Charlotte Louise Dolan (25 page)

To be sure, she had not been awake the entire night. Off and on she had slept briefly, but her dreams had been just as filled with Lord Leatham as her thoughts were when she was awake. The only difference had been that in her dreams he had each time looked her straight in the eye, had said, “Marry me, Miss Hemsworth,” and had then deliberately kissed her.

And each time, instead of being able to enjoy the kiss properly, she had invariably awakened, her heart pounding in her chest, her senses completely alert. All in all, it had been a most frustrating night.

Her dreams were not really the problem now, nor was her problem her inability to sleep. Her problem was first of all the question of whether Lord Leatham was seriously contemplating asking her to marry him. And if he was, there was the even more difficult question of whether she should accept him or reject him.

If she said yes to his proposal, assuming he made one, she would, in Aunt Sidonia’s words, be burdening herself for life with that most useless of encumbrances, a husband, without whom women were free to do as they pleased, to live their own lives, and to think their own thoughts.

On the other hand, if she said, “No thank you, my lord, I do not wish to marry you,” then at the end of the summer she would of necessity have to leave Wylington Manor forever, in the process severing her relationship with the twins. Moreover, Lord Leatham would undoubtedly depart on another of his long journeys, and it was highly unlikely that their paths would ever cross again.

In essence, she would have to choose between freedom and entanglements, between remaining detached and becoming involved in the lives of others. Although she had held three previous positions as governess and had lived in intimate contact with three different families, she had never felt herself to be the least bit emotionally involved with them. She had always felt herself to be the impartial observer of the follies of others.

That those others had depended heavily on her was not to be denied. The point was, she could have walked away from them at any moment without looking back. In truth, when the time had come that her job was finished, she had indeed left without a backward glance or thought.

Could she leave the twins that easily? Or Lord Leatham, who she suspected was becoming just as emotionally attached to her as the twins were?

That they would miss her was a foregone conclusion, but that she would miss the three of them was a radically new idea. To be honest, every time she thought about leaving Devon, thought about how difficult it would be, she felt herself trapped.

Not trapped by their need for her services as a governess and a managing female, but trapped by her love for them.

It was exactly as Aunt Sidonia had warned her. Just so were women down through the centuries lured into permanent relationships with men.

What Aunt Sidonia had not mentioned was that it felt rather nice to be so involved. Compared to life here in Devon with her three lords, freedom seemed rather empty and forlorn and vastly overrated. Looking back, her years as a governess in more normal households seemed so boring, lacking as it did the mental stimulation of dealing with the twins’ ingenuity ... and the physical stimulation of Lord Leatham’s kisses.

When she thought of his arms around her and his lips pressing against hers, her mind automatically returned to contemplating her first problem: Had Lord Leatham, knowing she was hiding in the wall, merely been toying with her in an attempt—successful, as it turned out—to teach her a lesson on the folly of eavesdropping? Or had he been serious when he mentioned marriage?

* * * *

Bronson stood at the window of his room and glared out at the moor, which had a strange beauty all its own, bathed as it was in the rosy morning light. His thoughts, however, were not rosy, and his mood was becoming darker, rather than lighter.

He had not, of course, been serious when he had mentioned marriage the evening before. He had merely said the first outrageous thing that had entered his mind, his goal being to provoke whoever was hiding in the secret passageway.

So why now, when it was the dawning of a new day, did his remark seem not the least bit preposterous? Why did it seem so completely natural? So totally rational and logical?

Bah, marriage was nothing but a trap. The whole idea of shackling himself to a woman for life was ridiculous—was madness—was the first step toward self-destruction. Demetrius was a case in point, saved only by a stroke of unexpected luck. With his friend’s experience as a horrible example, how could he even for a moment contemplate following such a course?

What he needed was an early morning ride—alone—to clear his brain of such foggy, illogical notions as marriage. Without bothering to wake Daws, he dressed quickly in his riding clothes, except for his newest pair of boots, which he was unable to find. Finally he settled for an older pair, which, although comfortable, had lost forever their perfect shine.

