by Kruger, Mary
Giles, walking into the room, stopped, giving the other man a look before answering. “Passably,” he said. “Should think you’d be bored by now, Campbell.”
Ian smiled. “Actually, I’m quite entertained. Interesting, seeing Miss Stafford again after all these years.”
“Why, there’s Felicity, Giles,” Anne said. “I didn’t know she was to be here tonight. Shall we go speak with her?”
Giles stared hard at Ian, and then looked down at her. “Of course. If you’ll excuse us, Campbell.”
Ian inclined his head, a slight, ironic smile on his face. “Of course. I shall speak with you later, Anne.”
“Over my dead body,” Giles muttered as they walked away.
“Giles.” Anne glared at him. “That was rude of you.”
“Who was the one who suggested going to Felicity?”
“That was to prevent a quarrel, and well you know it. Really, Giles! Ian is a friend. Must you behave so when I am with him?”
“When he stands there making calf’s eyes at you, yes, I must.”
“Calf’s eyes—oh, for heaven’s sake, Giles!”
“He’s not for you, Anne.”
“And who are you to talk? I noticed you dancing attendance on the simpering Miss Stafford. Excuse me, Mrs. Priestly. I wouldn’t have thought married ladies were your style.”
“They’re not—” he began, and broke off. To Anne’s astonishment, a smile spread across his face. “I don’t believe it. You’re jealous.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“You are. You’re jealous of Mrs. Priestly.”
“Of that little brown mouse? Don’t be absurd.”
“Hm. Now that she’s finally returned maybe I’ll—”
“Giles!”
“What?” He gazed down at her, and it dawned on her that he was jesting. He had no interest in the dowdy Mrs. Priestly. Relief warred with fury, and lost. How dare he treat her so?
“It was rude of me to leave Mr. Campbell,” she said, frostily, and was satisfied to see Giles’s eyes flicker.
“Annie. Do you have a tendre for Campbell?”
“Why, what a ridiculous question. There, I hear the musicians starting. The interval must be over. Will you escort me back to the music room, Giles?”
Giles looked down at her, and nodded. “Oh, very well. But we’ll speak more of this at home, Anne.”
“We certainly will,” she agreed, and turned away.
The entertainment mercifully came to an end an eternity later, and most of the guests left with alacrity. In the Tremont carriage Julia discussed the evening just past, with Beth murmuring agreement. Giles and Anne both were silent. There was tension between them again, but it was different than it had been earlier. It was a tension born of the evening’s events, a tension trembling with words left unsaid and things yet to come. Something had subtly changed between them this evening, something that neither could deny. Though Anne might take refuge in anger and Giles in silence, both were feeling much the same, an odd kind of anticipation. As surely as if they had discussed it, they knew something was going to happen tonight. Something that would affect them profoundly.
The house was lighted from top to bottom when the carriage drew up before it. Giles frowned as he turned from helping the ladies down from the carriage. “It looks as if we’re the ones entertaining. What is going on?”
“A shocking waste of candle wax,” Julia proclaimed. “I shall speak with Benson on this.”
Anne glanced up at the floor where the family slept, and her heart stopped. Her room was ablaze with lights, as was the one adjoining it. Jamie’s room. Dear God, had something happened to her son? “Jamie,” she said, and dashed up the steps.
The door opened as she reached it, and Benson stood there, looking even more sepulchral than usual. For a moment they stood in tableau, Anne, her throat dry with fear, hardly daring to speak. “Benson,” she croaked.
“What is going on?” Giles demanded, striding into the hall, and she turned to him. Thank heavens, here was someone on whom she could rely. “Why is the house all lit up?”
“I am sorry, Your Grace.” Benson bowed briefly, his eyes on Anne. “There’s, ah, a problem.”
“What? Out with it, man. Tell us.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said to Anne. “We cannot find Master James anywhere.”
Chapter Eighteen
They were words to strike terror into a mother’s heart. “What do you mean, you cannot find him?” Anne said, her voice high and tight. “He is in his bed, asleep.”
