“But Verity, is that not Lord Vaughan’s . . .”
“Yes. But what he does not know will not hurt him,” Verity called. “Tell no one where I am. Promise me!”
Silvia frowned.
Bolt sidled some more. “Your word of honor as my friend, Silvia!”
Silvia reluctantly nodded. “All right, but do not be gone too long,” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth, her words coming out on puffs of frosty steam. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“All right,” Verity said, feeling the stallion’s sides heaving under her knees. Talking was the last thing she really wanted to do, especially after the episode the previous night, but Silvia had been kind and she would listen. She dug her knees in and Bolt set off at a run. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours!” she called over her shoulder. “Do not wait luncheon for me.”
It was glorious. Bolt was the most responsive mount she had ever ridden, and it was like a dream. This was the England she could not have imagined in all of her mother’s stories. Her mother, raised in the rarefied atmosphere of privilege and wealth, had never ridden anything more than a “lady mount,” a horse suitably mild for a walk in Hyde Park along the Rotten Row. This was riding! This was the wild impetuous galloping of her father’s stories. She loved Canada and her home there, but the only horse they had ever been able to afford had to double, or rather triple as mount, carriage horse, and work horse, pulling the plow that tilled their acreage.
She galloped to the top of Harn Moor and gazed out over the land. On one side the slope, beyond Chateau Bournaud, led down to Harnthwaite, the village she and the others had been down to a couple of times. The village was set on the banks of a silvery stream, glinting through the bare branches of the trees that lined it. A beam of sunlight played across the old gold color of the dead grass down the moor and the stone fences that wound in undulating lines, crossing and bisecting.
The other slope led to . . . she turned Bolt and took in a deep breath of astonishment. It was as if the world opened up beyond the moor. There, in the distance, was a round lake, and then a broad plain, and then, rising majestically, an even higher moor, dark and forbidding, snow clinging to the lofty peak. Dread Moor. Sir David had spoken of its forbidding heights. There were copses of forest and silvery gills fed the lake. She felt like she could see the whole world. There was nothing in her part of Canada to compare, and she felt dizzyingly alone. She looked back over her shoulder at Harnthwaite and safety. There was the manse, beyond it the village, and the silver stream that wound through. The road hugged the moorside.
But just for a brief time she wanted to be alone and free. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and given the choice, adventure beckoned.
“What do you think, Bolt?” she said. He tossed his head. “I agree. Let’s go. We’ll explore for just a while and then start back. Let’s mark our spot . . .” She glanced around. She was on the top of Harn Moor, but it was a barren place. She saw a rocky outcropping that looked like a face, with a couple of dark caves for eyes. “That is our mark,” she said out loud. “It looks like two eyes, with a nose under it, that heavy boulder that juts out. We’re off then. We’ll be back in early afternoon and Lord High-and-mighty Vaughan will never know. It will be our secret.”
She kicked at Bolt and he gathered his strength under him and started off with the quick leap that had given him his name.
• • •
“Weather is about to change,” Lady Bournaud said fretfully.
“I think you are right, my lady.” Chappell wheeled her chair out on the terrace, having bundled her up well against the chill.
“I know I am right,” she snapped peevishly.
Chappell stopped and took a seat on a bench in front of her. He took her hands in his and chafed them. “Another minute or two and we are going to go back in. I will not risk Miss Copland’s wrath by letting you get a chill.”
“Ah, so you fear her anger more than mine?”
Her gray eyes were wintry, but he knew her too well to miss the twinkle. “Hers has unknown consequences, my lady. Yours I know is all bluster.”
“Pish-tush! She is as mild as milk.”
“I do not think she can be. She has survived things we know nothing about, I think, and with her honor intact, if I am correct.”
“Honor, perhaps,” Lady Bournaud brooded. “But something is still bothering her, and has for years. Curiosity eats me up, I will admit, but my secrets are my own, too, and I cannot feel easy invading her privacy.”
“Even though you confiscated a private poem?”
“Ah, but that was left in a public part of the house. Not my fault if she got careless.” She shook a crooked finger at him, then frowned as a snowflake touched it. “It is starting,” she said, gazing up.
As they had been talking the dark clouds, charcoal on the underside and heavily laden, had mounted up, scudding against each other until they were piled high on the moor. Snowflakes drifted lazily in pretty patterns, but neither of them was fooled. They had both spent too many years in the moors not to know that a Yorkshire snowstorm could quickly turn lethal.
“Time to take you in, my lady. It looks like we will have snow for Christmas after all. And lots of it, if I am not mistaken.”
• • •
The copse was lovely, dark and green, mysterious like the woods back home, Verity thought, walking Bolt through the thickly wooded grove. The firs were fragrant, but the air was becoming bitterly cold, and she thought a snowflake had drifted onto her nose a few minutes ago. Perhaps it was time to go home. She had no idea if she had exceeded the time she had set herself, but it was no matter. In such open country she could not get into trouble. From anywhere she would be able to see the top of Harn Moor. She had a good sense of direction and impeccable skills at finding her way in any wilderness. It had been necessity at home, and here it was so much easier to see one’s way! Impossible to get lost.
