Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(102)

A soft knock on the door interrupted her. The door creaked open a foot, and the head of a ghostly-pale chambermaid poked through the gap.

“B-begging your pardon, my lord. My lady.” The head bobbed a bit—a motion Lucy took for a curtsy. “I just thought … that is to say, we believed you should know … that someone ought to inform you …”

“For God’s sake, what is it?” Jeremy rose to his feet.

The chambermaid shook. “Her Ladyship’s aunt has gone missing,” she squeaked. Then her head disappeared and the door slammed shut.

Lucy leapt to her feet. “Oh, no,” she moaned, picking up the red silk dressing gown draped over the sofa’s back. She shrugged into the robe and cinched it about her waist before dropping to the floor to hunt for her slippers. “We have to find her. She doesn’t know this place, and the Abbey is so big. She could be anywhere. And it’s so cold, and she’s so frail. If she gets lost …” She jammed the slippers on her feet and scrambled up to a standing position, only to find herself nose-to-nose—or rather, nose-to-throat—with Jeremy.

“Don’t worry.” His hands went to her shoulders. “We’ll find her,” he said simply.

She nodded, staring stupidly at the open collar of his shirt.

“The servants have no doubt begun searching the house,” he said. “Stay here and help them. It’s unlikely she’d have made it outdoors, but I’ll take some footmen out to the gardens, just to be certain.” He tilted her face to his. “We’ll find her. And then we’ll continue this talk.”

“All right, then.”

Then he was gone. Lucy heard him thundering down the stairs, barking orders to servants as he went.

She crossed the corridor and entered Aunt Matilda’s suite. It seemed best to first verify that she was indeed missing, and not simply huddled behind the draperies. That had happened once at Waltham Manor—the whole house had been turned upside down before her nursemaid finally found Aunt Matilda squirreled away in the window seat.

Lucy combed through the chamber, peeking in cupboards and ducking under the bed. Finally she strode to the windows and pulled back the drapes.

Nothing.

Or something.

A flash of white outside caught her eye. She scanned the darkness. There it was again. Moonlight glinting off something pale and wispy, like a ghost. Or an elderly spinster’s shift. She pressed her face to the glass, straining to make out the landscape below. This window looked out over the front of the Abbey; the gardens were behind the house. Aunt Matilda was heading down the gently sloping green that bordered the woods, and the woods hid the narrow, winding valley of the stream.

Lucy rushed down the stairs and out the massive, open door. There were no footmen about. Jeremy must have led them all around back, to the gardens. She grabbed a carriage lamp from its hook beside the door and started off across the green. There was no time to go off in search of the men. By the time she found them and pointed them in the right direction, Aunt Matilda could be wandering lost in the woods, or worse—plunging into the icy stream.

Lucy caught a glimpse of fluttering fabric again, just at the border of the woods. She cupped her hand to her mouth to call out, but decided to save her breath. As Sophia had once so helpfully pointed out, it made little sense to shout at a deaf lady. Instead, she doubled her pace across the green, her silk slippers crunching over frosted grass. She hurried to the copse of trees she’d seen Aunt Matilda approaching and plunged into the forest.

She swung the lantern around, scanning through the trees. Nothing. She looked down. There were footprints, of sorts. Small depressions in the ice-crusted mud about the size of a woman’s foot. She followed the trail, holding the lantern aloft with one hand and clutching the neck of her dressing gown with the other.

Heavens, but Aunt Matilda moved quickly. It seemed impossible that Lucy would not have caught up with her by now. She could hear the gurgle of the stream already.

The footprints ended at a rocky outcropping. She approached it cautiously, a bubble of dread rising in her throat. The stream’s low gurgle became an ominous roar below. Holding on to a branch with one hand, she swung her lantern out over the edge with the other, peering down into the gorge. Praying she wouldn’t see a tattered scrap of muslin shift somewhere down below.

Her shoulder exploded with pain. Lucy pitched forward with a scream. The lantern sailed from her hand and tumbled down, landing in the river with a splash.

The whole world went black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jeremy didn’t find Aunt Matilda.

Aunt Matilda found him.

Having started the footmen searching the garden, Jeremy rounded the front of the house. Aunt Matilda greeted him in the entrance hall, barefoot and dressed in a shift nearly as translucent as her skin.

She was shuffling her feet around the parquet floor and humming a lively tune. When she looked up and saw Jeremy, she paused just long enough to utter a single word. “Lovely.”

“Lucy,” he called, ushering the old lady up the stairs. “Lucy! I’ve found her.” He looked into the sitting room as he passed their suite. “Lucy?”

No response.

Jeremy shrugged off a whisper of anxiety. Casting a pointed look at a maid down the corridor, he steered Aunt Matilda into the Blue Suite. The maid hurried in after them, quickly assuming care of the elderly lady.