Benson looked uncomfortable. “No, ma’am. I fear—”
“Oh, ma’am!” Nurse shuffled toward her, a capacious handkerchief held to her face. “I’m that sorry, but he’s gone. My baby is gone. The ghost must have him!”
“Nonsense.” Giles laid a steadying hand on Anne’s shoulder. “The boy must be here someplace. He cannot have left the house.”
“I’m not sure, Your Grace.” Benson swallowed hard. “I fear I have been derelict in my duty, sir. I spent some time with Mrs. Justice in her parlor this evening, and he may have got out then.”
“The door was unlocked?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Then we’ll have to notify the watch.”
“Yes, sir. I am sorry for this regrettable episode, sir. If you wish to sack me, I shall understand, though my family has served yours for years.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Giles said, brusquely. “Anne—”
“I’ve got to find him.” Anne broke free of Giles’s grasp and ran up the stairs. Jamie, Jamie. He was everything to her, he was her world, the only reason she had kept on. But they were wrong. He was safe, asleep in bed—.
She burst into Jamie’s room, as brightly lighted as the others, and as empty. The coverlet had been flung back on the bed, revealing that no one hid underneath. Anne got down on her knees and looked, anyway, though she knew he would not go where he thought there were monsters. “Oh, Jamie.”
“Annie.” Strong hands were at her arms, helping her up. “Come. We’ll find him,” Giles said.
“No.” She pulled away, rushing across the room to the wardrobe and flinging open the doors. “He has to be here. I have to find him, Giles, I have to! He’s my baby.”
“We’ll find him, Annie, I promise. I don’t think he got out, but we’ve notified the watch.”
“Oh, God.” Anne’s face crumpled. “He doesn’t know this place. If he’s out there, in the fog, lost—Giles, he’s only a little boy!”
“He’s not out there.” Giles gave her a little shake. “This does no good, Anne. You will not help Jamie by becoming hysterical.”
Tears blurred her vision as she looked up at him. He was right. She could not let go of hope, not when there was every reason to believe Jamie would be found safe and whole. “I am not hysterical,” she said with great dignity, and then spoiled the effect by sniffling.
“Of course you are not. Come down to the drawing room. The staff is searching the house now. He has to be here, Anne. We’ll find him.”
“Of course we will. I’m sure you’ll understand, though, that I would like to search, myself.”
Giles nodded. “Will you let me help?”
“I would like it above all things, Giles.”
“Good. We’ll start up here, then. Your room, first?”
“Yes.” Anne looked around the empty nursery. Wherever Jamie spent any time was usually a whirlwind of objects, and this room was no exception. In the last weeks, he had managed to stamp his personality on it firmly. There were his favorite story books, the conch shell found last week on the beach, his toy soldiers, put away on a shelf with military precision. It was the perfect room for a boy. The only thing missing was the child. Oh, Jamie. “Jamie!” she called on impulse, and thought, in the second following, that she heard a very small, very distant, mewling sound. “Giles! Did you hear that?”
He shook his head. “Just an echo, dear. Come. Let’s start se
arching.”
Anne nodded, though she glanced into the room again. She had heard something. For now, though, there was nothing she could do in here. Searching would at least keep her occupied.
Half an hour later the family sat in the drawing room, Beth looking frightened, Julia very quiet and pale. Giles stood with an elbow on the mantel, his hand to his mouth and his face abstracted, while Anne sat quietly, staring into the depths of the sherry he had insisted on pouring for her. Ordinarily she had no head for spirits, but tonight the drink had no effect on her. Their search had uncovered nothing, though they had looked in every corner of every room and, at Anne’s insistence, had lifted the lid of every trunk tucked away in the capacious attic. Though they didn’t find Jamie, it was a relief that all the trunks had been empty. One of Anne’s worst fears, that he had again become trapped in one, had been eased. But if he weren’t abovestairs, or in the attics, or even in the kitchens, where was he?
