10

Satisfied, she left the sitting room and headed upstairs, intent on cleaning up. At the top of the curving staircase, though, she paused, looking at the first door. Should she take a peek inside? After all, she hadn’t really explored up here in the short time she’d been here and her duties did extend to cleaning these rooms now and then, didn’t they?

Of course the fact that she knew it to be Mathin’s room had nothing to do with it.

Whatever she’d expected to find as the door swung silently open, it was not the plain, almost austere room within. If her grandmother had ever been here, it didn’t show, for there wasn’t an ounce of decoration anywhere. The only point of interest in the entire room was lying on the fawn colored suede