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This time, he wasn’t willing to allow Anne to hide and sulk. “Pull all the servants from their posts. Find my daughter.”
Wilkins nodded and set about his task.
“Leave no stone unturned. No corner unsearched.” He would find her. And then he would… well, he didn’t know what he would do. But he would make certain this was the very last time she hid from them in a wardrobe. Or bit a governess. Or ran away.
Seventeen
Sophia wiped a spider’s web from her path with gentle fingers. Spiders were cantankerous beasts. They spent hours working on their hunting nets and didn’t appreciate it a bit when careless humans destroyed their work. But she had to check the attic. If she was a little girl, it’s where she would hide. Sophia swiped at her brow with her forearm as she climbed the dark steps. She held a candle aloft to lighten the gloom, but it simply made the shadows larger and more ominous. Night was about to fall, and Lady Anne was nowhere to be found.
She stepped into the large attic, its slanted roof forcing her to bend at the waist until she was fully in the room. She stre
tched and looked about. There were stacks of old furniture—chairs, tables, settees, old bed frames. All discarded and left alone. Some were covered with linen bedclothes. But most had withstood the ravages of time despite the dust and grime that coated their surfaces. There were too many places to hide in such a large room. If Anne had decided to hide in the shadows of the great furniture pile, no one would ever find her.
Sophia shoved a linen covering from a pile of furniture, then tugged the covering off another with the flick of her wrist. She would leave no cloth unfurled. No corner unsearched. But then she tugged the covers off a small settee. Standing directly in the middle of the settee was a portrait. Sophia startled for a moment because the woman in the portrait looked so very much like Anne. She held the candle closer and let the shadows dance upon the canvas. It must be Anne’s mother.
She didn’t even know the woman’s name. It wasn’t spoken in the household. Not by Ashley, not by Anne, not by the servants, and not by anyone else. It was as though the memory of her had died along with her. Like she’d never existed. But she had. The portrait was proof of it. At the bottom of the portrait was a small brass plate that read, “Lady Diana Trimble, Duchess of Robinsworth.”
“Why were you discarded, Your Grace?” Sophia said, her voice trembling a little as she reached into her reticule and withdrew a small vial of shimmering dust. She held it out in front of the painting. Should she do it? It could be disastrous. What if the portrait refused to return to sleep? Everyone knew the duchess had been an obstinate sort. Should she wake the painting to find the truth behind the duchess’s death? Only the duchess could tell her story and tell it correctly. But what if the duchess refused to return to sleep?
A haughty smirk graced the lips of the duchess in the painting, as though she knew secrets no one else knew. What Sophia wouldn’t give to unlock those secrets. But there simply wasn’t time. Anne must be found. She threw the coverlet back over the painting and began to search the recesses of the room for the little girl.
It wasn’t until she’d searched every inch of the room that Sophia stopped, sighed heavily, and wiped her brow again. Anne wasn’t in this room. And Sophia had wasted valuable time searching it from top to bottom. Where on earth could the girl be?
It was then that she remembered Anne’s exuberance at the idea of visiting the village. Would the child have gone on her own? Would she so desperately want to leave the confines of the Hall? She probably would.
Sophia raced down the stairs, shaking the dust from her skirts as she went. She met Marcus at the bottom of the stairs. “Has she been found yet?”
“Not yet. The duke is beside himself. Perhaps you should go to him, Soph,” he said reluctantly.
“I think I know where she is,” Sophia said, trying to catch her breath. “Follow me.”
***
Ashley barked orders from the foyer of the manor, pointing this way and that, and snapping at all those who stopped to inform Wilkins about the areas they’d searched. The maids and footmen had been dispatched along with the rest of the household, and even the dowager duchesses, both the younger and the older, were searching, along with the guests of the house party. Anne’s name reverberated off the walls of the Duke’s ancestral home and for the first time ever, Ashley wished he lived in a small cottage in the middle of town. Yet despite all the searching, the child had not been found.
A shiver crept up Ashley’s spine. What if they couldn’t find her? What if she was injured? What if someone had taken her? Fear squeezed at his heart, and Ashley realized he wasn’t concerned at all with her behavior or her surliness or her poor attitude; he simply wanted her. He wanted to hold his daughter and assure himself that she was all right.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sophia Thorne update Wilkins on the areas she’d searched. The butler placed a large mark over the area she’d indicated on the quickly drawn map, and then she turned to continue searching. But instead of going back toward the mazes and corridors that were the Hall, she made for the front door. And she took her brother with her. Where on earth was she going?
Ashley followed them at a discreet distance as they went out the front door, their heads pressed closely together. They continued down the steps, and at the bottom, Sophia’s maid waited with two horses. They pranced and danced in their places, tugging at their leads until Mr. Thorne boosted Sophia up into her saddle and climbed upon his own trusty mount. Then with a gentle kick and an easy touch, they sped through the gates toward the village. Ashley searched the dim light of twilight, but the maid had vanished as quickly as she’d arrived. He scratched his head. Then he turned toward the door and bellowed, “Someone get me a mount.”
***
“Just where are we going, Soph?” Marcus asked.
“To get Lady Anne,” Sophia said, not taking her eyes from the road. Her horse was sure-footed, but even her filly couldn’t predict how rutted the road would be. “I should have gotten a lantern.”
But then Marcus reached into his inner pocket and retrieved some pixie dust. Pixie dust was a glorified name for it. It was actually firefly bait. They loved the sugary crystals that were coated in fae magic. He tossed a light sampling of them into their horses’s manes. Within moments, hundreds of fireflies surrounded them, lighting their way.
He shrugged at Sophia, a look of chagrin on his face. “For the horses,” he said lightly.
“You always were afraid of the dark,” she teased.
He rolled his eyes at her. “Pray tell me what has you in such a hurry to go to the village?”
“I think that’s where Lady Anne has gone.”
“What indicated that to you?”
