Page 50 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

“Aurora?”

A giggle came from somewhere ahead.

Poppy let out a breath of relief. “I hear you.”

“No, you do not,” Aurora called.

“I assure you, I do.” Poppy laughed, but it did not ease the panic she felt.

Her voice bounced strangely among the hedges, near and far at once. Poppy followed the sound to the right and found only another green wall and a narrow passage leading away.

Mrs. Patterson entered behind her. “Miss Aurora, come out now.”

“I…I…d…do not know where I a…a…am.”

Poppy looked back helplessly at Mrs. Patterson. “Perhaps if we do not sound severe.”

“She must learn, Your Grace.”

“Yes,” Poppy agreed with the elderly woman, but her heart did not. “But perhaps not while surrounded by shrubbery.”

Mrs. Patterson did not smile as they moved forward together. Poppy kept one hand near the hedge, not touching it, merely measuring the turns. The sky above seemed clean and remote. Somewhere outside the maze a bird called, but inside, even Aurora’s footsteps began to fade.

“Aurora,” Poppy called again. “The game is over now.”

Hector had learned the way of the maze as a boy before the accident. The pattern had entered him and remained when finer details had begun to withdraw from him; faces lost their details and pages became pale fields without meaning. The maze had never betrayed him; its center remained a constant in his life, and he liked that.

He let the maze gather around him again. This was his closet, where no one could bother him.

Hector dipped the paintbrush into the bucket of paint and slathered it onto the plank of wood that his footman had set up before him. He had not painted since the accident, and there was a feeling of freedom as the bright color covered the dullness of the wood. He wished he could have painted patterns on it.

What would Aurora have liked? Perhaps flowers?

Hector enjoyed the peace around him until a sound echoed around him. It was a short gasp followed by footsteps.

Someone is in the maze.

His fingers tightened around the paintbrush, then eased. The sound came again, broken by the hedges, made uncertain by distance. A little intake of breath, quickly swallowed, followed by the light, uneven scuff of shoes on gravel.

Hector rose.

The brush slipped from his hand and onto the green grass, splattering color all around him. He stood still, allowing the echoes to separate, and his head turned toward another gasp.

Before he could call out, a woman’s voice came from beyond the hedge, farther away but right with alarm.

“Aurora?”

My duchess.

He knew her voice by now. Her Grace’s voice held warmth even when worry thinned it.

“Aurora, where are you?” Hector said calmly.

The small steps faltered, and he began walking toward them.

“Aurora,” he said again. “It is Uncle Hector.”

There was a small sound that might have been relief if it had not been frightened to show itself.