Page 45 of Duke of Emeralds
It was foolish. He wasn’t going to war. He was not vanishing to the West Indies. It was a simple matter of duty, and he was being responsible. Attentive, even. Yet the very thought of waking to an empty chamber, of moving through the house without his voice somewhere in it, left her… unsettled.
Was she?—?
No. Certainly not.
“I’ve already written with instructions ahead of me,” Thomas said, watching her now. “The steward will have the work begun by the time I arrive. It needn’t be more than a few days.”
She gave a slow nod, her throat tight. There was nothing to say. Nothing sensible at least.
He watched her for a moment longer then added, “I shall return before the week’s end, Hester. That much I promise.”
She offered him a small smile.
By the time she awoke the next morning, the castle held a silence that felt too cold.
She dressed without her usual deliberateness and declined breakfast altogether. Her feet carried her from one end of the castle to the other without aim, until she found herself in the gallery where the wind rattled against the windows with an insistent sort of warning.
“Close those windows,” came Mrs. Smith’s voice from down the hallway. “And the ones on the second floor of the East Wing’s main hallway. We shall not have rain inside this place, not if I can help it.”
Hester paused near the windows and looked out. The sky had turned a miserable pewter. Candles had been lit throughout the halls though it was barely noon.
A storm, surely. How appropriate.
She returned to her study and took up her embroidery though her fingers moved sluggishly, and her eyes kept wandering to the window. Thomas had only been gone a few hours. Could thestorm reach him? Would it hinder his journey? What was this restlessness? This sour mood she could not seem to shake?
She stabbed the needle through the fabric, only to find she’d tangled the thread. Letting out a quiet sigh, she set the hoop down and stood, smoothing her skirts with unnecessary precision.
That was when she heard muffled voices and hurried footsteps. Her heart lurched.
Something had happened.
Hester left the room swiftly and moved into the hallway. The sound grew louder then came Mrs. Smith’s voice as she said, “Oh, this is a most unfortunate thing!”
She reached the top of the staircase and descended. In the front hall, a small crowd had gathered. Mrs. Smith, the butler, and two footmen were standing just inside the open doors as the wind blew over them.
“Did you find her?” Mrs. Smith asked a young footman who had just returned, drenched.
“No,” the footman gasped, his shoulders heaving as rainwater dripped from his hair onto the marbled floor. “Not a trace of her. We searched the hedgerow and the road back to the woods.”
Mrs. Smith let out a breath that was sharp and irritated. “You do not mean to tell me she has vanished into thin air. Not after what she’s left us.”
“What is going on here?” Hester asked as she crossed the last few feet to them.
The small cluster of servants parted at once. And there, just within the doorway, stood a child.
A girl.
She could not have been more than five or six. Her frock,thin and soaked through, clung to her slight frame. Her boots were caked with mud, and her hair was matted and dark with rain, strands clinging to her cheeks like vines. Hester stared at her piercing blue eyes, a thousand questions swirling within her.
The girl said nothing and simply stood, clutching a worn satchel with both arms as though it were the only anchor she had left.
“There was a woman,” Mrs. Smith began. “She arrived without warning, asked for no one in particular, and left the child just there on the doorstep. She disappeared before anyone could stop her. We believe she must have been the mother though why she came here, of all places, remains a mystery.”
Hester stepped forward slowly, heart tightening in her chest. She lowered herself until her eyes were level with the girl’s.
“What is your name, little one?” she asked, her voice gentle.
No reply. The girl merely blinked, the fingers around her satchel clenching tighter.
