The last of the kitchen maids slipped through the servants' entrance of Lothian Manor just as the bells of the Great Temple tolled the second hour past midnight, and Captain Devlin counted heads as each one passed him in the narrow alley behind the farrier's shop.
Thirty-seven. That was everyone on the list that Lady Jocelynn had given him earlier that day, written in her own careful hand and then burned in the hearth after he'd committed it to memory. The names were grouped by where they worked in the manor: kitchens, laundry, stables, and household staff, with notes beside each one that told Devlin which errands Jocelynn had invented to send them into town over the course of the day.
A bolt of fabric for new drapes she didn't need because the current ones 'offended Lady Jocelynn's eyes at night.' A message for the cobbler about shoes that had already been collected. A request for scented candles from the chandler on Water Street, who closed his shop an hour before sunset.
