Temptation and Surrender by Stephanie Laurens

Filing and Issy, and headed their way, clearly intending to join them.
    But then the lady slowed, halted, observed rather shrewdly, then, with a faint quirk of her brows, a subtle lift to her lips, changed course to join another group.
    Leaving Issy and Filing talking earnestly.
    Interesting. Even heartening. But…
    Em glanced around. Her plan had been that she and Issy would search for the cellar together, Issy keeping a weather eye out for interruptions. But with Filing so focused on Issy, Em didn’t think fetching her sister and together slipping away to explore the house would be at all wise. Filing, she suspected, would continue to watch Issy even if he were talking with someone else.
    But they were inside Ballyclose Manor, and she was disinclined to let the opportunity slip. Who knew when another would eventuate?
    There was no reason she couldn’t search for the cellar alone—not with the steady stream of footmen trooping through the drawing room, still circling with plates of cakes or balancing trays with teapots, to lead the way.
    The cellar door was most likely close by the kitchen.
    When a footman bearing an empty platter slipped out of a nearby door, she followed.
    The door gave onto a minor corridor. Her footsteps muffled by a thick runner, she hurried to keep the swiftly moving footman in sight. He didn’t head back to the front hall and through the green baize door at its rear, but, via a series of ever-narrowing corridors, strode deeper into the house.
    She walked openly in his wake, aware another footman or maid might come up behind her, or appear ahead, going in the opposite direction. If seen, she would say she’d gotten lost, then had spied the footman and was following him, assuming he’d lead her back to the drawing room.
    As it happened, her skill at dissembling wasn’t put to the test. Juggling his empty platter, the footman took one last turn; she followed, and halted at the top of a flight of stone stairs leading sharply down to a landing, then turning to the left and disappearing out of sight.
    A door on the landing, facing the stairs, lay open, revealing the butler’s pantry. From the cacophany rising up the stairs, they led directly into the kitchen.
    “’Ere—don’t be a dolt! Wipe that platter prop’ly before you take it upstairs. Have my head, her ladyship will, if you take it up like that, smeared with cream.”
    A rumbling grumble came in reply. Em didn’t wait to hear what followed. Slipping away from the stairhead, she headed further along the corridor; a narrow door stood at the end, with a courtyard beyond. She needed to place the kitchen within the overall layout of the house, and that would most easily be done by viewing this wing from outside.
    Reaching the door, she looked out, but couldn’t see far; the courtyard was narrow, limiting her view. Grasping the doorknob, she turned it—and was rewarded with a click. Opening the door, she stepped outside. After a cursory glance confirming that the courtyard was deserted, she silently shut the door.
    Flagged with gray stone, the rectangular courtyard was walled on three sides. Beds bordering the walls hosted a variety of climbers that reached long fingers up the stone walls. The open end of the courtyard lay to the left of the door. One swift glance at what lay beyond had her smiling and walking quickly in that direction.
    At the edge of the paving, she paused in the shadow cast by the wall at the courtyard’s corner. The kitchen garden lay below her, spread out on a lower level, neat rows of vegetables marching down the plot, herbs straggling out of pots and over paths.
    Stone steps led down; stepping onto the first, she peered around the building’s corner and saw what looked to be a washhouse built onto the back of the house. A larger door sheltered by a narrow porch—presumably the back door leading into the kitchen—was set into the wall close by. But what drew her gaze, transfixed it, was the pair of low doors built