by Shirl Anders
"You look troubled, sir."
Adam turned toward the deep voice behind him to find a blond nobleman regarding him, while the man's voice reverberated through him even after the sound was gone. Adam noticed the gentleman wasn't dressed for a ball but wore outdoor attire showing a fit and muscular frame. The man regarding him with soulful, dark blue eyes over a goatee that molded around his wide mouth was no noble fop laying about on his title.
That the man could tell his unrest simply by looking at him spoke volumes about his distress, Adam thought, worrying a hand through spikes of his sandy hair. His eyes continued to dart across the voluminous ballroom. "My sister," he uttered, showing his desperation by blurting his distress to a complete stranger, "is missing." His hand scrubbed his jaw on the strident note.
"And you fear for her safety?"
Adam's gaze darted to the man. A very comely man with a voice like warm, red wine. He wasn't so very old as his first glance assumed. It was the man's trim goatee that hid his younger, but very handsome, face.
"Yes," Adam hissed, and then without further comment or worry of rudeness he started forward. He would try the kitchen.
"I'll help you," the man's soothing voice sounded as he strode beside him.
"I've looked everywhere." Adam lifted his hand and slashed it through the air with frustration. "She is searching for her friend and now I have lost her."
"We will find them." The man's quiet confidence seemed to fill Adam's desperation and soothe his rising panic.
"I'm, Lord Adam Winslow." Adam glanced at his companion and nodded.
"Mr. Christian Blacknall. Good to meet you. I wish the circumstances were better." Christian Blacknall's hand reached across his chest and Adam's met him halfway for a short, firm handshake.
Adam could tell Christian was a nobleman, as he was, even though Christian was dressed in casual traveling attire in the middle of an ongoing ball. If he found it strange … Adam didn't let himself consider it, because he had worries that were more pressing.
"There." Christian pointed and Adam turned with him toward the kitchen.
What gnawed at Adam was the fact Fanton was nowhere to be seen.
"Have you seen a lady with black hair and a green ball gown?" Adam fairly attacked the first kitchen worker he saw with hissed voice and glare. The lad was tall and lanky, and he could not be more than sixteen. Adam's hand clasped the lad's shoulder. "Have you?" he demanded. The lad seemed to stutter with no words, but wide eyes that a gentleman was accosting him.
Then an older man's voice said, "The boy knows nothing, my lord. No lady would be back here in the kitchens."
Adam's gaze jumped toward the voice of an elderly worker as he held onto the boy.
Christian interceded, "Oh, good worker, we know a lady would not normally visit here. But, sir, we fear this is not normal and we pray you could tell us or anyone here if they have seen her."
Adam blinked and the awareness of his agitation softened as his hand relaxed on the lad. He was amazed at the quality of Christian Blacknall's voice … and his compelling demeanor. He felt the man's warmth soothing him.
"Ah, my lord, I'll ask around for sure." The elder kitchen worker turned away.
At that moment, the lad looked up at Adam, and he whispered. "I did see a lady with long black hair running in the gardens while I was taking a wee break."
Adam's gaze jerked toward Christian's dark blue eyes. Christian nodded and Adam felt like clasping him into an embrace. Suddenly afraid something might show on his face, he tugged his gaze away, letting his fingers release the lad and he moved to stride toward the back kitchen door.
The lad offered a bit more in a much stronger voice as he moved away. "I didn't think much of it, sir, as I saw a blond lady earlier doing the same thing. We thought it was a new noble's daft, err … I didn't mean that! But a game or some foolishness."
Adam barely heard the end of what the lad said before he was out the back door of the kitchens, striding into the night. The fact that Beth was running, and her hair was down, scared him. Something was very wrong.
"Beth!" he shouted, and then he began running toward the large, dark expanse that was the gardens. "Beth!"
Adam felt the aura of Christian sprinting beside him and once again he was glad for the man's presence. Lights from the back of the mansion lighted the extensive gardens into ghostly, glowing shadows as Adam realized Beth could be anywhere in the large area. Suddenly, a darker shadow than the rest loomed in front of them and Adam nearly went into a fighting stance, but for Christian's hand on his arm.
Christian's voice halted him. "Lord Adam Winslow, it's my brother, Baptiste Blacknall, Earl of Sterling."
Adam huffed a labored breath from his desperate running as he looked at the man. He couldn't make out the man's features very well in the gloom, but he did see the trait of blond hair that appeared to run in Christian Blacknall's family.
"Christian, it's this way," Lord Baptiste uttered, pointing toward the woods before he started forward. "Did you find anything inside?"
"What is this way?" Adam demanded, grabbing the back of the twill fabric on Christian's jacket as he rushed forward with the two men. Why were they here? The question began to chant loudly inside Adam's skull. "And what were you looking for?" he demanded.
"His sister is out here, Baptiste," Christian's voice uttered as Adam wondered about both men's sure movements through the murky woods. As it was, he had to hold onto Christian's forearm to guide him through the dark tangles of branches and underbrush. He halted his retorts, listening to the two odd men.
"There are two out here then," Lord Baptiste expelled as a statement more than a question. "Trinity seems to sense the one still alive, but you can smell the blood of the other."
"Blood!" Adam exclaimed, feeling more fear stabbing him as one glowing shot of stark moonlight broke through the fog and tree branches overhead. He saw Lord Baptiste turn his gaze back to them.
Lord Baptiste expelled sharply, "You'd best prepare him, if you insist on involving him. ’Tis bloody."
Adam could swear he heard an animalistic bass snarl come from Christian's direction, but then Christian said, "He'd be out here with or without us. Better with us."
Adam was startled at the yellow, animal-like glints he'd seen in Lord Baptiste's eyes in that one moment when he'd looked back. He wondered why these men were out in the woods as if they knew some deadly deed was occurring and knew it before it had happened. However, most of all, the thought of something bloody up ahead terrorized him.
"Beth!" he began to shout. "Beth!"
"Here," Lord Baptiste called, coming to a halt ahead of them. "But be prepared," Lord Baptiste growled, halting next to Christian as he looked back at Adam.
They are yellow beast eyes, Adam thought in alarm, nearly backing away from the entity that was Baptiste, who had growled his words like an animal.
"Control yourself!" Christian shouted, and Adam watched Baptiste's features contort as Baptiste stretched his neck toward the moon, then back down again.
"’Tis the blood," Baptiste snarled.
"I know, brother," Christian uttered, grabbing Baptiste's shoulder. "Fresh blood is the hardest. But we will resist."
Hardest what, Adam wondered? Resist what? He growled himself in scared frustration and plowed between both strange men, until he saw what was on the other side of Baptiste.
"Oh Lord, no! Oh Lord!" Adam cried, crumbling to his knees in horror before the bloody and torn apart remains on the forest ground before him that had once been a woman.
"Lady Ariel!" he cried at the blonde hair he saw, but more the tattered pieces of lavender silk.
Chapter Five