The corridor was quiet compared to the ballroom.
Leofric's footsteps were steady on the floor, unhurried, deliberate. To anyone watching him leave, he looked like a man stepping out for air. Nothing in his face gave anything away. He had spent enough years managing his expression in rooms full of people that it had become second nature, a skill he could perform in his sleep.
Inside was a different matter entirely.
He followed the east corridor, checking the small sitting room first. Empty. The library next. Also empty. He moved further along, past the row of portraits that lined the walls, candlelight making the painted faces flicker as he walked by.
He heard them before he reached the room door.
Not words exactly. Just voices, low and close together, the particular cadence of two people deep in a conversation they had not planned to be having.
Leofric stopped outside the door.
He stood there for exactly three seconds.
