She had promised Devlin she would be but an hour.
Juliet hurried across the lawn, caught sight of Rufus shooting down the narrow flight of steps leading into the icehouse. There could only be one reason why he would venture in there—the daft dog was chasing a rabbit.
“Rufus!”
The iron gate leading into the icehouse was wide open.
How odd.
With a clawing sense of trepidation, Juliet descended the worn stone steps. One look at the dark, dank tunnel beyond the gate and her stomach quivered. A strange whirring sound sent her nerves scattering. But then hadn’t Devlin said something about it being an unusual design, that a large wooden wheel assisted with drainage?
The dog’s bark echoed through the chambers.
“Rufus! Come here.” Juliet waited, then stepped over the threshold.
An earthy tang invaded her nostrils. The temperature plummeted. Every hair on her arms stood to attention. When she exhaled, puffs of white mist penetrated the darkness, swirling into the atmosphere like a ghostly apparition.
“Rufus!”
With her hands braced on the wall for support, she edged forward, past the first chamber piled with straw that acted as insulation. A sliver of daylight in the middle chamber drew her to the room with a mound of ice in one corner. The groundsmen were waiting for the first hard frost of winter to replenish supplies. The fast-flowing water from the stream powered the giant wheel, the race serving as a means of draining the water should the temperature rise and the ice melt.
Juliet pushed at the iron railings leading into the chamber and stepped into the room. Worried that Rufus had fallen into the water channel, she shuffled closer to the wheel. Fear crept across her scalp. She could feel someone watching, their beady eyes boring into her back.
Then she heard Rufus charging along the tunnel behind her, heard the iron gate slam shut and the clunk of a latch sliding into the lock. Juliet swung around, noted a hooded figure on the opposite side of the iron bars.
“Wait!” Juliet called. Panic rose like a wave in her stomach. “Don’t leave me in here.”
Had the groundsman not seen her?
She darted forward, her legs moving before her mind could form a thought, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Disturbed by her sudden movement, the figure shrank back against the corridor wall, back into the shadows.
“Open the door,” Juliet demanded, though the nervous thread in her voice made her sound desperate. Weak. “Can you hear me?”
Silence breezed cold through the tunnel to prickle the hairs on her nape. Silence loud enough to overshadow the creaking of the wooden wheel or the rush of running water.
A blast of breath left the figure’s mouth in a puff of white smoke.
“What do you want?” Juliet kept her voice calm. It suddenly occurred to her that the clawing fear in the air was not her own.
A croak left her captor’s mouth. “Tell me where I can find the letters.”
Juliet considered the slender silhouette, the feminine ring to her tone despite the woman’s desperate attempt to disguise her voice. Hannah would not hide in the darkness. She would confront her quarry, ready to parry swords, ready for battle.
“Tell me where I can find the letters,” the woman repeated, “and you can leave here unharmed.”
“Letters? You will need to be specific.” Juliet’s mind whirred quicker than the wheel. Each time she came to the same conclusion. She recognised the harsh edge to the woman’s voice. “But I think you need to explain why they are so important you would lock your mistress in the icehouse, Mrs Barbary.”
Silence ensued.
Juliet could feel the uncertainty, the confusion, filling the space between them. Perhaps it was foolish of her to speak the housekeeper’s name aloud. Perhaps the woman’s only dilemma now was how to dispose of her mistress and make it appear as a terrible accident.
“Explain why you want them, and I shall tell you what you need to know,” Juliet said, offering an olive branch. “I trust you speak of the letters written to Charlotte Drake.”
Mrs Barbary took a step forward. A sliver of daylight streaming down from the round hole in the ceiling caught the side of her face. The hard, disapproving stare Juliet had witnessed too many times to mention was replaced by one of panic, of pain.
“Are you trying to protect your mistress?” Juliet said, aware that Charlotte Drake had encouraged her maid to give up her child. “Is it that you do not wish for others to learn of her dealings with the Bromfields?”