She sighed deeply as snowflakes drifted in between the deep and dark conifers. She grabbed one branch and pulled some needles off, lifting them to her nose. Fragrant with pine scent. Like home. Bolt whickered and tossed his head.
“All right, I know. We’ll head back now. You deserve some mash or oats after this marvelous outing, my boy, and I shall see that you get it. I will likely miss luncheon, but will scrounge in the kitchen for some bread and cheese.”
She led him out of the copse, hoping they were going out the way they had come in, for the trees might block their view if they were not on the right side. There was daylight, she thought, peering through the woods as the snow thickened. She supposed she had better hurry. It was getting heavier even as she walked.
They broke out of the copse only to find that they were on the side facing the round lake and distant Dread Moor. They would need to walk . . . hmmm, west some, she thought, trying to think where they were situated, as if she was looking at their position from above, at the top of Harn Moor. West. Unfortunately the sun would be close to directly above right now, even though it was, of course, in the southern sky. But she could tell her direction in reference to it still, she thought, if she could only determine where it was!
But even as she started shading her eyes from the snow, trying to decide where the sun was in relation to her, she found that impossible, so thickly was the snow coming down and so heavy the cloud cover. The ground was already coated with a blanket of white. Bolt tossed his head, uneasy in the wind that had sprung up, blowing the snow sideways almost.
She grabbed the saddle and struggled up on the tall horse, thinking that she had better decide soon which way to go. If Bolt was a local horse . . . but he wasn’t, and he might not know his way back to the chateau if she gave him his head.
• • •
Luncheon was a subdued affair. Beatrice was wondering where Miss Allen was but did not want to alarm anyone yet, so she said nothing. If the girl had gone walking, though, and gotten lost . . . she shivered. Another half hour and she would
start asking the staff. She already knew that Sir David had not seen her, nor had Lady Bournaud.
But it was nothing. It was not the first day the girl had not appeared for lunch. Twice before she had disappeared, only to be found in the stables in one case, and up in the attic in the second. The girl was an incorrigible explorer, with a zest for discovery and a restless nature. She would turn up later, hungry as a wolf cub and with sparkling eyes and dust in her hair.
And so Beatrice kept the conversation going.
“After luncheon,” she said, glancing around the table, “I would like the company together in the kitchen for the stirring of the pudding. Cook has decreed that she will now be putting it in its bag for steaming on the morrow, so those who want to make a wish should follow me after we are done here.”
“I would not miss it,” Lady Silvia said brightly, glancing around the table.
“I will join you, my lady,” Vaughan said. “I am sure the reverend would find that silly and superstitious, though, right, Rowland?”
Beatrice watched the interplay uneasily. The previous night had ended so peacefully . . . almost. But then Vaughan had given Lady Silvia that long kiss under the mistletoe. It had been the work of a moment, but Beatrice had not missed Verity’s stricken expression. She had felt like shaking the baron. How could the man not see that Miss Allen was in the throes of infatuation for him? Or was he so self-involved that it did not matter to him?
Rowland paused in the act of scooping up a stray bit of roast duck on his fork. “I like the old customs and do not consider them superstition. I will be there, happily making my wish along with you all.”
Lady Silvia cast him a warm glance. Beatrice sighed. Chappell caught her gaze, smiling at her with such warmth that she knew she was going to turn beet red. She had not blushed in fifteen years, but all of a sudden, just because David Chappell was in her life again, she was acting like the green girl she had been when first they met. Infatuation seemed to be in the air like the grippe, and she not immune.
She turned away. “We shall all stir the pudding and make our wishes, then.” All except Verity Allen.
When luncheon was over she herded Vaughan, Lady Silvia and Rowland into the kitchen. Chappell trailed behind them.
“You do not have to participate, sir,” she said.
He put on a deliberately hurt expression. “Shall I have to tell Lady Bournaud that I was excluded?”
She rolled her eyes at his teasing smile and they gathered by the stove where Cook, red-faced and smelling just a little of the brandy that went into the pudding, greeted them with smiles and winks. “We are here, ready to stir and wish,” Beatrice said.
“Ladies first, I propose,” Chappell said.
Lady Silvia stepped up to the stove, one of the new-style cookers, and grabbed the wooden spoon that stuck up out of the thickening, spicy mixture. She glanced at Rowland, who watched her intently, and closed her eyes, giving a quick stir of the pot and then stepping away.
“Now what did the loveliest lady in the household wish for?” Vaughan said.
“That is a secret.” She was pink-cheeked as she moved back to stand by Rowland.
“Now you, Miss Copland,” Chappell said, taking her arm and guiding her forward.
“Oh, I hadn’t intended—”
“But you will anyway,” he said. “We are missing some of the company—Miss Allen, Mrs. Stoure—and so you must take part.”
It wasn’t hard to make a wish, Beatrice thought. She remembered as a child wishing for something and wanting it so badly it was like a tangible taste in her mouth, that desire. One year it was a silver brush set. Another year, when she was older, it was to be allowed to stay up for the adult party her frivolous, social mother always held on Christmas Eve. Neither had come true.
