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The carriage jerked to a stop, nearly throwing her back on the seat.
“What are we doing?” Jamie asked excitedly.
And Helen couldn’t help but grin at him. “It’s time to enlist reinforcements.”
ALISTAIR SPENT THE afternoon in his tower writing—or at least trying to write. Like many previous days, the words simply refused to form. Instead he filled a basket with crumpled sheets of paper, each covered in the crossed-out attempts at an essay on badgers. He couldn’t even find the first sentence. Writing had once been as easy as breathing for him, and now… now he feared he would never again finish an essay. He felt like a broken fool.
When four o’clock came and he noticed that Lady Grey had wandered from the tower, he took it as a good excuse to abandon his wretched attempts and go looking for the dog. Besides, he hadn’t eaten anything since that execrable morning meal.
The castle was silent as he made his way down the winding tower stairs. It was nearly always silent, of course, but last night, when Mrs. Halifax and her children had occupied his home, it had seemed less dead. He shook his head at the morbid thought. He’d watched the woman leave this morning and had rejoiced at once again being virtually alone—Wiggins hardly bothered him at all. It was good to be alone. Good to not be interrupted at work.
When he could work.
Alistair scowled as he reached the hallway, and strode to his own rooms first. Lady Grey liked to nap in a spot of sunlight under the windows in the afternoons. But his rooms were as he’d left them this morning: empty and untidy. He frowned at his unmade bed, the coverlet and sheets trailing on the floor. Hmm. Perhaps a housekeeper wouldn’t have been such a bad idea after all.
He returned to the hall and called, “Lady Grey!”
No scratch of claws on stone floor heralded her approach.
Most of the other rooms were closed off on this floor, so he proceeded to the next. Here there was an old sitting room he sometimes used. He looked, but Lady Grey wasn’t lying on either of the overstuffed settees. Farther down the hall was the room he’d given to Mrs. Halifax. He glanced in and didn’t learn anything besides the fact that her bed had been made. She might not’ve ever been here at all, so forlorn did the room look. From outside he thought he heard the sound of her carriage pulling away again. Fanciful nonsense. He continued his search. On the main floor, he checked all the rooms without success, ending in the library.
“Lady Grey!”
He stood staring at the dusty library a moment. There was a patch of afternoon sun where a curtain had fallen and never been replaced, and sometimes she would nap here. But not today. Alistair frowned. Lady Grey was over a decade old and noticeably slowing down.
Dammit.
He turned and strode toward the kitchen. Lady Grey didn’t usually go there without him. She and Wiggins didn’t get on, and the kitchen was where the manservant hung about most often. In fact—
He halted abruptly at the sound of voices. High, childish voices. He wasn’t being fanciful now—there were children in his kitchen. And the odd thing—the completely unexpected thing—was that his first emotion was gladness. They hadn’t left him after all. His castle wasn’t really dead.
Of course, that was followed very quickly with outrage. How dare she defy his command? She should be halfway to Edinburgh by now. He’d order another carriage, and he’d pack her pretty arse on it himself if he had to this time. There was no room in his castle, in his life, for a too-attractive housekeeper and her pair of brats. Alistair started forward, his intent focused, his stride firm.
And then the childish voices clarified into words.
“. . . can’t go back to London, Jamie,” the girl was saying.
“Don’t see why not,” the boy replied in a mutinous voice.
“Because of him. Mama said so.”
Alistair frowned. Mrs. Halifax couldn’t return to London because of a man? Who? Her husband? She’d presented herself as a widow, but if her husband was still alive and she’d fled him… Dammit. The man might’ve hurt her. There were very few things a woman could do if she married badly, but fleeing her husband was one of them. This put a different angle on things.
o;Well, enough of that,” Helen said briskly. “Let’s do the washing up, and then we’ll start on the kitchen.”
“We’re going to clean this kitchen?” Jamie gaped at the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling.
“Of course.” Helen said it confidently, ignoring the flutter of trepidation in her stomach. The kitchen was very dirty. “Now. Let’s go fetch some water to wash with.”
They’d found the old pump in a corner of the stable yard just this morning. She’d pumped one bucket of water then, but she’d used it all up in making breakfast. Jamie carried the tin bucket as they all tramped out to the stable yard. Helen grasped the pump handle and gave an encouraging smile to the children before hauling it up with both hands. Unfortunately, the pump was rather rusted, and it took a great deal of effort to work it.
Ten minutes later, Helen pushed sweaty hair off her forehead and eyed the half-full bucket.
“It’s not very much,” Abigail said dubiously.
“Yes, well, it’ll do for now,” Helen panted. She took the bucket and returned to the kitchen, the children trailing behind.
She set the bucket down and bit her lip. The water had to be heated to wash the dishes, but she’d let the fire go out since breakfast. Only a few embers still glowed in the fireplace ashes.