Obadiah came into the room, and, in spite of the silence of his tread, Anne’s head jerked up. For a moment they gazed at each other, and then he shook his head. “Nothin’, lady,” he said, and Anne’s head lowered. “Looked everywhere, in all the cellars.” His brow wrinkled, and he turned to Giles. “Your Grace, somethin’ I want to show you there—”
“Your Grace.” Benson appeared in the doorway. “The captain of the watch is here.”
“I’ll see him.” Giles crossed the room, casting a quick, worried glance at Anne. God help them all if the news were bad.
At that moment there was an odd, muffled metallic echo, followed by a wail that filled the room and made everyone’s hackles rise. “The ghost!” Beth gasped.
Anne jumped to her feet. “Jamie,” she whispered, and then shouted it. “Jamie!”
“Moommmy—”
“Oh, no, he’s turned into a ghost, too!” one of the parlormaids, waiting nearby, exclaimed.
Benson rounded on her, his face furious. “Be quiet, you foolish girl!”
“Jamie!” Anne sprinted across the room; the sound seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere. “Jamie. Where are you?”
“Mommy! Help me, Mommy. I’m stuck.”
Giles crossed to Anne’s side. “Stuck?”
“Yes, Jamie.” Anne kept her voice very calm. “Tell Mommy where you are.”
“I don’t know. Mommy, I’m scared.”
“I know, pet. We’ll find you.” She turned to Giles, her face bewildered. Thank God, Jamie was in the house, and safe, by the sound of it. But where?
“Mommy,” he called again, and Obadiah sprang across the room.
“I know where he is, lady.” He dropped to the floor near the cast-iron grate that was set unobtrusively into the corner of the floor, his head lowered. “Jamie,” he called, his voice echoing in the same metallic way, “are you in the pipes, boy?”
For a moment, as the people in the room stayed very still, there was no answer. Then there was a sniffle. “Y-yes,” a very small voice said, and what before had been a sound that filled the room now came unmistakably from the grate.
“The pipes?” Giles said, but Obadiah was already running past him, Anne following.
“The furnace, Giles!” she tossed over her shoulder. “He’s got into the pipes that lead away from the furnace.”
“Good God!” Giles ran after them, through the green baize door that separated the kitchens from the rest of the house. They clattered down the stairs, bursting into the kitchen together, startling Cook and a scullery maid, both of whom drew back. “Where?” Giles demanded.
“Here.” Obadiah led the way through a passage to another set of stairs, descending into deep, deep darkness. Here they paused to light candles, and went carefully down the narrow stairs. Darkness and a faint smell of the sea rose to meet them, and Anne’s skin crawled. Jamie was here, someplace. Oh, dear God.
They passed through the wine cellar and the root cellar, and into a room filled with crates, which Giles eyed askance. “Don’t tell me there are smugglers around here, Obadiah.”
“Don’t know, sir.” Obadiah was wrestling with a heavy iron door across the room. “Need somethin’ to keep the door open, sir. My guess is Jamie came in here, lady.”
“But how could he?” Anne protested, watching as Giles thrust a block of wood under the door, to keep it open. “How could he ever have opened that door?”
“Usually it’s left open. Be careful, now, lady, very dirty in here.”
Giles turned to her. “Anne?”
“I’m all right.” Hardly aware of his hand at her elbow, she stepped into the room, dark beyond the glow of their candles. “What is this place?”
“The furnace room, lady.” He pointed across the room to a strange-looking device. “They keep coal here to heat it. That’s why it’s dirty.”
“But, Jamie—”
“Is probably in here.” Obadiah, candle held high, pointed at a gaping hole in the wall. “These pipes lead the heat into the house when the furnace is going. That plate, there,” he indicated a metal plate leaning against the wall, barely visible in the dim light, “usually covers that hole.”
“Jamie couldn’t have taken it off.”
“He didn’t.” Obadiah bent and thrust his head into the hole. “Jamie!”
For a heart-stopping moment there was silence. Then a very small voice, not so distant, piped up. “Diah?”
“Yes, Jamie,” Obadiah said, while Anne shut her eyes in relief. “Where are you, boy?”
“I’m stuck, Diah.”
