“Harston will go back to London,” Oswald said. “He’ll pull every string he has left. But she… Do you really believe Lady Adeline went to Harston Hall?”
“Yes.”
Oswald swore again, more feelingly. “How far ahead is she?”
“Two hours,” Winston said. “If your guess about when you saw her is right.”
“On a farmer’s cart, you’ll catch her.”
“On a farmer’s cart with a head start, we may meet her at the crossroads,” Winston said. He was already moving to the bellpull. “Or on the avenue if we’re too slow.”
He rang hard enough to make the wire hum.
“Have Hartley saddle the two best hunters,” he said when the footman appeared. “Not carriage horses, hunters. And send a boy to the forge. I want fresh shoes on both. We ride within the half hour.”
The man’s eyes widened but he bowed and hurried out.
Oswald had gone to the map table. “It’s a full day’s drive by coach,” he said. “On a good horse we can cut it, if we don’t break our necks.”
“We won’t,” Winston said. “I don’t have time to die.”
Oswald looked up at him then, the wariness still there but something like contrition in it now. “I should have stopped her,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” Winston said. “You should.”
Oswald took the blow as he deserved. “Then let me mend it.”
Winston hesitated a heartbeat, then nodded. “Tell my mother what we can without frightening her. Tell her Louisa is not toknow anything except that we’ve gone on business. She’ll smell a lie if it’s too neat. She gets that from you.”
Oswald’s mouth twitched. “From you, more like. I’ll manage them. You see to the horses.”
Winston stepped out into the corridor. The house felt different now, not less safe, but less still. It was as if the stone itself had leaned forward, listening. He paused at the foot of the main staircase, tempted, just once, to call Adeline’s name on the off-chance she’d appear at the landing with ink on her fingers and some tart remark about his timing. Silence answered. He went on toward the yard.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The lane that led to Harston Hall was narrower than she remembered. The trees seemed to have drawn closer in the years since she fled, branches bent, limbs tangled over the rutted path as though the wood itself wished to bar her way. The farmer had set her down at the crossroads, only half convinced she wasn’t mad. From there, she had walked the last mile alone, her valise swinging at her side, her breath caught somewhere between dread and determination. When the house appeared through the thinning mist, Adeline stopped short. It looked sick.
The Hall had once been proud, oak and limestone, tall chimneys, the rose garden climbing across the west wall. Now the shutters hung askew. A windowpane near the front door was broken and stuffed with rags. The gravel drive had become a wash of mud, and the great fountain stood cracked and dry, as if someone had taken a hammer to it in a fit of rage.
He’s sold half the house.
Not metaphorically. Literally. The front door was unlatched. When she pushed it open, the familiar groan of the hinges felt like a warning. The entrance hall yawned before her, echoing and cold. The marble floor had been swept, but only half-heartedly. Dust lay in long stripes where carpets had once lain. The portrait of her mother, once over the fireplace, was gone, leaving a pale rectangle on the wall. Her throat closed.
She crossed the hall slowly. Every footstep bounced back at her, hollow and lonely. The dining room on the left had been stripped bare: only the long table remained, gouged by careless hands. Chairs were gone. China cupboards stood open and empty. Her father must have sold the lot. He had always cared more for appearances than for comfort, but now even the illusion had vanished. The air smelled of damp stone and old grief.
Her mother’s rooms were at the end of the east corridor, overlooking the terrace garden. The door had once been painted a soft blue. Now the paint flaked, showing grey wood beneath. Adeline touched the handle and felt the prickle of memory tighten her chest. She stepped inside.
The room was gutted. No rug. No cushions. The elegant escritoire was missing its drawers. The little jewelry table, her mother’s favorite, was overturned, its velvet lining gone. Shelves were bare save for a few abandoned books, their spines cracked. The wardrobe doors hung open like ribs. Adeline swallowed hard.
She crossed to the dressing table and laid her fingers on its scorched surface.
“Mama,” she whispered. Her voice sounded small in the empty space.
A sound behind her snapped the silence. Not a shout. Not a threat. Merely a soft, weary exhale.
“Lady…Lady Adeline?”
She turned. A stooped woman stood half in the doorway, apron grey with age, hair pinned in a careful bun. Mrs. Grogan. Housekeeper. Loyal. The one who had held Adeline at age twelve when her father came home drunk and raging. The one who had told her mother, in secret, to hide the account book in her sewing box.
