CHAPTER 20
Adrian wandered the empty halls of his manor, nowhere to go exactly, but done because something felt wrong. He could not explain what it was, only that there was a feeling about that he was missing something…
It was a voice in the back of his head, too soft to hear, but there and constant. He listened for it… Tried to understand what it was telling him… but the harder he did, the softer it became.
Something is wrong here… there is something missing…
It took him several minutes of walking before he realized what it was that bothered him so. And when he did, his insides squirmed as if he ought to feel guilty or embarrassed. Once, such a thing would not have been noticed at all. In fact, it was expected, as that was how he had lived his entire life. Only now…
The manor was far too silent, and that was what plagued him.
“Your Grace?” Mr. Watley rounded a corner to find Adrian standing in the hallway, face scrunched in concentration. “Is something the matter?”
“No…” Adrian went to dismiss his steward, determined to ignore that feeling of wrongness. “I was just…”
Mr. Watley eyed him with worry but said nothing.
Adrian groaned and dropped his shoulders, the fight leaving him. He did not want to ask the question, but he felt as if he must. At the very least, it might silence that voice and allow him to return to his work as he wanted.
“Her Grace,” Adrian asked. “And Harriet. I have not seen or heard from them all day. Where are they?”
Indeed, even though Adrian was determinedly avoiding Ophelia, he still kept tabs on her. He still liked to know where she was and what she was doing. And most of all, he wanted to make sure that she was content, that nothing was troubling her. He wanted her to be happy…
As for Harriet? The baby’s laughter, or its crying, was a constant companion in the large home. So, to have not heard it once all day was strange. That silence that Adrian once craved no longer brought him comfort, and he knew why, even if he refused to accept the reason.
“They have gone out for the day,” Mr. Watley said.
“What? Where?” Adrian barked.
Mr. Watley leaned back slightly. “I did not think it would concern you, Your Grace. And when I asked Her Grace if she had requested permission, she told me that she had.”
“Well, she did not,” he snapped. Not angry at Mr. Watley, but angry at himself. He had brought this state of affairs upon himself, and it was clear that Ophelia now recognized them.
“I am so sorry, Your Grace,” Mr. Watley said. “She has gone to visit her father. I sent a chaperone, of course, even if she tried to refuse it.” He chuckled at the thought. “She took a carriage, Your Grace, so I suspect she will be gone all day.”
Adrian breathed a small sigh of relief. He had not been worried so much as he had been curious… as if there was a chance that his wife had decided to leave entirely. Not that he would blame her for it, as he hadn’t done anything the past week to suggest that he wanted her around.
“Good.” Adrian nodded his head. “I was just making –”
His answer was cut short by a clap of thunder that shook the walls of the hallway. Adrian spun about as if to follow the noise, and then he stumbled back when a crack of lightning split his eardrums.
Oh no…
Without a word said, Adrian raced down the hallway. He tried to contain his panic. He tried to ignore the surge of fear. He tried to tell himself that it mattered not, there was no need to worry, and he ought to go back to his office and focus on that which mattered. But such convictions died like tears in rain.
He reached the end of the hallway, where a window looked over the estate. He stumbled for it, and his face dropped, the color draining so he was surely as white as a ghost, when he looked to the heavens to confirm what he already knew. A storm was upon them.
And it wasn’t a regular storm either. Oh no. This was the type of storm that poets wrote about; a storm spoken about when the world was at its end so that all one could do was find somewhere to hide and pray that the end times had not found them.
“She left this morning?” Adrian asked, swallowing the lump in his throat as he watched the storm clouds gather so they blotted out the sun.
“She did, Your Grace.” Mr. Watley came in behind him. “As she promised to return shortly before sundown.”
Adrian did a quick calculation in his head: what time she would need to have left her father’s home to arrive here by sundown. Even before he started, he knew the answer, and when it was confirmed…
“Her Grace would have left before the storm began,” Adrian said, more to himself than to Mr. Watley. “Which means that…” He swallowed again.
“She is in a carriage, Your Grace,” Mr. Watley told him with little conviction. “The roads are well made, and she is not alone. I am sure that she is fine.”