Obadiah exchanged a quick look with the others. With their candles raised they could see that the pipe Jamie had somehow got caught in was square in shape, and large enough across for a small man. Neither Giles nor Obadiah, however, would fit into it. “I’ll go,” Anne said with sudden determination, picking up her skirts.
“Anne, we can get a footman,” Giles said.
“No. I can do this.” She tossed him a strained smile. “I always bested Freddie at climbing trees, remember?”
“Wait, lady.” Obadiah leaned into the opening again. “Jamie, can you move at all?”
“My nightshirt’s caught on something, Diah.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Anne exclaimed, pushing Obadiah aside. “Tear it if you have to, Jamie!”
“But you’ll get mad, Mommy.”
“James Robert Templeton, if you do not do what I say and get out here, I’ll come in after you. Do you want that?”
There was a moment’s silence. “No, Mommy,” Jamie said, sounding subdued. His voice was followed by the sound of fabric ripping.
“There, pet, that’s right, let it tear,” she encouraged. “Can you see our candles?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Good. Crawl toward them, now. That’s it. Oh, Jamie!” Anne toppled back onto the floor as a very dirty and disheveled little boy hurtled through the opening on top of her. “Jamie.”
“Mommy!” Jamie wailed, his fingers digging into her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“Ooh! You should be!” Anne struggled to sit up and grasped his shoulders, holding him away from her. “Don’t you ever do such a thing to me again, Jamie, do you hear?”
“No, Mommy. I’m sorry, I really am.”
“I know, lovey, I know.” Anne squeezed Jamie tightly to her, rocking him back and forth. She was as cold and as dirty as he now, from the coal-dust covering on the floor, but she didn’t care. She had her son back, and that was all that mattered.
“Anne.” Giles crouched beside them. “Let me take him.”
“No. Let Mommy get up, Jamie. Are you hurt?”
“I bumped my knee, Mommy.”
“Did you? Well, we’ll look at it upstairs. Come on, now.” Bending, she picked Jamie up; his arms clutched her about the throat and his legs about her hips. Giles and Obadiah both motioned toward him, but Anne shook her head. Jamie was her son. She was not going to let him go.
It was a disheveled and dusty-looking group that emerged into the front h
all to the cries of welcome and relief of the rest of the household. Jamie’s once-white nightshirt was now a dingy gray, and everyone’s face was streaked with dirt. “You gave us all a scare, boy,” Julia growled, though she smiled.
Anne frowned, annoyed. No one scolded her son but her, even if he deserved it. “Nurse, help me give Jamie a bath and get him back into bed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nurse bustled forward. “Oh, ma’am, I’m that glad you found him—”
“So am I.” Anne paused on the stairs, looking down. “Thank you, Diah,” she said, her voice soft. “You don’t know what this means to me.”
Obadiah grinned. “Yes I do, lady. You take care of that little rascal, now.”
“Of course.” Anne turned and made her way up the stairs, Jamie a precious weight in her arms. For now, all was well.
The excitement was over. The lamps had been doused, the candles snuffed, and the household had settled to sleep. All except Anne. Long after everyone had gone to their rooms, she crept down to the drawing room. She couldn’t sleep. Though Jamie seemed already to have recovered from his adventure, she hadn’t. She wasn’t certain she ever completely would. Tonight’s events had made her take a long, hard look at herself, and she hadn’t liked what she saw.
A noise at the doorway made her look up. “Oh, it’s you,” Giles said, and walked into the room. He was still in evening dress, though he had discarded his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth. With his shirt open at his throat, he looked strong, virile, and very masculine. “I was wondering who was in here.”
“Now you know.” Anne sipped from her glass, filled with an amber brown fluid. “I thought you were abed.”
“No, I’ve been in the book-room. May I join you?”
Anne shrugged. She should, she supposed, feel uncomfortable at this meeting; she was clad only in her nightrail and wrapper, with her hair hanging down her back in a damp profusion of curls. Washing the coal dust off both Jamie and herself had been quite a task, and her midnight-blue evening gown had been ruined. She didn’t care. Only Jamie mattered.
Giles sat across from her, his legs stretched out. “Is Jamie well?”