Simply Perfect

by Mary Balogh

  “Hello,” she called, her voice teary and shaking. She was thinking of witches and wizards. “Hello. Is anyone there?”

  No one was. There was no answer, and she could hear no breathing except her own and Horace’s.

  She stepped inside and felt about.

  It was just a small hut, she discovered. But it had some furniture in it. Did someone live here? If so, perhaps they would come home soon and tell her which way to go. Perhaps they would not be evil people but would be kind. There were not really evil people or witches, were there?

  She was still sobbing aloud. She was still consumed by terror. She was still trying to be sensible.

  “Please come home,” she sobbed to the unknown owners of the little hut. “Please come home. Please!”

  She could feel a bed covered with blankets. She lay down on top of them and curled up into a ball, one fist stuffed against her mouth.

  “Papa,” she wailed. “Papa. Miss Martin. Papa.”

  Horace jumped up beside her and whined and licked her face.

  “Papa.”

  Eventually she slept.

  18

  Joseph sat in the drawing room at Alvesley for all of half an hour, conversing with Portia, Wilma and George, and the Vreemonts, cousins of Kit’s. It was admittedly cooler indoors and a great deal quieter, but he was annoyed nonetheless.

  For one thing, Portia said nothing about feeling faint from the heat and looked a little surprised when he asked solicitously about her health. It had all been Wilma’s little ruse, of course, to draw him away. She would have considered it his duty to pay more attention to his betrothed despite the fact that the whole entertainment had been planned for the children and most of the other adults were exerting themselves to amuse them.

  For another thing, he had had to break his promise to take Lizzie for a boat ride. He would do it as soon as they returned, but even so he was powerfully reminded that she was always going to have to take second place to his legitimate family, to be fitted in for his attention whenever they did not need him.

  For a third thing, he had felt like planting McLeith a facer when he had taken Claudia Martin walking. The man was going to wear down her resistance and persuade her to marry him—which conclusion ought to have made Joseph rejoice. It seemed to him more and more as he thought of it that she yearned for love and marriage and a marital home despite all she said about being happy with her school and her lonely existence as its headmistress.

  But he had wanted to plant McLeith a facer.

  They made their way back to the picnic site eventually. He was going to take Lizzie boating as soon as possible. It would not seem strange that he do so—a number of the other adults had been entertaining her, making sure that she was involved with various activities and was enjoying herself.

  But just as they were approaching the picnic site and he was looking eagerly about for his daughter, a voice spoke loudly above all the hubbub of other voices—it was the strident voice of a schoolmistress accustomed to making herself heard above a tumult of schoolgirl chatter.

  “Where is Lizzie?” Miss Martin wanted to know.

  She was getting up from a chair beside McLeith’s, Joseph could see.

  He was instantly more alert.

  “Where is Lizzie?”

  Her voice was louder now, less controlled, more panicked.

  “Good God!” he exclaimed, pulling his arm free of Portia’s and hurrying forward. “Where is she?”

  A hasty glance around failed to find her. So did another.

  Everyone had been alerted by the cry, and everyone was looking around and speaking.

  “She is playing circle games with Christine.”

  “That was ages ago.”

  “She is with Susanna and the baby.”

  “No, she is not. That was some time ago. I had to go and feed Harry.”

  “Perhaps she went for a ride in a boat.”

  “Lady Rosthorn took her over to be with the archers.”

  “She must have gone walking with Eleanor and a crowd of the older children.”

  “No, she did not. She came with me instead to examine the bows and arrows. And then she went to join some of her friends.”

  “She is definitely not with Miss Thompson. Look, they are coming back and she is not with them.”

  “She must have gone up to the house.”

  “She must have…”

  “She must have…”

  All the time Joseph looked wildly about him.

  Where was Lizzie?

  Panic seized him and pounded through his veins, robbing him of breath and any chance for rational thought. He was at Claudia Martin’s side without even knowing how he had got there and was clutching her by the wrist.

  “I have been at the house,” he told her.

  “I went for a walk.” She stared at him, not a vestige of color in her cheeks.

  They had left Lizzie alone.

  It was Bewcastle who took charge of the situation, followed closely by Kit.

  “She cannot have gone far,” Bewcastle said, materializing from somewhere and standing in their midst with such a commanding presence that they all fell quiet—even most of the children—though he had not noticeably raised his voice. “The child has wandered away and cannot find her way back. We need to fan out—two to follow the lake this way, two that, two to go in the direction of the stables, two to go to the house, two to…”

  He continued to marshal them all, like a general with his troops.

  “Syd,” Kit said, “go straight to the stables and look there. You know all the hiding places. Lauren and I will go to the house—we know it best. Aidan, go…”

  Joseph strode to the water’s edge and gazed out at a returning boat, one hand shielding his eyes. But neither of the two children in it was Lizzie.

  “Lizzie!” He threw back his head and bellowed her name.

  “She cannot have gone far.”

  The voice, soft and shaking, came from beside him, and he realized that he still had a death grip on her wrist.

