Mrs. Greer stepped forward. “Your Grace. Lord James?—”
He waited, discerning another trouble already brewing.
“He had his supper. We thought he’d settled. But he went for the music room again after Miss Hartley put him to bed, and whenwe told him no, he—” She paused. “He was gone before anyone checked his room a second time.”
Dominic looked at the front door. “Send the footmen out. Check the perimeter first.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
He went back out into the street himself.
He would not fail to care for the boy.
He had been on the pavement three minutes when the door to the neighboring townhouse opened, and Lady Annabelle Stanton came out with James at her side.
She saw him and stopped.
James looked up at him, then sideways at Annabelle, then slowly down at the pavement.
“He was in my music room,” she said. “I came home and found him at the piano.” She passed the cat to Miss Thrupton, who had appeared in the doorway behind her. “He told me his uncle doesn’t let him play.”
Dominic looked at the boy. James studied the flagstones with great attention.
“I told him I would bring him home,” Annabelle finished.
“James.” He said it quietly. “Inside.”
James went past him without a word, and the footman held the door.
Dominic turned back. Lady Annabelle was watching him with her arms at her sides.
“He only wanted to play,” she said.
“He has left this house twice without permission in two days.”
“Because you’ve locked away the one thing that interests him.”
“Because he cannot simply go where he pleases.” He kept his voice level. “He is six years old and in my care, and twice now he has disappeared from this house without a word to anyone.”
“He found a piano,” she said. “Both times. He was not wandering the streets. He came next door. He only wants to learn music. Why is he forbidden from it? James said that you told him the piano isn’t for playing. The one in your house, I mean. What does that mean?”
“It is a matter of principle,” he said. “He misbehaved, and there are consequences for that.”
“A matter of principle?” She waited. He held her gaze and said nothing, and she pressed on regardless, which he was beginning to understand was simply her nature. “It seems that this principle is specifically against pianos. Is this because of something in you, rather than anything James has done?”
“Lady Annabelle,” he said, “Your concern for my ward is noted. Thank you for bringing him home. Good night.”
“Your Grace?—”
He turned toward the door.
Then, from somewhere inside, he heard it: a small, sharp rattle, repeating. The handle of the music room door, pulled and pushed in turns.
He went inside, and Annabelle followed him in without being invited. He noted this and chose not to address it because the rattle was coming from the east corridor, and he already knew what he would find there.
James stood at the locked music room door with both hands on the handle, his forehead pressed to the wood. He was pulling in one direction and then the other, his breath coming in short bursts, not crying yet but close.
“James.” Dominic came to the end of the corridor. “Step away from the door.”
