Stowaway (A Pirate Novel) (Completed)

Chapter 26 The Painting

Elle breathed a sigh of relief when when she couldn't hear them anylonger.
      She pushed out of her hiding place and slung her bag back over her shoulders. She quickly found the narrow stairway leading to the attic from the pantry. There was no dust on the stairs. She didn't worry  about leaving evidence of her passage. Her night sight was active but in the small space there was no light. She let the wall guide her up. She didn't dare light. The flint to the old torches along the wall.
        She quickly yanked her hand from the wall and froze with a foot on the separate steps. She wipped the reminans of a spider web and cleak.
      She found the attic door just four steps up from the unexpected web.
     The door didn't Open silently but it want extremely loud.
     The scent of the dust mold stale cloth and a lingering perfume. Slammed her in the distaste.
      She pulled a swing  torch from her bag and lit it.it didn't eliminate a large area but it was enough that it only took her a few minutes to search the space.
       She didn't like having the open flame in the low ceiling space that was too crowded with flanables.
       She didn't find the painting hidin in the attic.
        She stood, torch held akoft, staring at the space that she had just searched.
       It doesn't make make sense. He has the painting somewhere. He showed it to his searches.
     She didn't think he would have it in the servents courteas. She believed he would betoposisive to allow it in a space that was over run with commoners and servents.
       The gust wing searched the servents wing unlikely that only left hip personal wing.
       The salon in his wing. His rooms. His attic. His dinning hall.
      The woman earlen had said he was out of town.
     She could search it. There wouldn't be any servents about with him out of town. There should be enough of the night left to search as well.
      She wouldn't be able to return. He was returning. She wouldn't get the opertunity agin.
       Decided, she exting wished the torch and stood in the all enompusing dark.
      She didn't dare to move until her light sight returned. Even then it was hard to make out absicals in her way.
      She made her way back do wen to the kitchen. The windows alowed a small measure of moonlight in, making it margenaly easer to see.
     She crept through the darked corraders to his personal wing.
      She had only been in wing twice before.
      It took her sometime to search the massive space.
      It wasn't until she was making her way up to the stairs that her Hart speed up agin.
     The though of entering his bed room terifrid her. She didn't care.

Her heart hamered aginst her ribs. The fear caused her halt at any sound  a mouse that squeeked anglery up in a wall, a board that groaned under distance the source of the sound didn't matter. I all sent spices of terror through her blood. She would freeze and fight her body instint to flee.

She opened 3 doors on the second floor before finding his bed chamber.

She know it was his because she recognized his scent.

The male scent that belonged just that came from a bottle.

Even the scent froze her at the  doors threshod. It was so strong that she feared the woman downstairs was wrong. She feared he had returned.

She swallowed the siliva that had bloomed in her mouth and forced her feet forward.

She almost gasped outloud. The painting was there. It hung above the fireplaces smoke-blackened mantle.

She could almost recognize the dress she wore. It was too dark to make out any true detail but she recognized the blue of the dress.

She found her feet rushing over the floor. She stood under the gaze of her darker self. She knew it was the darkness of the room but it was still unnerving.

She moved a small chair below the dead fireplace and climbed up on it.

She quickly had the painting down, the chair returned to its place.