Holding them in his hands, he walked quietly in stockinged feet out of his room and along the corridor of the sleeping house. As soon as he judged himself far enough away from the occupied bedrooms, he balanced on one foot and pulled on his boot. He had just gotten the second one on when a small shadow came hurtling out of the darkness at the end of the corridor and crashed into him.

Together, they went down in a tangle of limbs large and small, and in the resulting confusion it took him a moment to realize that the boy, whichever twin it was, was crying. Not whimpering as one might do because of a bumped head or a banged knee, but sobbing as if wracked by desperate grief.

More than likely a nightmare, Bronson thought. “There, there,” he soothed, wishing Anne were at hand. She undoubtedly had more experience at chasing away the demons that lurked in the dark hours of the night. “‘Twill be all right.”

Instead of having a calming effect, his words only produced more hysteria. “No, no, you don’t understand. Anne, Anne,” the boy wailed, struggling to get out of Bronson’s arms.

“Shhh, shhh, you will wake everyone,” Bronson murmured, rising to his feet.

With a sudden desperate lunge, the boy broke free and darted down the corridor in the direction of Miss Hemsworth’s room. Blast it all, thought Bronson. He stood where he was, still longing for his solitary ride, but feeling he should do something to help.

Which was ridiculous. Miss Hemsworth was perfectly capable of handling bad dreams. Besides, the boy had already rejected his attempt to help, obviously preferring his governess’s attentions.

Bronson took a step in the direction of freedom, but he could not ignore his feelings of responsibility—not the responsibility he had accepted years previous, to see that the twins’ estate was properly managed and their funds prudently invested, but a personal responsibility, which he was feeling for the first time in his life.

He discovered he could no more walk away from the desperately unhappy boy than he could have a few weeks earlier abandoned Demetrius in his hour of need.

Retracing his steps, he hurried back to Miss Hemsworth’s room. The door was ajar, and he pushed it the rest of the way open, expecting to find that the governess had handled everything in her usual competent manner. In that he was wrong.

Looking up, she saw him standing in the doorway. “Andrew says that Anthony has disappeared out of his bed.”

She was so beautiful sitting on the edge of her bed. Wearing something white and gauzy, her hair in tumbled curls around her shoulders, she was cradling the boy in her arms. Bronson felt his stomach clench in unexpected jealousy at the sight.

Then the meaning of her words sank in. “More than likely he is just hiding again,” he said calmly.

“No, no, he is not!” Like a whirlwind Andrew flew at him and began beating him with his fists. “He is not hiding, he’s not! He would never go off without me, never! He would not, he would not!”

Bronson caught the fists that were ineffectually striking him, and Andrew collapsed against him. “Very well,” Bronson said, lifting the sobbing boy into his arms and crossing the room to sit beside Miss Hemsworth. “Then if Anthony is truly lost, we shall just have to find him. What do you think, Miss Hemsworth?”

For a moment she did not speak, then amazingly her head came down to rest wearily on his shoulder, and in a voice that quavered in a very un-Miss-Hemsworth fashion, she said softly, “I am thinking of the shot that was fired, my lord.”

“Nonsense,” Bronson said, although he knew very well it was not nonsense. “More than likely we will find Anthony in the kitchen eating a slice of bread and jam. Or he might even be back in his own room by now, wondering what has happened to Andrew.”

His voice was carefully nonchalant, and it had a soothing effect on the boy in his arms, whose crying gradually died down into deep shuddering breaths.

But when Miss Hemsworth lifted her head from his shoulder, he turned and met her gaze, and his eyes silently acknowledged the truth of her fears. Like her, he suspected a second attempt had been made to injure or kill one of the twins. He could only pray to God it had not been successful.

* * * *

“It is probably a prank, my lord, intended to keep all of us from our rightful duties.” Chorley was not to be budged in his convictions, and the rest of the servants were equally unobliging, all of them having at one time or another been the victims of the twins’ ingenuity.

