The housekeeper left. Susan appeared with a pitcher of water and freshly laundered linen towels. The lad with Cassandra’s valise was with her. He also had Soren’s, which he put in the other bedroom.
“Do you wish me to unpack for you, my lady?” Susan asked.
“Yes, please.”
It did not take long to hang the dresses and line up the shoes. While Susan was busy, Cassandra carried the valise over to the small dressing table by the window. During the journey, Soren had managed to find simple hairpins for her. She set these out with her brush. She took the tooth powder and milled soap to the washstand.
“Is there anything else, my lady?”
“No, that is enough, thank you.” Cassandra waited for the door to close before lifting the valise’s false bottom. The garnet necklace and bracelet were there. She replaced the bottom and set the valise in the wardrobe. She didn’t know where this house kept luggage, but she wanted the valise close to her until she found another suitable hiding space for her jewelry.
Did she feel any pangs of dishonesty? Yes, especially with Soren out searching for his son. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told him about the garnets yet. It wasn’t that she had a distrust of him, not any longer.
However, the description of Logan as a wolf cub and Arabella’s lack of concern over his disappearance were not reassuring. Soren’s impression of his son was far different, and she wondered who was right. She didn’t know what she would do if Logan could not be found or harm had come to him. Soren would blame himself. She knew it.
Years ago, she’d heard of a family who had lost a child. They never found him until one day his body was discovered in a nearby lake. He had been trapped under some low-hanging bushes.
The thought was disturbing. Cassandra didn’t want that to happen to Logan.
However, the truth—ah, there was that word again—the truth was that a five-year-old boy was a complication to the life she thought she would have. And now that he was missing, well, she felt callous and stingy for her earlier selfish thoughts.
They made her a bit like Arabella, and she didn’t like that image at all.
Miss Edgeworth’s book was making her do some thinking, not only about children in general, but also about her own childhood. She’d not been a wolf cub, but there had been many a servant who would not have had something flattering to say if she’d been missing. It went without saying her stepmother and stepsisters had resented—
Cassandra sensed rather than saw a movement in her husband’s room.
But she had not heard the door open. And if Soren had returned, he would have said something.
She waited. All was quiet. Footsteps sounded in the hall. Perhaps a servant had run an errand in her husband’s room and she’d not been paying attention?
Cassandra walked over to the bed and picked up Miss Edgeworth’s book.
Stepping through the door between the two bedrooms, she again sensed she was not alone. That she was being watched. Carefully, she scanned the room, and it was then she noticed the wardrobe door was cracked open. It had not been that way when she’d looked in the room not more than thirty minutes earlier.
She walked over to it and, placing her book under her arm, opened the door.
Soren’s wardrobe held a few of his things. He did not own much. This did not surprise her. The space smelled of bay leaf and the orange spice of his shaving soap. She ran her hand over a jacket of bottle green superfine. She hoped he returned soon, and with Logan—and then, from the corner of her eye, she once again spied movement.
A shadow had shifted in a place where there should have been only stillness.
Was it her imagination or did someone else breathe in this room? Was there another heart beating?
The dogs started barking outside. Cassandra walked to the window. From this vantage point, she overlooked a small garden and a corner of the stables. There was a pond, and apparently two of the dogs had gotten into a fight over who knew what. A stable lad shouted at them. The post driver was there as well. She was pleased he was being taken care of—
Again, her inner sense noticed a movement.
This time, Cassandra did not doubt herself. The movement had come from the massive four-poster.
She crept closer. Her instincts were not wrong. Someone was under the bed. It could be a dog, but then its behavior was uncharacteristic.
When she was a few feet away, she dropped to her knees and peered under the bed frame just in time to catch sight of a small bare foot disappearing behind the back of the headboard.
Could Logan be here? In this room, waiting for his father?
Cassandra rose up on her knees, ready to call for help, when a black-haired child dressed only in breeches took two bounding steps across the mattress toward her. With a loud war cry, he leaped in the air to attack her.
Chapter 18
