"Would you like a light luncheon, my lord?" Jenkins called to him.
"Where is she?" Edmund barked in response.
Jenkins avoided his gaze. “Her ladyship has left for Bath.”
"When will she return?"
"I'm not sure, sir, but it seems she left a letter in her room."
Edmund walked into her bedroom. There was a letter propped against the mantelpiece.
He cursed under his breath and tore it open.
She'd written in large, carefully crafted letters that he could painfully decipher only after they stopped dancing in front of his eyes.
I am so sorry.
Ellen
Edmund crumpledthe paper up with a snarl and threw it into the fireplace. Then he dropped onto the bed, exhausted.
He listened.
The house was silent.
Any servants currently in the house were flitting about in silence, invisible.
Back to the silence and order of his bachelor days. He would have all the time in the world to devote to his perfumes and his fashion. He would no longer have to tiptoe around his own house when he returned from a night of carousing. In fact, he could now carouse as much as he liked. No one was around to care.
He left the room and went into the nursery.
The bed was made, and the toys were arranged in a box. On the bed was a stuffed bear.
He picked it up and stared at it.
"Sir?" Jenkins stood at the door. "What do you want us to do with the child's toys? Shall we donate them or have them taken to Lord Tennbury?"
His fingers clenched around the bear's fur. "Touch nothing in this room or in the room where she taught him."
"But, sir, the housemaids are already turning it back into a drawing room."
"Put everything back the way it was. Every speck of dust," Edmund growled. "I want nothing changed or moved."
The butler blinked. "Very well, sir."
Clutching the child's toy, and wearing only his banyan and slippers, Edmund Graves, Sixth Baron Tewkbury, Pink of theton, Exquisite, fop and gentleman of fashion, burst into Hanover Square, not caring what he looked like, for his single-minded focus was on the house across the square: number seventy-seven.
He hammered impatiently on the door.
A flustered footman opened, his eyes widening at the sight of Edmund. "S-sir."
"Where is the child?" Edmund did not wait for an answer and pushed past him into the hall.
The house was gloomy and dark, like a mausoleum. Not a fit place for a child.
Lord Tennbury stepped into the hall, looking cross. "Speak of the devil. The child tells me he has finished his visit here, that he finds my house too dark and cold and the biscuits dry, and that he wishes to return to his parents. When I asked him who his parents are, he said they are named Ned and Ellen. I suppose by Ned he must mean you." He lifted his quizzing glass to examine Edmund.
Edmund's mouth dropped. "Noni? Noni speaks?"
