But she did not immediately move, and he did not immediately sit down at the desk. He crossed the room toward her until he was almost toe to toe with her.
“Thank you,” he said again.
And he took her mouth with his own and lingered there for a while. She did not resist. She did not even remain passive. Her lips parted beneath his, and her mouth pressed back against his. They did not touch anywhere else.
He gazed at her for a few moments after he had lifted his head. She smiled slightly and moved away to let herself quietly out of the room.
She had stepped close enough to Ricky to take his hand in hers. She had not flinched from either the sight or the smell of him. Yet she wasLadyEstelle Lamarr, a marquess’s daughter.
Who he rather suspected was the light of his life.
***
Everyone was busy again the following day, writing letters, paying calls, doing everything in their power to spread the word that the young man who had been missing was lost no longer but was safely ensconced at Everleigh Park.Everyone was thanked for their efforts in keeping an eye out. Irwin Chandler was a little disappointed that the poster he had planned would not after all be printed, but he was very glad there was no longer any need of it.
“One is always afraid, though one does not speak a word of one’s fears aloud,” he confided to Justin, “that someone who is lost will never be seen alive again.”
“Yes,” Justin said. “It is what I feared most.”
No one appeared to find the renewed activity a chore. They threw themselves into it with enthusiasm. None of them seemed to feel that Ricky was simply not worth all the fuss. Indeed, some of them had been a bit disappointed yesterday to learn that he was asleep and very likely to remain asleep until this morning. A few had been disappointed when he was not at the breakfast table. Hewasawake, however. He had risen early, Justin explained, as he always did at home. Justin had taken him and Doris’s children out to the stables to see the horses and take Captain for a walk. The children had held Ricky’s hands and chattered with him while they led him over the Palladian bridge to walk along the path on the other side of the river. They had not made their usual demand to be taken for a ride. Ricky had chattered right back. Justin might as well not have been there at all, he had thought in some amusement.
Later in the day when Justin had taken Ricky outside again for a breath of air, Nigel Dickson and Wallace Chandler took him through the maze. Everyone within earshot smiled at the sound of his excited laughter. Ernest and Sidney Sharpe, Frederick Ormsbury, and Martin Haig, Doris’s husband, made private bets upon how long he would remain in there and whether or not the three of them would reach the center. Neither Nigel nor Wallace had had anyluck with doing that yet. Ricky had confidently predicted he would find it.
“I am good at finding things that are lost, missus,” he had told Mrs.Dickson after she had suggested to her son that perhaps it was unwise to confuse Ricky by taking him in there.
The three of them emerged eight minutes after going in—the most optimistic bet had predicted twelve minutes, with no success at reaching the center. Ricky was still laughing.
“There’s a big stone there in the middle with writing on it,” he said. “It says,‘You found it,’and another long word.”
“ ‘Congratulations!’ ”Nigel said. “In large letters. With an exclamation point.”
“Nige and Wally read it to me,” Ricky said.
“You found your way to the center?” Sid Sharpe asked with a grin.
“Nige and Wally kept wanting to go the wrong way,” Ricky said. “It was funny. Sorry we were so long. I kept having to call them back and wait for them so they wouldn’t get lost. It was funny.”
And of course throughout the day everyone kept an eye on the road over the bridge and up the hill, watching for the arrival of Wesley Mort. There was no real anxiety over him, however. He would come eventually, but his search for his brother along the way would slow him down.
Justin did not take Ricky to the dining room at mealtimes or to the drawing room. He sat with him while he ate his meals in the room next to Justin’s, which was his temporary home. And he showed him parts of the house and park that were unlikely to be crowded. He took him to the stables again and out behind them to the smithy, where theblacksmith welcomed him and explained a few things to him while Ricky listened and watched with rapt attention. Justin took him up through the wilderness walk and stood for a long time by the tower and again by the dragon, while Ricky amused himself and Captain yipped and barked. Viscount Watley went with them. He explained to Ricky that he was the brother of the lady who had met him yesterday after he had stepped over the bridge.
“Brothers are good,” Ricky said, beaming at him. “I got a brother. Wes. He looks after me. And Hildy does too. Hildy is a good cook.”
And inside the house Justin decided to take Ricky up to the balcony beneath the dome in the grand reception room. They met Maria and Lady Estelle in the entrance hall on the way there. The two had just come in from outside.
“That’s Maria,” Ricky said, pointing. “Your sister, Juss. And that’s your friend with her, the lady who was kind to me when I come yesterday. We went up to that dragon with her brother. Brothers are good. I got a brother. Wes.”
“I believe he is on his way here,” Maria said, smiling. “We will be happy to meet him.”
“He is nice,” Ricky said. “And this lady’s brother is nice too.”
“We are going up to the gallery under the dome,” Justin said. “Ricky liked the tower on the wilderness walk. I believe he will like this as well.”
“Oh,” Maria said. “May we come too? I have not been up there since I was a child. Y-you took me. You held my hand and I was not at all afraid. Children are so ready to trust in the invulnerability of the adults they l— Of adults.”
“I will hold your hand again, if you wish,” Justin said. “Lady Estelle, will you come too?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have been hoping to do it before we leave here.”