  “She cannot have gone far,” Claudia Martin said again, and it was obvious to him that she was trying desperately to get herself under control—a schoolmistress who was accustomed to dealing with crises. “And she must have Horace with her—he is nowhere in sight either. She believes he is able to take her wherever she wants to go.”

  People—both adults and children—were fanning off in all directions, many of them calling Lizzie’s name. Even the Redfields, Joseph could see, and his mother and father and Aunt Clara were joining the search.

  He was paralyzed by panic and indecision. He wanted more than anyone to begin the search, but where was he to go? He wanted to go in every direction at once.

  Where was she? Where was she?

  And then his heart lurched as he realized what Bewcastle and Hallmere were doing not far away. They were both hauling off their boots and stripping to the waist. And then they both dived into the lake.

  The implication was so terrifying that it jolted Joseph into motion.

  “She cannot be in there,” Claudia Martin said in a voice so shaky that it was virtually unrecognizable. “Horace would be running around loose.”

  He grabbed her hand.

  “We must look for her,” he said, turning his back resolutely on the water.

  Wilma and Portia were right there in front of them.

  “I am very sorry, Miss Martin,” Portia said. “But really you ought to have been watching her more carefully. You are in charge of all these charity girls, are you not?”

  “A blind girl has no business being here at all,” Wilma added.

  “Hold your tongues!” Joseph said harshly. “Both of you.”

  He did not wait to either see or hear their response. He hurried away with Claudia.

  But where was there to hurry to?

  “Where can she possibly have gone?” Claudia asked, though clearly she did not expect an answer. She clung to his hand as tightly as he clung
to hers. “Where would she have tried to go? Let us think. To join you in the house?”

  “Doubtful,” he said, seeing Lauren and Kit, also hand in hand, hurry toward it.

  “To find Eleanor and the others, then?” she asked.

  “They went past the front of the house while I was there,” he said. “They went toward the little bridge and the wilderness walk beyond.”

  “They would have seen her if she had gone in that direction,” she said. “So would you. There are four searchers going that way anyway. There is no point in our following them.”

  They had come to the driveway and stood there in horrible indecision again. Lizzie’s name was echoing from every direction. But there were no cries from anyone to indicate that she had been found.

  Joseph drew a few steadying breaths. Continued panic would get him nowhere.

  “The only direction no one has taken,” he said, “is the one out of Alvesley.”

  She looked to their right, down the long sweep of lawn and driveway to the roofed Palladian bridge across the river and the woods beyond.

  “She would surely not have gone that way,” she said.

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “But would the dog?”

  “Oh, dear God,” she said. “Dear God, where is she?” Her eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip. “Where is she?”

  “Come,” he said, turning with her to stride resolutely down the driveway. “There is nowhere else left to look.”

  “How could this have happened?” she asked.

  “I went to the house,” he said harshly.

  “I went for a walk.”

  “I ought not to have let her leave home in London,” he said. “She has always been safe there.”

  “I ought not to have taken my eyes off her,” she said. “She was my only reason for coming this afternoon. She was my responsibility. Miss Hunt was quite right to scold me.”

  “Let us not start blaming ourselves or each other,” he said. “She had numerous chaperones this afternoon. Everyone was keeping an eye on her.”

  “That was the whole trouble,” she said. “When everyone is looking after someone, no one really is. Everyone assumes she is with someone else. I ought to know that from experience at school. Oh, Lizzie, where are you?”

  They stood inside the bridge for a few moments, looking out in all directions, desperately hoping for a sign of the missing Lizzie.

  But why was she not answering any of the calls? Joseph could still hear them from where he stood.

  “L-i-z-z-i-e!” he yelled from one side of the bridge, cupping his hands about his mouth.

  “Lizzie!” Claudia called from the other side.

  Nothing.

  His knees felt weak under him suddenly and he almost staggered.

  “Do we go on?” he asked, looking beyond the bridge to where the driveway wound its way through the woods. “Surely she could not have come so far.”

  Perhaps she was back at the lake. He felt an overwhelming need to go back there to see.

  “We must go on,” Claudia said, crossing the width of the bridge and grasping his hand again. “What else is there to do?”

  Their eyes met and then for a brief moment she pressed her forehead against his chest.

  “We will find her,” she said. “We will.”

  But how? And where? If she really had come this way, would she finally end up in the village? Would someone there stop her and care for her until word could be sent to Alvesley?

  What if she had turned off the driveway and got lost in the woods?

  “Lizzie!” Joseph shouted again.

  He had stopped walking at an amazingly fortunate moment. Claudia turned her head, and then she uttered a wordless exclamation and pulled on his hand.

  “What is that?” she said, pointing. And as they drew closer to a white streamer caught on a lower branch of a tree, she cried out joyfully. “It is Lizzie’s hair ribbon. She did come this way.”

  He disentangled it and pressed it to his mouth, closing his eyes very tightly as he did so.

  “Thank God,” she said. “Oh, thank God. She is not at the bottom of the lake.”

  He opened his eyes and they gazed bleakly at each other. They had both been harboring the same fear ever since seeing Bewcastle and Hallmere diving in.

  “Lizzie!” he called into the woods.

  “Lizzie!” she called.

