Suddenly, though, his ears picked up the faintest sound of sliding movement, as if someone kneeling close by had just stood. Edward’s breath caught in his throat at the slight swish of swaying silk, and the soft noise of bare feet, quiet but unhurried, that moved away. But that meant— No… And yet he truly had heard those sounds, no doubt about it. But could it be true? Had someone else been there, too, watching it all…doing it all? He gulped.
Biting his lip, he waited through a long, somehow faintly ironic-seeming silence, until at last a match scratched sharply. The sudden blossom of flame hurt his eyes, but then there was Miss Violetta, framed by the open doorway to her room, as she gravely lit and adjusted one of the gas mantles upon his darkly patterned wall… Open-mouthed, he bla