Anne could not really blame them, but she decided then and there that as soon as she had both boys safely together again, she would sit them down and tell them the story of the little boy who cried wolf.

“I really have no interest in your opinion,” Lord Leatham said in a soft voice that was surprisingly full of menace. “You will do as you are instructed and organize a search of the house and grounds, and you will do it
at once,
”
his voice suddenly rang out, and the servants’ attempted rebellion died before it had been properly born.

“I want to help search, too,” Andrew tugged at the hand restraining him, but Lord Leatham refused to release him.

“We have one lost boy already,” he said, “and I see absolutely no reason to have two lost boys. You will stay right by my side where I can see you.”

And where no one can hurt you or kill you, too, Anne thought. Again her eyes met Lord Leatham’s, and she could read the same thought in his.

* * * *

Wishing someone would come and find him, Anthony stood up and surveyed the area around him. Nothing he saw changed his earlier estimate of where he was. The landscape was too desolate to lie anywhere except to the south of Wylington Manor. Perhaps a bit to the east, but in general south.

He was rather disgusted with his situation. Anne had taught them such useful things, such as how to start a fire with two sticks—except he had no sticks. He could, of course, unravel the rope and make snares out of the fibers, but he was not sure there were even any rabbits in the area, so sparse was the vegetation. Besides which, he would rather go home and eat a regular breakfast.

It was all very well for Anne to say he should stay in one place if he was lost, but she hadn’t told him what he was supposed to do to avoid suffering from excruciating boredom. The next time he was lost, he decided, he would make sure Drew was with him.

But since he wasn’t, there was no sense staying lost any longer, not when it was now light enough that he could be sure he would not inadvertently step in a bog.

He carefully coiled the rope and folded the blanket, then with one over his shoulder and the other tucked under his arm, he looked to the north. Selecting a particular outcropping of rock, he headed toward it. Not only was he careful to glance down frequently to check his footing, but he also paused now and again and turned around to look back the way he had come, in case he found it necessary to retrace his footsteps.

About halfway to the rocks, he saw something that encouraged him in his belief that he was headed in the right direction. At the edge of a boggy place were some footprints in the damp ground. He walked over to look at them more closely.

They were large. No one he knew wore boots quite that large except Uncle Bronson. How ridiculous, Anthony thought. As if anyone would believe Uncle Bronson had had a hand in this affair.

Checking his direction again with the rocks he had picked out, Anthony continued along the route he had chosen. To begin with, if Uncle Bronson had tied him up, he would have done it properly. But then, Uncle Bronson would never have gone off and left him in the middle of the moor, and especially not the moor south of the house.

Anthony could still remember the day when he and Drew had decided to explore the moor south of the house. Although they had only been five or six years old, they had known perfectly well that they were forbidden to go in that direction.

Uncle Bronson had found them after about half an hour and he had not scolded them, he had simply paddled their bottoms all the way back to the house. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough that the next time they were bored they did not even consider going off in the forbidden direction, even though Uncle Bronson was away on one of his journeys again and could have done nothing to stop them.

But Uncle Bronson was here in Devon now, and Anthony amused himself while he walked by considering with bloodthirsty relish how his guardian would punish whoever had done such a stupid, stupid thing.

It was better by far to think about that than to think about how alone he was for the first time in his life. He was not so much worried about himself, of course, as he was worried about his brother. Drew might be safe back at Wylington Manor ... but then again, someone might have abducted him, too.

* * * *

Anne wiped the dust from her hands and gazed around the low-ceilinged attic. There appeared to be no nook or cranny she had not checked. For the moment, she was alone. Lord Leatham had joined the men who were searching the grounds outside, taking Andrew along only when the boy swore an oath “on the egg” that he would not leave his uncle’s side.

The female servants were all helping her conduct a very thorough and methodical search inside the house, and the grooms, gardeners, and farm workers had divided up to search in ever widening circles around the house.