To Beguile a Beast (21 page)

Alistair continued to the kitchens. He might’ve not pulled her away from her work, but a woman wasn’t entirely indifferent if she went red at a mere glance. He snatched a warm bun from a tray Mrs. McCleod had just taken out of the oven and strode out the back door, tossing the hot bread from hand to hand. The day was brilliantly sunny, perfect for a ramble. Whistling, Alistair went to the stables to get his old leather specimen satchel.

He greeted Griffin and the pony and then went to pick up his satchel, which was lying in a corner. The strong, acrid odor of urine assaulted his nostrils when he raised the satchel. Only then did he see the dark wet spot on the corner.

He stared for a second at the ruined satchel, and then he heard a whimper and swung around. The puppy sat behind him, tongue lolling, entire rear end wagging.

“Dammit.” Of all the places in the stable, the yard, the whole, wide world, why,
why,
did the animal pick his satchel to piss on?

“Puddles!” He heard Abigail’s high voice call to the puppy from outside.

Alistair followed the puppy from the stables, holding the stinking satchel away from his body.

Abigail was outside, picking up the puppy. She turned a startled face toward him as he came out of the stables.

He held up the satchel. “Did you know he did this?”

The look of confusion told him her answer even before she replied. “What did… oh.” She wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of the satchel.

He sighed. “This is ruined, Abigail.”

A mutinous expression creased her little face. “He’s only a puppy.”

Alistair tried to tamp down his exasperation. “That’s why you are supposed to be watching him.”

“But, I was—”

“Obviously not or my satchel wouldn’t be full of piss right now.” He placed his hands on his hips, watching her, not entirely sure what to do. “Get a scrub brush and some soap, and I want you to clean this for me.”

“But it’s smelly!”

“Because you weren’t doing your duty!” Anger finally overcame his good sense. “If you can’t mind him, I’ll find someone else who can. Or I’ll simply return him to the farmer I bought him from.”

Abigail jumped to her feet, the puppy held protectively in her arms, her face red. “You can’t!”

“I can.”

“He’s not yours!”

“Yes,” Alistair said through gritted teeth, “he damn well is.”

For a moment, Abigail only sputtered. Then she shouted, “I hate you!” and ran from the courtyard.

He stared for a moment at the stained satchel. He kicked it viciously and then tilted back his head, his eye closed. What sort of idiot lost his temper with a child? He hadn’t meant to yell at her, but dammit, he’d had that satchel for years. It’d survived all his tramping through the Colonies, even his capture by the Indians after Spinner’s Falls and the voyage home. She should’ve been watching the puppy.

Still. It was just a satchel. He shouldn’t have bellowed at Abigail and made threats to the puppy that he’d never had any intention of fulfilling. Alistair sighed. He’d have to remember to somehow apologize to Abigail later while still making clear that she had to watch the damned puppy more carefully. Just the thought started a throbbing in his temple. Instead of taking his morning ramble, he went to his tower to work, wondering as he mounted the stairs why females, whether young or old, were so hard to fathom.

She ran down the hill at the back of the castle, toward the river and the small bunch of trees where they’d buried Lady Grey, and it wasn’t until she neared the river that she realized her mistake. Jamie was already there, squatting on the bank and tossing sticks into the swirling water. She stopped, panting and sweaty, and thought about turning around and sneaking back to the castle, but Jamie’d already seen her.

“Oy!” he called. “It’s my turn with Puddles now.”

“No, it’s not,” Abigail said, though she’d had the puppy all that morning.

“Is, too!” Jamie got up and came toward her, but then halted as he looked at her face. “Are you crying?”

“No!”

“’Cause it looks like you’re crying,” Jamie pointed out. “Did you fall down? Or—”

“I’m not crying!” Abigail said, and ran into the woods.

It was dark here, and she was momentarily blinded. She felt a branch hit her in the shoulder, and she tripped over a root, stumbling, but she kept going. She didn’t want to talk to Jamie with his stupid questions. Didn’t want to talk to
anyone.
If only everyone would just leave her—

She ran into something solid, and the breath was jolted from her body. She would’ve fallen if hard hands hadn’t grabbed her. She looked up into a nightmare.

Mr. Wiggins leaned down so close that all she could smell was the stink of his smelly breath. “Boo!”

