From Death Below Stairs, Book One of the Kat Holloway Below Stairs Mysteries,
by Jennifer Ashley
The entirety of the servants gathered at the bottom of the back stairs to watch
me go, their eyes wide. The nervous footman Paul, who’d been sent to fetch
Sinead, ran ahead of me and opened the door at the top of the stairs, and then
took me to the master’s study on the second floor above the ground floor, in the
back of the house.
Paul explained in a whisper that the study had a connecting door on one side
that led to his lordship’s bedroom and a door on the other side to his wife’s
bedchamber. I observed tartly that he must worry about getting them mixed up.
Paul nearly choked on a laugh, and then he fled me, rushing back downstairs as
though fearing he’d be blamed for my boldness.
I set the tray, which was growing heavy, on a table in the hall outside Lord
Rankin’s study and knocked on the door. When I heard the master say an
abrupt, “Come,” I opened the door, lifted the tray, carried it inside, and set it on
an empty table in the middle of the room.
Lord Rankin rose from behind a desk. He wasn’t very tall—he had perhaps an
inch or so on me—but he was imposing. He had a commanding air that was
focused on all in his path, which made one forget his height not many seconds
after he fixed you with his stare. I imagined the gentlemen of both the Stock
Exchange and House of Lords quaked in their boots when he stood up to speak
Lord Rankin’s build was trim but not thin, that of a man who prided himself on
not being slovenly but who would not disdain a good meal. He had all his hair,
which was very black, and sharp brown eyes that appeared to rapidly assess all
he beheld.
Those all-seeing eyes rested on me as I closed the door and returned to the
coffee. I did not fancy being shut in with this man, but I did not want to distress
his wife or Lady Cynthia in case my voice carried down the hall, nor did I want
the staff to creep up here behind me to listen..