The Incident Concerning The Alsatian Dog.

Chapter 3

By the time the hour was up, I had succeeded in making myself look mildly presentable, and as less like a startled hedgehog as humanly possible. My hair was dry, and up, I was in a different dress, and my wet clothes were hanging over the back of a chair at a safe distance from the fire. After putting the fire-guard over the flames and dusting off my hands, I smiled to myself before heading back down the spiral staircase to dinner.

After wandering my way into a couple of dead ends, I eventually ran into Grace again.

"Hello" I said quickly. "Sorry, I'm a bit lost. Would you mind...?"

"Not at all" Grace said pleasantly. "Follow me, Miss Winter."

I followed her down the corridors until we reached the staircase again. As nobody was around, I turned to Grace worriedly.

"Are we late?" I asked her. She bit her lip.

"I hope not. Father will be terribly annoyed" she sighed.

"Oh dear" I commented worriedly, as I followed the young girl down the stairs and across the hall. She opened one of the doors, to be met with a scornful remark from inside.

"About time!"

"Sorry!" I cut in hurriedly, before Grace could make any sort of apology to her father, as it was he who had spoken.

"I asked Grace to come and find me" I continued, lying horribly through my teeth. "I wasn't sure how to get down from my room, so I asked her to wait for me. It's my fault."

My gamble paid off. Charles Lockwood, or at least the character of Charles Lockwood, being the upper class gentleman he was, didn't fancy contradicting a guest.

"I see" he said, smiling flatly at us both, and we took our seats with everyone else. I was glad, as now I'd had chance to think I was picking hundreds of possible flaws out of my last statement. It seemed Hettie had too, as she nudged me.

"How did you get away with that?" she whispered, as the soup was brought in.

"Character analysis" I replied under my breath. "And a bucketful of luck."

Hettie sniggered as she sipped her soup. I tried mine. It was piping hot! Trying to be subtle, I took a tiny spoonful from around the edge, but it wasn't that much cooler. Looking around, it seemed Newham, the doctor, Hettie and Broker were having the same problem. Isabel, however, was cool as ice. I had forgotten about her cast iron tongue, as I called it, which basically allowed her to eat anything she chose to, no matter what the temperature. Everyone else around the table seemed to be doing fine-I mentally slapped myself. I had been so caught up in my expert lying and the scalding soup I had forgotten to take a look around the table at the other dinner guests. Now, I did. There were ten of us around the table, and only two who I didn't know. On the opposite end of the table from Charles Lockwood was a rather snooty, plump, elderly lady who I assumed was supposed to be Charles's wife. She was very lavishly dressed, with a lot of pale makeup covering the wrinkles on her face, and her small, thin mouth had been exaggerated with lipstick as best as possible, but it hasn't worked very well, sadly, and they looked rather like small, shiny, crimson coloured worms. Her eyes, too, had been exaggerated with very dark eyeshadow, fading out as it reached her eyebrows, but that too made her look more like a panda than a classy lady. I looked away, so not to appear like I was staring, which I had been.

The other person at the table was a young man, and I had to try very hard not to stare at him, too, since he, sadly, was very good-looking. His hair wasn't blonde, it was caramel, and was slicked back on his head, but not so far that it looked greasy, just enough to make it look...nice. His eyes weren't blue, they were ocean blue, and sparks of light danced around in them as he talked and laughed with Grace. He had a very prominent cheekbones, and a jawline most men would die for. He was slim and athletic in build, or at least he was as far as I could see, as he was sitting down. Isabel, as technically the only single lady in the room, was using her position to the full advantage, which surprised me. Normally my sister wasn't that into men. She was lucky enough to be sitting on the man's other side, and was talking enthusiastically about goodness knows what with him. Newham caught me staring, and I looked away guiltily. Hopefully he wouldn't get jealous. I was only looking, after all.