“I done you good, didn’t I, Duchess?” He chuckled, waving the knife toward her face. “How would you like me to take those ugly stitches out for you?”
Maddy kept her eyes on the knife and her nerves firmly under control while she thrust the boy off her lap and as far to the right as she could. “Daniel, if he starts working on my face or cutting those stitches, you run out of here as fast as you can, straight to your father,” she said.
The future heir to the Glenmoor dukedom scooted all the way to the wall, his eyes like platters never leaving Jessop and the knife.Good boy. She hoped he understood. Jessop couldn’t attack both of them at once.
“Think you’re clever, do you, Duchess?” Jessop sneered. He backed up toward the door, casting nervous glances over his shoulder at the woods surrounding them. “You just sit still while I think how I can do this. Need to get that duke or him as should be duke here without that bully-boy colonel and his lickspittles.”
Maddy inched a bit to her left every time he glanced away, praying the boy with terrified eyes understood she wasn’t abandoning him.
*
Brynn glared downat Tommy Dutton. He dragged the boy back into the side garden. There had to be more, something they’d overlooked. A boy and a woman couldn’t disappear into thin air.
They had scoured every inch of the stables, the lane from the kitchen, and the side garden. The only thing left was a wilderness so thick with brambles Clarion’s hound came out covered with thorns and burrs a few minutes after the earl had tried sending him in. A small boy might wander in, but Brynn couldn’t see the duchess strolling through it. The earl was gathering equipment to cut through while Kendrick threatened to tear down the whole damned stand of trees and brush with his bare hands. Even Glenmoor had removed his precious coat and begun whacking at the blackberry brambles.
“One more time. Tell me everything you saw,” Brynn said through clenched teeth.
The groom repeated his story about standing guard at the French doors and watching the children: Helen and Ashmead walking, the other three chasing each other and hiding.
“All three? You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir. The lad was giving them fits. Small as he is, he could hide good.”
“That’s it? He hid well, and then they couldn’t find him? Anything else?”
Tommy screwed up his face in thought. “Lady Marjory is a right terror. She plays out here most days. She searched everywhere.” He looked at Brynn directly. “Just before she went inside, she told the duchess that if it were her, she’d hide under the boxwoods.”
Boxwoods.They lined the woodlot, a barrier between wilderness and cultivation. Brynn went to his knees to search under the hedge.
“But we looked under there, Colonel Morgan. Three or four times.”
Brynn came to the place that looked as though an animal had burrowed through. “We looked under but not behind?” he asked Tommy over his shoulder.
“Yes, sir.”
Brynn forced his way between two boxwood bushes, his huge bulk straining through the branches. He had to bend his head under boughs overhanging a small clearing, which was covered in footprints.
“They went this way,” he called. He didn’t wait to see if Dutton followed.
He saw no sign of a boy, but a grown woman thrashing through thick brush left a trail of broken branches, crushed weeds, and scraps of clothing. Maddy had come this way. He recognized the blue of her gown in a scrap caught on a blackthorn tree. He pressed forward until he heard a sound that made his heart stutter. A woman’s voice screamed, “No!”
*
With Jessop pacingat the entrance, mumbling to himself, Maddy studied her surroundings. Bits of broken pots confirmed the place had been a gardener’s shack, decayed wood that it dated well before her lifetime, and the odor—mold and earth overlayed with unwashed body and decaying food—that Jessop had been there for a few days. Her bandage, soiled with fluids, lay in the dirt. There were no windows and only one door, now guarded by Gideon’s uncle and a viciously sharp knife.
She leaned against the wall, casting what she hoped was an encouraging smile at Gideon’s son huddled against the opposite wall. The wall behind her sagged a bit when she leaned, and she gasped, relieved when Jessop ignored her. Daniel—brave boy—watched her carefully and then mimicked her actions. His eyes grew wide when something moved behind him. He turned to peer at the one board that had given way a bit. A harder push, and it would move farther. It wasn’t much, but Daniel could probably squeeze through.
Maddy held her breath and didn’t release it until he turned back. She didn’t want to disturb Jessop until they had to. She shook her head at Daniel’s unspoken question.
Jessop moved quickly again, darting in to grab Maddy by the hair. “Thinking again? I told you you’re too smart for…”
“Run now?” Daniel asked.
Jessop spun on the boy.
“No!” Maddy shouted, leaping to her feet. She lowered her voice when Jessop turned to her. She held his eyes. “Run if he begins to use that knife on my face.”
“Clever, you. What if I—” He stopped midsentence and cocked his ear toward the door before grabbing Maddy by the elbow and dragging her there. “I hear ’em. Looks like they’re coming to me on their own. You, boy. Come stand by me or I’ll forget about the pretty face and stick her neck.”
