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A thena’s heart seemed to trip over itself. The brick door had only opened a few inches. What lay inside? Cautiously, she pulled the door fully open.

Her breath caught.

Beyond lay a hidden room, about the size of a modest parlor. No one appeared to be within. Athena guardedly entered the concealed space. Light filtered in through the lace curtains covering three windows, enabling Athena to take in the chamber at a glance.

Her first thought was that this might have been a priest’s hole, a secret hiding place built into old houses like Thorndale Manor during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Catholics had been persecuted and discovery could mean torture and execution.

If so, it had been updated since then, for the furnishings in this room were of a much more recent vintage.

The walls and ceiling were plastered. A faint shadow on the finished oak floor suggested that there might have once been a throw rug.

The furnishings were similar to Thorndale Manor’s guest bedrooms, fine-quality mahogany pieces that included a single bed, a narrow wardrobe, a dresser, a table, two chairs, and a small desk.

Someone, Athena reasoned, had once spent a great deal of time here and had done their best to make it comfortable.

When had this room last been occupied, and by whom?

There was a fine layer of dust upon the furniture, an accumulation that Athena guessed must have gathered since she and her sister had taken possession of the house.

Did its previous owner know about this room’s existence?

Of course he did , Athena reasoned. That must have been why Mr. Vernon had cautioned Athena not to venture in this direction in the attic.

He had hoped she wouldn’t discover this place.

But why? Why was it important to keep an empty room a secret?

The mattress was stripped and there wasn’t a single personal item in evidence. Perhaps , Athena thought, Mr. Vernon removed all such things when he sold the house. But if so, why had he left the furniture in place?

An idea began to form in Athena’s mind. To test her theory, she tried to slide out the chair from the desk, but it wouldn’t budge. She knelt down and discovered that the desk chair had been bolted to the floor. Indeed, every piece of furniture had been similarly bolted down.

Athena could think of only one reason for doing that. Someone wanted to make sure the furniture never moved, to help ensure that whoever was up here was not overheard.

Perhaps, when Mr. Vernon moved out, he hadn’t had time to unbolt all the furniture. Or perhaps he hadn’t cared. After all, he had left everything else in the attic.

But who had used this room, and when, and for what purpose?

From her kneeling position on the floor, Athena noticed a tiny gap between the floorboards in an area that might have once been covered by a throw rug.

One of the boards was smaller and looser than the others.

Could it be the cover for a hidey-hole? She fiddled with the board until she succeeded in prying it up.

There was indeed a shallow, open space beneath it. It seemed to be empty. But was it?

Athena reached her hand down inside the hole as far as she could go. Nothing. Suddenly, her fingers touched what felt like the edge of a piece paper. She picked at it until at last, she was able to maneuver the page out from the hole.

It was a piece of good-quality paper, covered with writing in black ink in a bold hand. Athena rose, moved to the desk chair, sat down, and began to read.

Lydia pierced him with a direct look and a stern smile. “John Brandon,” she warned. “Pray do not underestimate me or my skills with a blade.”

The man laughed. “My darling, I know better than that. Ever since the day we met, when you held your blade to my throat, I have learned to never underestimate you. And I have no wish to argue with my better half.”

Athena froze. Lydia. John Brandon. They were the heroine and hero from the novels of Pryor Corbett.

She perused the entire page, then read it again. Athena had devoured every novel Pryor Corbett had ever written, many times, and this was a scene that had never been published.

What was it doing here, in a secret room in the Thorndale Manor attic, hidden beneath the floorboards?

Was this , Athena wondered, an homage to Pryor Corbett’s series of beloved stories?

If so, who had written it? Might it have been one of the servants?

If that proved to be the case, it would be rather extraordinary.

Many of the servants at Thorndale Manor couldn’t read or write, other than the top ones.

And those who could worked long hours and had little if any time for reading, much less writing.

Might it have been one of her students? Miss Russell was a good writer, for example, despite her youth. But no. Athena knew her pupils’ handwriting well and this was a different, far more polished hand. In fact, there was something about it that seemed familiar, but she didn’t know why.

It suddenly occurred to Athena that this room, and the house it stood in, had once—and not so long ago—belonged to Ian Vernon.

