Reborn as the Villainess's Doomed Maid, I Keep Getting Caught by Her Knight Brother novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Cloakroom

The Hall of Mirrors held four hundred candles and nine hundred people, and all of them stopped talking when Verena Sevrin walked in.

She wore crimson velvet, with rubies at her throat, and her honey-gold hair piled high.

She had her brother's arm, and she did not look left or right.

Mio followed three steps behind with her mistress's shawl, in a clean grey dress and the new apron.

Servants stood along the wall under the great mirrors.

Nobody looked at them, which was exactly why she had come.

"There she is," someone whispered. "The Sevrin girl."

"They say she nearly killed the Saint."

"Nonsense. She lent her a carriage."

"That's what a poisoner would do."

Verena's hand did not tremble on her brother's sleeve.

Caspian walked, all black and silver, and the crowd parted for him without being asked.

At the far end of the hall, on a dais, the Queen sat in grey silk and watched them come.

She was fifty-five, with a stern, tired, clever face, and she gave Verena a small nod.

On the Queen's left the Prince stood with the Saint on his arm.

Odette Lowe wore white, with a single pale rose in her curls, and she looked as if she wanted the floor to open.

The orchestra began a waltz.

Prince Leopold stepped forward and bowed to the Saint instead of his fiancée.

A gasp ran around the room.

"I will open the Harvest dance," the Prince announced, loudly, "with the guest of honor."

He led Odette onto the floor, and every eye in the hall swung to Verena.

She stood very still.

Then she smiled, a brilliant, glittering smile, and she lifted her glass of wine to the room.

"Well danced, Your Highness," she called. "She has two feet. I am sure you will find them."

Laughter broke out, startled and delighted.

The Prince's neck went red.

Caspian looked down at his sister, and for the first time, Mio saw his mouth curve.

It was a tiny movement, gone at once.

But it was there.

Mio's heart gave a hard thump, and she told it firmly to stop.

She had work to do.

The letter was in the Saint's cloak in the novel, at this ball.

Whoever had taken it from her floorboards would plant it tonight.

She slipped away along the wall, past the musicians, and through a small door into a long, narrow room lined with hooks.

The cloakroom.

It was warm and dim, with a single lamp, and it smelled of wool and perfume and wet fur.

Hundreds of cloaks hung in rows.

An old attendant dozed on a stool by the door with her chin on her chest.

Mio walked past her on tiptoe.

The Saint's cloak was easy to find.

It was blue velvet, trimmed in white fox.

It hung on a hook at the back with a footman's card pinned to it.

She ran her hands over it.

Pockets, hem, hood, lining.

She felt along every seam with her thumbs, the way she had checked the bolt.

Nothing.

No letter.

She let out a breath, and her knees nearly gave way.

Either the letter had not been planted yet, or somebody had already come and gone.

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