now, if it hadn’t been for one of them blokes in the smashing uniform who rescued me and brought me here. I don’t know how I’m ever going to find my way back.” She stared at me. “Are you all right, miss? You look awful pale.”
I was about to tell her about the thing climbing up the castle wall but then I realized that I couldn’t. That Rannoch sense of duty kicked in and I was sure that Robert Bruce Rannoch or Murdoch McLachan Rannoch wouldn’t have been frightened by a figure climbing up a wall. I had to appear to be calm and in control.
“I’m absolutely splendid, thank you, Queenie,” I said. “Now, I wonder when my baggage will arrive.”
Almost on cue there was a tap on my door and the bags were brought in by more tall, dark-haired footmen, all seeming to look identical.
“You might as well put away my clothes and then help me get dressed for dinner,” I said. “I wonder where you’re supposed to find water for me to wash.”
We scouted out the hall and found a bathroom not too far away—a massive cavern of a room with great stone arches rising to a vaulted ceiling. The claw-footed tub in the middle was big enough to go swimming in. A geyser contraption over it presumably supplied hot water.
“I think I’ll have a bath before dinner,” I said. “Why don’t you start running me a bath and then see if you can locate my robe.”
I undressed while Queenie unpacked and hung up my things. That’s when we discovered that she hadn’t packed a robe for me. “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll have to walk down the hall in my nightdress. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.”
I scooted rapidly back to the bathroom, feeling rather self-conscious in my nightdress, and found the whole place full of steam and the bath temperature hot enough to boil a steamed pudding. What’s more the window was jammed shut and it took ages for me to run out half the bathwater and fill it with cold. After that I had a lovely long soak, got out feeling refreshed and looked around for a towel. There wasn’t one. Now I was in a pickle. The nightdress that I had worn had become so sodden with steam that it was almost as wet as I was. I had no way to dry off. I’d have to make a run for it.
I pulled my nightdress over my head with great difficulty. It clung to my wet body like a second skin. I opened the bathroom door, looked up and down the hallway then sprinted for my own bedroom. That was when I realized I couldn’t remember how many doors down the hallway was mine. It was two, surely. Or was it three? I was conscious of the trail of drips behind me, of the puddle forming around me, and my feet freezing on the stone floor. I stood outside the second door and tried to open it. It wouldn’t open.
I tapped on it firmly. “Queenie, let me in, please.”
No answer.
I rapped louder. “Queenie, for God’s sake open the door.”
The door was flung open suddenly and I found myself staring into the bleary-eyed face of Prince Siegfried. He had obviously just woken from sleep. He looked me up and down, his eyebrows raised in horror.
“I’m so sorry. I must have the wrong room,” I mumbled.
“Lady Georgiana,” he exclaimed. “Mein Gott. What is the meaning of this? You are not wearing clothes. Most inappropriate. What has befallen you? You have had an accident and fallen into water?”
“I am wearing something but it’s rather wet. You see, there were no towels in the bathroom and I forgot which door was mine and...” I was babbling on until I heard Queenie’s voice hissing, “Psst. Down ’ere, miss.”
“Sorry to trouble you,” I said and fled.
Of course when I reached the safety of my room, I discovered that there were towels on the top shelf of the wardrobe. I dried off still feeling