To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(62)

“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.

HE’D YELLED at her.

Abigail ran, trying to hold back tears, with Puddles in her arms. She thought Sir Alistair liked her. She’d begun to think that she liked him back. But now he was angry with her. His face had been stern, his forehead wrinkled in an ugly frown as he’d yelled at her. And the very worst thing was she was to blame. He was right. She hadn’t been watching Puddles closely enough. She’d let him wander into the stables alone while she looked at a beetle she’d found on the ground. But knowing that she’d been wrong had only made everything so much harder. She loathed being wrong. She loathed admitting her fault and apologizing. It made her shrink inside, like a tiny worm. And because she hated that feeling, because she knew he was right and she was wrong, she’d screamed at him and run away.

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.

* * *

ALISTAIR CAREFULLY FOLDED the letter to Vale. The way the mail carriages ran around here, he was likely to arrive in London before the letter, but it’d seemed a good idea to try and alert Vale, anyway. He’d decided. He would leave Castle Greaves, make the journey to London, and speak to Etienne when the other man’s ship docked. Alistair might be gone for a fortnight or more, but Helen could take care of the castle in his absence. He hated travel, hated encountering staring idiots, but he needed to know the truth about Spinner’s Falls enough to endure the discomfort.

Alistair was dripping sealing wax on the letter when he heard footsteps on the tower stairs. At first he thought it was the call for luncheon, but the footsteps were louder and quicker. Whoever was on the stairs was running.

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—”