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“Always up and about, that one, but have not seen him this day. Shall I fetch more toast, Your Grace?”
Not only was the rack Thatcher had delivered full, another full rack sat by Nathaniel’s teacup. “No more toast, thank you. But a word with Treegum in the estate office within the half hour would be appreciated.”
“Aye, sir.” Thatcher left, muttering about no rest for the weary.
Robbie’s place setting was untouched and a glance out the window confirmed that he wasn’t in the garden. Nathaniel’s first thought was that Robbie had started the day with a seizure and was still abed.
Except Robbie wasn’t in his room, and his bed was neatly made up. His painting supplies were in their usual cabinet in his sitting room, his newspapers neatly stacked in anticipation of several hours’ reading.
Robbie wasn’t in the garden, he wasn’t in the orchard or the cellars, or anywhere Nathaniel or the staff could think to look.
“Grown men don’t just disappear,” Nathaniel said when Treegum reported that Robbie hadn’t been sighted at the stables or the home farm, not that he’d ever ventured either place in adulthood. “Did we check the kitchen garden?” That space was also walled, though reaching it would mean crossing the back gardens and the deer park.
“I did, sir,” Treegum replied, “and nobody has seen Master Robbie out of doors since yesterday.”
Old memories, of being told that Robbie was too busy to write, too far away at school to come home for holidays, or too ill to travel home, clouded Nathaniel’s ability to think.
Where the hell is my brother?“Did you know Master Robbie had taken to walking down to the river?”
“To the river? No, Your Grace. I can’t think a man given to the falling sickness should be wandering anywhere near water.”
The worry in Nathaniel’s gut swirled into dread. “God help us.” He took off across the garden at a dead run.
Althea at first thought the man was asleep. He looked like a younger, more studious version of Rothhaven, though he was tall and trim, and his clothing well made. His hat had tumbled aside, and he lay curled amid the daffodils like a cat having a good nap in the morning sun.
But who chose to nap with a fine pair of boots in the water? “Sir?”
He was deathly pale and deathly still.
“Sir? Can you hear me?”
A shiver passed over him.
Not dead, then. Althea had seen dead bodies as a child, sots who’d breathed their last on the steps outside a locked church doorway, stick-thin orphans who’d succumbed to consumption in a dank alley.
She pulled off her glove and put her fingers to his neck. A steady pulse greeted her touch.
“Time to wake up,” she said loudly, giving his shoulder a shake, or trying to. He was sturdy, though perhaps he’d hit his head on a rock when he’d slipped off the path. A specimen in good health did not routinely sleep away the morning in the damp bracken.
No odor of alcohol came from him, and nothing about the grass or flowers looked as if a fight had brought the fellow low.
Althea reached to shake him again and found herself looking into wary green eyes. “Good morning, sir.”
He stared back at her. No blood matted his dark hair, but he might have suffered a conk on the noggin nonetheless, poor fellow.
“You’ve taken a tumble, and I can’t imagine lying in the damp is good for anybody. Shall we try to get you to your feet? Your boot boy will not thank you for the state of your footwear.” His breeches were soaked past the knees, but a lady didn’t mention a gentleman’s breeches.
She reached for him again, and he scrabbled back, away from the water.
Althea slowed her movements and retrieved his hat. “A knock on the head is never pleasant, is it? I believe we’ve met, though we haven’t been introduced. I’m Lady Althea Wentworth, if you’ll forgive my forwardness, and you must be related to His Grace of Rothhaven.” She slowed her words too and focused her gaze on his hat.
He ought to have introduced himself. Instead he scrubbed his hands over his face and glanced upward.
Had Althea not known better, she would have thought him a mouse caught in an open field as a pair of hawks soared overhead. He hunched in on himself and shivered again, though the mid-morning sun was gaining strength and the day was bright and mild.
“A lovely day to be out for a stroll,” she said, batting the last of the damp from his hat. “Shall I walk you back to the Hall? It isn’t far, and I was enjoying a constitutional myself.” She’d waited until mid-morning, determined to leave the dawn hours at the river to Rothhaven.
Or to this fellow. An odd silence ensued, during which he ignored the hat Althea held out to him.