  There was no answer. And how could they know which way she had gone? How could they go after her without themselves getting lost? But there was, of course, no question of standing still—and no thought of going back to recruit more help, especially from Kit or Sydnam, who would know the woods.

  They pressed onward, stopping frequently to call Lizzie’s name.

  And finally there was a rustling among the trees ahead and then a joyful woofing—and there came Horace, all wiggling rear end and wagging tail and lolling tongue.

  “Horace!” Claudia went down onto her knees to hug him, and he licked her face. “Where is she? Why have you left her? Take us to her this minute.”

  At first it seemed that he wanted to do nothing more than jump up against her skirt and play, but she wagged a stern finger at him and then took the ribbon from Joseph’s hand and waved it under the dog’s nose.

  “Find her, Horace. Take us to her,” she commanded.

  And he turned with a bark as if this were the best game of the afternoon, and went racing off through the trees. Joseph took Claudia by the hand again, and they went hurrying after him.

  There was a little building—a gamekeeper’s hut—not far ahead. It looked to be in good repair. The door was ajar. Horace rushed inside.

  Joseph stepped up to the door, almost afraid to hope. Claudia clung to his hand and pressed against his side as he pushed the door wider and peered inside. It was dark, but there was just enough light to see that the place was decently furnished and that on a narrow bed against one wall his daughter was curled up asleep, Horace panting and grinning at her feet.

  Joseph turned his head, grasped Claudia about the waist, drew her tightly against him, and wept into the hollow between her neck and shoulder. She clung to him.

  And for the merest moment as he drew free, they gazed deeply into each other’s eyes and his wet mouth touched hers.

  And then he was inside the hut and kneeling on the floor beside the bed and touching his trembling hand to Lizzie’s head, moving the hair gently from her face. If she had been sleeping, she was sleeping no longer. Her eyes were tightly shut. She was sucking on her fist. Her shoulders were hunched and tense.

  “Sweetheart,” he murmured.

  “Papa?” She lowered her fist and inhaled. “Papa?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We have found you, Miss Martin and I. You are quite safe again.”

  “Papa?”

  She wailed then, a high keening sound, and launched herself at him until she had a death grip about his neck. He picked her up and turned to sit with her cradled on his lap. He reached up without thought and drew Claudia down to sit beside them. She stroked Lizzie’s legs.

  “You are safe,” she said.

  “Miss Thompson took Molly and some others for a walk,” Lizzie said in a fast, breathless voice. “They asked me to go but I said no, but then I wished I had said yes because you had gone to the house, Papa, and Miss Martin had gone for a walk. I thought Horace and I could catch up. I thought you would be proud of me. I thought Miss Martin would be proud of me. But Horace could not find them. And then there was a bridge and then I fell down and did not know which way to go and then there were the trees and Horace ran away and I tried to be brave and I thought about witches but I knew there were none, and then Horace came back and we came here but I did not know who lived here or if they would be kind or cruel and when you came I thought it was them and perhaps they would eat me alive though I know that is silly and—”

  “Sweetheart.” He kissed her cheek and rocked her back and forth while she sucked on her fist again—something s
he had not done to his knowledge since she was four or five. “There are only Miss Martin and I here with you.”

  “But how very, very brave you were, Lizzie,” Claudia said, “to venture off on your own and then not to panic when you got lost. We will certainly have to train Horace more before you try any such thing again, but I am enormously proud of you anyway.”

  “I am always proud of you,” Joseph said. “But especially today. My little girl is growing up and becoming independent.”

  She had stopped sucking her fist. She snuggled against him and yawned hugely. She had had so much fresh air and exercise today that it was no wonder she was exhausted—even apart from the terrible fright she had had.

  He continued to rock her as he used to do when she was a baby and small child. He tipped back his head and closed his eyes. He could feel tears pooling in them again—and then one spilling over to trickle down his cheek.

  He felt a feather-light touch to the same cheek and opened his eyes to see Claudia brushing the backs of her fingers across it to dry the tear.

  They gazed at each other, and it seemed to him that he could see past her eyes into her mind, into her deepest self, into her soul. And he rested there.

  “I love you,” he said, intending to speak aloud though no sound passed his lips.

  She read his lips anyway. She drew back an inch or two, her chin lifted a fraction, and her own lips pressed together into an almost-stern line. But her eyes did not change. Her eyes could not change. They were the window through the armor she tried to don. Her eyes answered him though the rest of her denied what they said.

  I love you too.

  “We had better get Lizzie back to the picnic,” he said, “and set everyone’s minds at rest. Everyone will still be searching for her.”

  “For me?” Lizzie said. “They are searching for me?”

  “Everyone has fallen in love with you, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her cheek again and getting to his feet with her in his arms. “And I must say I cannot blame them.”

  It was obvious to him as soon as they stepped outside the hut and Claudia shut the door behind them that there was a faint path leading from it. The hut was furnished and clean and comfortable. It made sense that it was used often and that the user or users would have worn a path, probably from the driveway. They followed it and sure enough, in no time at all, it seemed, they were back on the driveway, within sight of the bridge.