With a gasp, she made the connection in her brain. She had seen Mr. Vernon’s architectural drawings of the Darkmoor Park dower house. The handwriting on those drawings, and Mr. Vernon’s signature, had been similar to the writing on the page she was holding.

The truth struck her with the force of a thunderbolt. Athena’s hand went to her mouth in shock. Mr. Vernon must have written this!

Despite his insistence that he wasn’t acquainted with Pryor Corbett’s work, could he be a devoted admirer in secret?

Or was this page a brand-new effort from the pen of Pryor Corbett himself?

*

That night, after the girls were snug in their beds, Athena showed Selena the page she had found and then took her sister up to the attic to see the secret room for herself.

As they took in the chamber by candlelight, Selena shook her head in wonder. “ Are you serious ? You really think Mr. Vernon is our favorite author?”

“I think it’s possible,” Athena replied, equally amazed. “I knew Mr. Vernon loved books. He brought so many from Thorndale Manor’s library to his cottage, he is practically swimming in them. But it never occurred to me that he was a writer —much less such a celebrated one.”

“Your other theory might be more accurate, though,” Selena pointed out. “Even though you think the handwriting was his, he might simply be a secret enthusiast. Perhaps he had dashed off a little scene in imitation of the author as a surprise gift for Mrs. Hillman.”

“But if so, why would he have stashed that page beneath the floorboards?”

“I have no idea.”

“The author option makes more sense and is far more exciting,” Athena insisted.

“I agree.” Selena laughed.

Athena slid her hand in awe across the desk. “If he really is Pryor Corbett, I wonder if he wrote all his novels here? It’s the perfect hideaway, don’t you think? A place where no one on staff would come upon him and discover his secret.”

“He could sneak up here to write any time the mood struck him. He probably napped in that bed.”

“But he’s an architect as well. Why two professions, do you think?”

“It could be that even though his books are popular, they only provided a modest income,” Selena suggested.

Athena nodded. “When his father began gambling away the family fortune, Mr. Vernon may have realized he needed to earn a living by some more profitable means.”

“So, he followed another dream to become an architect.”

“Yet he kept on writing.”

“If he’s Pryor Corbett, he has certainly been prolific! Seven novels over the past eight years!”

“Indeed.” Athena closed the secret door and she and Selena made their way back across the attic. “Remember that day we had tea with Mrs. Hillman—when he claimed he had never read any of Corbett’s novels?”

“Yes. How cleverly he deflected suspicion!”

“I understand now why he seemed so strange and awkward, the day he accompanied me up here to check for a leak in the roof. That hidden room must have once been his private and protected space, and he wanted to keep it that way.”

“But—oh! How upset Mr. Vernon must have been, when he was obliged to give up this house and move elsewhere.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too. No wonder he was so antagonistic to me when we first met.”

“After selling Thorndale Manor, he would have had to find a new place to write.”

“I’ve seen his cottage. I doubt there is any private space in that small house, with a full-time housekeeper in command.”

“Where do you suppose he is writing now?”

“An excellent question.” As they descended the staircase, Athena’s mind veered to the previous afternoon when she had encountered Mr. Vernon on the stairs at Darkmoor Park. Her face grew warm.

“You’re thinking about Mr. Vernon’s kisses, aren’t you?”

Athena’s cheeks flamed even more heatedly. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Always know what I’m thinking?”

“Your face is an open book.”

They had reached the ground floor now. Athena stopped and cast her mind to something else. “All right, what am I thinking now?”

Selena held up her candle and studied Athena’s expression. “Something is troubling you. Is it about Mr. Vernon?”

“Oh! You are so annoying. You’re right. When I first ran into Mr. Vernon on the servants’ stairs at Darkmoor Park, he was acting strange.

He said he’d gone up to the attic to check for mice for Mrs. Hillman.

But she seemed to be completely unaware of the situation at first. I couldn’t help wondering if the mice had been a total fabrication and he was hiding something.

” Something occurred to Athena. “What if Mr. Vernon’s true reason for coming down those stairs was that he had just come down from the attic because—”

“—his secret writing place is now established in the attic of Darkmoor Park!” Selena finished for her.

“Yes!”

“That makes perfect sense.”