The housekeeper rested a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “She isn’t here, Your Grace.”
“What is all this fuss?” His grandmother’s voice rasped from the landing as she shuffled into view.
“I am looking for Selina. She is nowhere in the manor.” Philip took a breath, his chest heaving. “Fetch Mary. I know thatsheis here.”
He cast a pointed look at his grandmother, but she chose that moment to be selectively blind. Holding tight to the banister, she began a shaky descent.
“Mary, if you please,” Philip growled at the housekeeper, before he ran up the stairs to help his grandmother.
He might have been cross about her misplaced generosity, but he was not so cross that he would allow her to fall down the staircase.
“Are you certain she is nowhere to be found?” she asked as he helped her to a nearby chaise. “You can’t possibly have searched everywhere.”
“I haven’t, but… she is likely upset with me,” he admitted. “I am concerned that she is no longer at the manor.”
His grandmother narrowed her eyes. “Would this have something to do with Mary’s imminent departure?”
“I would prefer not to discuss it.”
She nodded. “Well, have you been to the stables? If Selina had decided to run off, she would not have been foolish enough to flee on foot. Not in this awful weather.”
He nearly swore in front of her. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“No, I would have heard a carriage leave,” he said, clearing his mind.
The path from the stables to the main driveway went directly past the study windows; he would not have missed a carriage departing so late at night. As far as he knew, Selina had still been in the manor when he took himself off to the study with Zachary.
“Could she have taken a horse?” his grandmother asked.
Philip furrowed his brow. “I am not certain of her skills as a rider.” He shook his head, trying to reassure himself. “As you said, she would not be foolish enough to flee in this weather.”
At least, he hoped not.
“I am sure all is well, and she is just somewhere unexpected, in the safety of the manor,” his grandmother said, with no certainty whatsoever in her voice.
