Eloisa's Adventure by Rebecca King Page A

her. He read the unspoken question in
her eyes. Before she could say anything, he nodded and stalked out
of the room.
    She
reached the doorway in time to see him pick up the fruit that had
fallen out of the basket she had thrown at the intruder earlier.
Once the hallway was clear of debris, she accepted the basket off
him with a nod.
    “I will
wait while you lock the door.”
    “You
shouldn’t go by yourself. If he is still down there, anything could
happen to you and I wouldn’t know about it,” Eloisa said
quietly.
    She
didn’t relish having to walk around this house any more than she
absolutely had to, but hated the thought of Simeon lying injured
somewhere while she was blissfully tucked up in bed, completely
unaware of his downfall. She just couldn’t bring herself to be that
selfish.
    “I will
come with you and carry the candles. You can lock the doors and
shutters and close the curtains. Then we can both get some sleep,”
she declared firmly.
    “Are you
always this argumentative?” he asked as he followed her to the top
of the stairs. He had to admit that it would ease his mind a lot if
he had her beside him, but wasn’t going to tell her
that.
    “It’s
not being argumentative,” Eloisa challenged piously. “I am just
being logical, that’s all.”
    “Fair
enough,” Simeon grunted. “We will start at the back door and then
work our way up. It’s going to take a while to go through each
room. We just need to make sure that the downstairs windows are
locked and there is no way inside. Upstairs isn’t so much of an
issue given there is no way to get up to the second floor from the
outside.”
    “There
are no steps outside?” Eloisa watched Simeon shake his head. “What
about the towers? Don’t they lead up to the second and third
floors?”
    “Well,
yes, but there is only one window to get through and that is
nothing more than a narrow slit. You couldn’t get through it so I
really doubt that he could. There is no door on the ground floor of
the towers to secure. Come on. Let’s get this done and then we can
get some sleep.”

 
    CHAPTER
SEVEN

    In the
study, Eloisa stood beside the door and watched Simeon go through
the same process he had carried out in each of the rooms they had
been through. Upon entering, he scoured the room carefully, checked
behind and underneath all the furniture and then they knocked on
the walls. Before they left they locked the windows then closed the
shutters and curtains.
    An hour
later, they reached the last room on the ground floor. So far, they
had found nothing untoward, but that circumstance swiftly
changed.
    “Sit
down for a minute, Eloisa, I just want to check the contents of
this desk while we are alone,” he murmured. Before she could answer
he took a seat behind the desk and began to rifle through the
papers in what appeared to be the study.
    Eloisa
moved to the fireplace, and held her candle aloft.
    “Is this
your uncle?” she asked as she eyed the rather dapper man in the
huge portrait that hung over the fireplace.
    Apart
from the eyes, the shorter framed man appeared to have fair hair,
whereas Simeon’s was dark. There was something about the eyes of
the man in the portrait that suggested that he had experienced his
fair share of worries in life, and was wiser because of it. She
suspected that in life, he had a benevolent wisdom about him that
could be a threat to his enemies, and a comfort to those he cared
about. She quiet liked him.
    “That’s
Uncle George. He was a nice old fellow when he was here, I
think.”
    She
turned to look at him. “But your father didn’t get on with him?”
She saw rather than heard him sigh. “I am sorry, I don’t mean to
pry.”
    “It’s
not that,” Simeon replied darkly. “It is just that someone has been
through this desk. The papers I put in this top drawer all related
to finance. They are now all jumbled up in the bottom
drawer.”
    “Someone
has rifled through them.” Eloisa frowned and moved