The Heiress of Winterwood - By Sarah Ladd Page 0,75
way back down? I’m not sure I could find my way out.”
He scanned the hall as she led him out. Could someone be hiding here? Ahead, a door stood open. “What’s that room?”
Amelia stopped so abruptly he almost ran into her. “It was Katherine’s room.”
The words rang hollow and empty in the damp, cold hall. The air around them grew still.
She lifted the candle. “Lucy was born there.”
And Katherine died there.
Graham couldn’t resist the temptation. He took the candle from Amelia and stepped inside. The room was dark. Dusty. Cold. He moved to the window. Below and across the lawn torchlight flickered on the terrace where he and Amelia had talked during her engagement dinner to Littleton. An eternity had slipped by since that dinner. He was no longer the same man, and he would venture to assume Amelia had changed as well.
He was no stranger to difficult times, to situations that tried his mental strength and physical endurance. But the thought of Lucy, perhaps alone and frightened, and the image of his wife buried in a cold grave proved to be almost more than he could endure. His soul was empty, and he hadn’t even recognized it until the people who filled it were gone.
He felt Amelia’s presence as she stepped closer. He didn’t want to look at her for fear that even in the darkness she’d read his thoughts. Mutual grief bound them now. He wanted to reach his arm out and pull her close. To feel her warmth. Her goodness. If she took one step closer, he would do it. But she stood still.
Amelia brushed a tear away with the back of her hand. “We should return to the drawing room. Someone may have news.”
Graham shook emotion from his limbs and stretched his hand toward the door. “After you.”
He was a captain, was he not? He knew how to organize men in times of fear, in times of chaos. He’d do so now. He knew his charge, to find his daughter and Mrs. Dunne. He’d not be distracted again.
Amelia bolted upright on the drawing room settee. How long had she been asleep?
She turned to look around the room, and a sharp pain shot down her neck. She grimaced and lifted her hand to massage the spot.
The drawing room was empty. As the recollection of the night’s events emerged from sleep’s fog, she sagged in grief.
Lucy. Mrs. Dunne.
A shout echoed from the lawn. At the sound, she jumped up and hurried to the window, her limbs still sluggish. Outside, the first long rays of dawn peeked from over Sterling Wood and filtered through the bare trees. It was not the yellow light of a pretty morning, but a dull gray light as mournful as the emotion churning within her. Last night’s snow had turned to a chill drizzle.
A dozen or so men were clustered on the lawn in caped greatcoats and low, wide-brimmed hats. The light from their torches and lanterns swayed in the wind. Hunting dogs barked as they circled the group, tails wagging.
She snatched her shawl from the settee and hurried from the room to the front door. A gust of wind whipped her hair wildly around her face as she stepped outside.
Ignoring the rain and the bitter cold, she scanned the grounds. As she did, two men ran past her to the group, followed by more hunting dogs. Two men broke away from the cluster and jogged toward the stable.
Her heart leapt at the commotion. Perhaps by some miracle, they’d found Lucy and were surrounding her now. But as she drew closer and pushed her way into the gathering, she saw that a young boy, not her darling Lucy, had drawn their attention. The dirt-covered lad sat on the ground, his eyes wide in sheer terror as he stared at the men towering over him. Captain Sterling knelt on one knee next to him, and the constable knelt behind him, his hand fixed firmly on the lad’s collar.
Amelia found her voice. “What’s going on here?”
The constable thumped the boy on top of his soiled cap. “This boy knows who kidnapped the child and the nurse, don’t you, lad?”
The boy shook his head, tracks from his tears cutting white streaks down the dirt on his face. His wide eyes darted from face to face. “’An’ how would I know? I ain’t done nowt’, I’m tellin’ ye!”
The constable jerked the boy’s collar. “Do you, now? Where’d you get that letter, then, boy? Answer me that!”