Page 68 of The Viscount's Code
As Anthony felt the reins slip through his hands with nothing but air beneath him, all that he could think about was Hope.
Then everything went black.
* * *
“What are you waiting for?”Cassandra asked as she and Faith watched Hope pace back and forth before the parlor’s front windows.
“I think the better question iswhois she waiting for?” Faith said with a sly grin, and Hope fixed a look upon her.
“It’s Lord Whitehall, isn’t it?” Cassandra asked, Faith already nodding before Hope could either confirm or deny it.
“I am only hoping that he soon returns with an answer to the clue,” Hope said, but it was clear that she wasn’t fooling anyone.
“He might just send a note,” Faith said unhelpfully, and Cassandra stood, leaving her book on the table and placed her hands on Hope’s arms.
“If he doesn’t come here, then perhaps he is waiting until you return home,” she said optimistically. “Maybe a change of scenery will help you as well.”
Hope nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. Anthony lived closer to Castleton than to Newfield. He was most likely to return here with the clue – unless he had seen her note and decided he would wait until she had departed so that he didn’t have to see her.
“When do you leave?” Hope asked, changing the conversation.
“Tomorrow,” Cassandra said. “Shortly before you.”
“Of course,” Hope said, annoyed at her own distractedness. “I knew that.”
“Perhaps if you stop watching out the window, he might be more likely to appear,” Faith said, not looking up from her book so she missed Hope’s glare. But, as much as Hope hated to admit it, her sister was right. Watching and willing for him to arrive would not bring him to her.
“I am going to go play the pianoforte for a while,” she said. “I will meet up with you again shortly.”
She had just sat down at the piano in the drawing room and played a few bars – the Spanish clue again, a song that her fingers began playing before she even realized it – when the first shouts rang out. She stopped abruptly as she didn’t recognize the voice echoing through Castleton’s front foyer, and when she ran to the doorway and looked out, she was surprised to find a man she thought she recognized as the stablemaster standing there.
The butler hurried to the door, looking right and left as he tried to motion the stablemaster out the front door, but the man stubbornly remained where he was.
“Summon Lord Ashford,” he said. “Wildheart has just appeared – alone.”
“Wildheart?” the butler repeated, shaking his head as he obviously had no idea to what the man was referring. “Grimes, you best return outside. This is no place for—”
“Wildheart?” It was Lord Ashford who appeared this time, Lord Covington behind him. They must have been down in the billiards room. “Lord Whitehall’s horse?”
A sick sense of dread began filling Hope’s stomach.
“Aye,” Grimes said with a grim nod. “The horse is uninjured, still wearing the saddlebag but appears agitated. No sign of Lord Whitehall.”
Lord Ashford and Lord Covington exchanged a look before they practically sprinted down the corridor and out the door.
“What are you going to do?” Cassandra called after them as Hope remained frozen to the spot, her hand gripping the doorframe, unable to let go.
“We’re going to find him!” Lord Covington called out behind him as they ran out the door.
All Hope wanted to do was follow them out and insist they take her with them, but she knew that she would only slow them down. She didn’t realize that she was still standing there until she felt Faith’s hand on her arm, and she slowly turned toward her.
“They’ll find him,” Faith said with more sympathy than she usually emoted. “Lord Whitehall is too stubborn to allow anything to happen to him.”
Cassandra joined them and Hope turned to one of them and then the other, finally forcing herself to move. “What do we do now?” she asked. “And do not say to wait. I have waited long enough.”
“Why do we not walk around the gardens, perhaps down to the ruins?” Cassandra suggested. “He could have come that way. Who knows, maybe we will meet him as he walks up to the house.”
The smile she forced on her face was not very believable, but Hope knew that Cassandra was doing this for her, so she simply nodded as they quickly changed into their boots and collected their bonnets before they left. Hope went through the motions woodenly, doing so out of practice instead of necessity – she would run through the woods barefoot if it meant finding Anthony.
