Her fingers shook as she removed the lamp’s glass chimney, then fumbled for the box of matches. How could she hold the lamp and strike the match? She needed more hands! The glass shade slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor, and the box of matches followed.
“Damn!” She glanced around, ashamed at her curse, then gave a nervous laugh. Even if someone were there to hear her, she wouldn’t care as long as they would get her out of this horrid place.
Rather than search for the box and risk cutting herself on the broken glass, she raced forward and ran her hand against the grimy, dusty walls to feel her way through the passage in the dark.
At the fork, she edged forward as carefully as she could.Where was that broken board?Using the toe of her shoe, she felt for it, only to push against a smaller object.The mouse!Her stomach churned again, and she quickly stepped away from the decomposing rodent. Another floorboard broke away, and the gaping hole swallowed her foot. She fell forward and landed face down, her eyes adjusting to the darkness just enough. A dead mouse lay precariously close to her nose, and she screamed. Pain radiated up her leg, and she struggled to free her aching foot, but it wouldn’t budge.
She screamed again, hoping someone would hear her before she joined the mouse in endless repose.
Even wet boots—thanksto the puppy—couldn’t dampen Colin’s mood. He’d made excellent time, keeping both his meeting with Sedley and the retrieval of the puppies brief. He would be home by late afternoon.
As the carriage pulled up to Blackthorne Manor, he leapt down, eager to see his daughters and Anne. One after the other, the pups perched on the carriage step, extended a paw, then took a tentative hop down to the ground before following Colin into the house.
Colin tossed his gloves and hat to the footman. “Anne! Cassie! Ellie!”
Greene strode forward. One eyebrow quirked slightly and broke his normally stoic expression. “Sir. Is something amiss?” His gaze dropped toward the high-pitched bark as one of the puppies peeked around Colin’s legs at the butler. Greene’s eyebrows rose. “Does that belong to you, my lord?” Another puppy braved its way up to Greene and growled.
“They are. Or rather, they’re for the girls and Lady Manning’s nieces.” Ready to ask where his wife and daughters were, Colin peered around Greene, when Cassie and Ellie answered half of his question as they ran forward in greeting.
“Oh, Papa!” Although Ellie greeted him in words, she reserved the hugs and kisses forone of the pups.
Bent down toward the other dogs, which she petted gently, Cassie peered up at him with misty eyes. “Are they really ours, Father?”
“Two of them are. One is for Indira and Eleanor. You will have to learn to care for them. Teach them to do their business outside. Can you do that?”
Both girls nodded vigorously.
Colin redirected his attention toward Greene. “Where is my wife?”
“I haven’t seen her since this morning, sir.”
Unease prickled Colin’s neck at the way Greene’s eyes darted away.
“She was looking for you this morning, Father,” Cassie said. “We told her you had left to get the puppies.”
Not bothering to tear her gaze away from the puppy, Ellie added, “She said she had a headache and was going to lie down. But that was ages ago.”
Anne not feeling well? Cold slid down his spine in a slow, unsettling line as he remembered Margery wasting away in her sickbed.Stop!He was becoming as melodramatic as Anne. A headache was hardly a life-threatening illness. He glanced down at the puppies licking the girls’ faces. “May I borrow one of your pups?”
Ellie held out her dog. “You may have Floppy as long as you promise to give him back.”
“I promise.” With Floppy tucked under one arm—and really, what type of name was that for a dog?—he bounded up the stairs two at a time, confident the puppy would lift her spirits. He rapped his knuckles once against Anne’s closed bedroom door, then without waiting, opened it and stepped inside. The excitement building within him vanished at the sight of the empty bed. Next, he strode through the adjoining dressing rooms to his own bedroom, only to find it unoccupied as well.
Where was she?
Back downstairs, he questioned the staff as to Anne’s whereabouts. But no one remembered seeing her for several hours.After returning Floppy to Ellie, he searched outside. In the gardens, the groundskeeper, Rupert, lifted his hat in greeting.
“Have you seen my wife?”
“No, sir.”
Colin raced around the house and glanced toward the folly, but the boat remained anchored to the dock.
He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Anne! Anne!” But his only answer was the mocking cry of a crow.
How had his Elfin Menace simply vanished? She had to be somewhere. Determined to find her, he strode back into the house, prepared to call the entire staff to join him in his quest.
Noise coming from down the hallway stopped him, and he hurried toward his study.