She jerked, humiliated that she’d let him frighten her, but she
was
frightened. Then she looked beyond him, and her eyes widened in shock. The Duke of Lister stood not three paces away, watching them without any expression on his face at all.

As a result, he was already rising with a feeling of vague alarm when Helen burst through the doorway. Her hair was coming down from her pins, her blue eyes were wide and round, and her cheeks had gone quite white. She tried to say something but only bent, gasping, her hand at her waist.

“What is it?” he asked sharply.

“The children.”

“Are they hurt?” He started past her, visions of drowned, scalded, or broken little bodies filling his maddened brain, but she caught his arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

“They’re gone.”

He stopped and looked at her blankly. “Gone?”

“I can’t find them,” she said. “I’ve looked everywhere—the stables, the kitchen, the library, the dining room, and the sitting room. I’ve had the servants searching the entire castle this last hour, and I just can’t find them.”

He remembered the words he’d yelled at Abigail, and guilt swept through them. “Abigail and I had an argument this morning. She’s probably hiding with her brother and the puppy. If we—”

“No!” She shook his arm. “No. The puppy wandered into the kitchen alone two hours ago. I thought at first that the children had neglected him, and I was annoyed with them. I went looking to scold them, but I couldn’t find them. Oh, Alistair.” Her voice broke. “I was going to scold Abigail—she’s the eldest. I was thinking of the words, angry words, I was going to say to her, and now I can’t find her!”

Her anguish made him want to pound down walls. If Abigail was merely hiding, he’d have to punish her for the grief she’d caused her mother, whether or not it destroyed any relationship he might have had with the child. Right now, though, he had to do something, anything, to end Helen’s pain. “Where did you last see Abigail and Jamie? How long ago?”

He’d turned to the door, intending to go down and handle the search himself, when one of the maids rounded into sight on the stairs, panting heavily.

“Oh, sir!” she panted. “Oh, Mrs. Halifax. The children…”

“Have you found them?” Helen demanded. “Where are they, Meg? Have you found my babies?”

“No, ma’am. Oh, I’m that sorry, ma’am, but we haven’t found them.”

“Then what is it?” Alistair asked quietly.

“Tom the footman said he remembered seeing Mr. Wiggins in the village last night.”

Alistair scowled. “I thought he’d left the area.”

“That’s what everyone thought, sir,” Meg said. “That’s why Tom was so surprised to see Mr. Wiggins, although he was daft enough not to say so until now.”

“We’ll go to Glenlargo,” Alistair said. “Wiggins is probably somewhere about.”

He didn’t say that if Wiggins had taken off in another direction, their chances of finding him soon were slim. The knowledge that the manservant might have the children sent ice sliding down his spine. What if Wiggins was bent on some kind of revenge?

Alistair strode to a chest of drawers and opened the bottom one. “Tell Tom and the other footman that they’ll be going with me.” He found what he was looking for—a pair of pistols—and turned to the door.

Meg eyed the pistols. “He wasn’t alone, Tom said.”

Alistair stopped. “What?”

“Tom said that he saw Mr. Wiggins talking to another man. The man was very tall and finely dressed, and he carried an ivory cane with a gold—”

Helen gasped and Alistair saw that her face had gone slightly greenish.

“—knob. He wasn’t wearing a wig, Tom said. The man was balding,” Meg finished in a rush, staring at Helen. “Ma’am?”

Helen swayed, and Alistair put his arm about her shoulders to keep her from falling. “Go on ahead, Meg, and tell the footmen to ready themselves.”

“Aye, sir.” Meg curtsied and left.

Alistair closed the door firmly behind the maid and turned to Helen. “Who is he?”

“I… I…”

“Helen.” He took her gently by the shoulders. “I saw your face. You know the man Tom saw last night. Right now we have no way of knowing in which direction Wiggins and his accomplice might’ve taken the children. If you have any idea where they could’ve gone, you need to tell me.”

“London.”

He blinked. He hadn’t expected an answer quite that definite. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She nodded. Her face had regained some of its color, but now it held an expression of resigned fatality.

A wisp of unease uncurled in his belly. “How do you know? Helen, who was the other man?”

“Their father.” She looked up at him, her eyes grief-stricken. “The Duke of Lister.”