His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(3)

Lily made her way down the corridor, intent on seeking refuge in the ladies’ retiring room, but she must have taken a wrong turning, for a raised male voice stopped her.

“Where the devil can she have got off to?” a man asked.

A quieter voice, also male, replied briefly.

“Then search again and keep searching until—Miss Ferguson.” The Earl of Grampion came around the corner and stopped one instant before knocking Lily off her feet. “I beg your pardon.”

A footman hovered at his lordship’s elbow—a worried footman.

“My lord,” Lily said, dipping a curtsey. “Has somebody gone missing?”

“Excuse us,” Grampion said to the footman, who scampered off as if he’d heard a rumor about free drinks at the nearest pub.

“No need for concern, Miss Ferguson, this has been a regular occurrence over the past week. My ward has decided to play hide-and-seek all on her own initiative, well past her bedtime, after promising me faithfully that she’d never, ever, not for any reason—I’m babbling.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I beg your pardon. The child will be found, I’ve no doubt of it.”

This was the polite, chilly host to whom Lily had been introduced two hours ago? “How old is she?”

“Almost seven, though she’s clever beyond her years, perhaps due to the corrupting influence of two older brothers. I found her in the hayloft last time, and we’d been searching for hours. The nursery maids don’t think she’d leave the house at night.”

No wonder he was worried. Even Mayfair was no place for a lone six-year-old at night. “How long has she been missing?”

His lordship produced a gold pocket watch and opened it with a flick of his wrist. “Seventeen minutes, at least. The senior nursery maid tucked the girl in at nine of the clock—for the third time—and was certain the child had fallen asleep. She went back into the bedroom to retrieve her cap at ten, and the little imp wasn’t in the bed.”

“You could set the guests to searching.”

Grampion snapped the watch closed. “No, I could not. Do you know what sort of talk that would start? I’m supposed to be attracting a suitable match, and unless I want to go to the bother and expense of presenting my bachelor self in London for the next five Seasons, I cannot allow my tendency to misplace small children to become common knowledge.”

Lily smoothed back the hair he’d mussed, then tidied the folds of his cravat, lest some gossip speculate that he’d been trysting rather than searching for his ward. He was genuinely distraught—why else would he be baldly reciting his marital aspirations?—and Lily approved of him for that.

For resenting the burden and expense of a London Season, she sympathized with him, and for his honesty, she was at risk for liking him.

And that he’d blame himself for misplacing the child… Lily peered up at him, for Grampion was a tall specimen.

“Where is your favorite place in the house?” she asked.

“I don’t have a favorite place. I prefer to be in the stables, if you must know, or the garden. When the weather is inclement, or I have the luxury of idleness, I read or tend to correspondence in my library.”

His complexion was a touch on the ruddy side, the contours of his features a trifle weathered now that Lily could study him at close range. As a result, his eyes were a brilliant blue and, at present, full of concern.

“Come with me,” Lily said, taking him by the hand. “That you found your ward in the stable is no coincidence. You say she’s been in your home for only a week?”

Grampion came along peacefully. “She’s an orphan, her parents having died earlier this year. The will named me as guardian, and so she was left almost literally upon my doorstep. The poor child was quite close to her mother and barely knows me from among a dozen other neighbors.”

“What’s her name?”

“Beelzebub, on her bad days. Her parents named her Amy Marguerite, her mother called her Daisy.”

Lily dropped his lordship’s hand outside the library, which was across the corridor from a formal parlor. “What do you call her?”

He focused on a spot above and to the left of Lily’s left shoulder. “Sweetheart, poppet, my dear, or, when I can muster an iota of sternness, young lady.”

“Refer to the child as Daisy, but do not acknowledge that she’s in the room.”

“You believe she’s in the study?”

“I’m almost certain of it, my lord, if you frequent the study late at night. You will lament her absence, worry aloud at great length, and confirm to me that losing the child would devastate you.”

He considered the door latch. “Devastate might be doing it a bit brown. With practice, I could endure to lose her for ten minutes here and there.”

He’d be devastated if the child wasn’t soon found. Lily was more than a little worried, and she hadn’t even met the girl.

His lordship pushed open the door and gestured for Lily to precede him.

No wonder he preferred this chamber. Books rose to a height of two stories on shelves lining two sides of the room. The windows on the outside wall would look over the garden, and the furnishings were of the well-padded, sturdy variety that invited reading in unusual positions for long periods.

The wall sconces had been turned down, throwing soft shadows across thick carpets, and the hearth blazed with a merry warmth.