This time her wish was just as unlikely to be granted. She glanced at Sir David, thinking as she took the spoon that she would like for nothing more than his forgiveness. That, and a clean conscience. They went hand in hand, she thought. She stirred, and then stepped away from the pot.
“Now, Rowland, how shall we decide who goes next?” Vaughan steadily stared at the reverend.
“You should go next, my lord,” Rowland said quietly.
Vaughan stepped forward and pinched the cook’s bright red cheek. She laughed gustily and threw her apron over her head in her confusion. The baron took the spoon and said, “My wish can so easily be granted by a female in this room at this very minute. I wish . . . I wish . . . that Cook shall add more brandy to this pudding.”
Beatrice couldn’t help but laugh. It was said with such a droll tone, and she knew he had intended to make it sound like something else.
Rowland laughed with the others and stepped forward. “Well said, Vaughan. And now me.” He glanced around at each one of them, his look lingering longest on Lady Silvia, who pinked under his gaze. He took the spoon in hand and skillfully swiped it around the edge of the pot. He closed his eyes for one second, and then stepped away from the stove.
“And that is done. I think we should allow Cook to get back to her chores now. I am sure she shall take your wish under advisement, Lord Vaughan,” Beatrice said.
Vaughan winked at the flushed cook, who watched him walk toward the door with dazzled eyes. “I hope so. Nothing better than a really good Christmas pudding. And mind I don’t find the bachelor’s button,” he commanded, waving his finger back at the flustered woman before disappearing out the door.
Beatrice made a quick excuse and slipped away from the others, determined to ask the upstairs maid when last they had seen Miss Allen. She was not worried about the girl, but she did want to be sure of her whereabouts. If she was playing a prank or deliberately staying away after the hurt she suffered the night before, Beatrice wanted to have a talk with her about gentlemen of Vaughan’s stamp. She would search the barn and stables herself, if necessary, to find her. The snow was now coming down thick and fast outside the window in that sudden onset of wintry weather that was prevalent in the moors. At least she knew the child would not be foolish enough to be out in this. She shivered as she passed a window, unable to see even the hedge on the terrace, everything was so closed in with white.
Drat the girl, anyway!
• • •
Verity felt her toes numb bit by bit, the lack of sensation creeping from her big toe to the rest, and then up her foot. And still she could not find her way. She thought she was on the right track, going up moor to the top of Harn, only to realize that she had gotten twisted around and was climbing another nearby hill instead. When she reached the top she was farther from Harn Moor than when she had started, and closer to Dread Moor.
“Where am I, Bolt?” she mumbled, pushing a hank of lank hair out of her eyes and trying to peer through the blizzard. Her hands were soaked through the gloves and she twisted them together, trying to warm them. Another few minutes and they would be numb too. Snow coated her and was finding a way to blow up her skirt, even. But mostly, she felt awful for Bolt, who shivered, wet and exposed to the elements.
“All right,” she said. “It must be in that direction, and I know it is so, because . . . well, I hope it is so. If not we shall have to take cover, and there is precious little cover out here for a lad of your size, my boy.” She patted the horse’s neck and urged him downhill again, keeping her bearings firmly set so she would not get turned around again. Afternoon was wearing on, and night closed in early this time of year. She must find her way.
• • •
“I do not know where she is, Sir David,” Beatrice said, anxiously pacing in the library, stopping to glare out the window every few seconds.
“I wondered why she was not at luncheon. That girl usually likes to eat. I have seen her tuck away more than Vaughan.”
“It would not be so strange if it were just that, for she has missed luncheon before when she was exploring the grounds or the house.”
The knight, sitting at his ease in a chair by the desk, nodded. “But?�
��
“But I have looked everywhere, asked everyone. She has disappeared! And then I thought, perhaps, as a lark, she accompanied the carriage when it went to Squire Fellow’s for Mrs. Stoure’s baggage, but no. It is back, and John and Alfred, the driver and groom, have not seen her all day. I cannot find Bobby, the stable boy, or I would ask him.”
“Miss Copland,” Chappell said, rising and interrupting the woman’s pacing. “Beatrice!” He took her hands and she looked up at him, startled. He rested back against the desk, retaining her hands in his own. “She is somewhere. That girl does not think like other people. Perhaps she fell asleep up in the stable loft, or in one of the other outbuildings.”
“Do you think so?”
He felt her hands tremble and knew then that she was truly concerned. Putting his arm over her shoulders, he walked with her to the library door. “It seems like a logical explanation to me. I will summon John and Alfred, and we will go through every outbuilding.”
“Thank you, Sir David.”
“Can you not just call me David? I promise to not ask you to shorten it to its inelegant diminutive, as my lady does, calling me Davey as if I were still in short pants.” That did it, brought a smile to her quivering lips.
“David,” she said.
Gently, he thought. Bit by bit he was gaining ground. He squeezed her hands. “Together we shall find her, and scold her thoroughly for giving you such a scare.”
But she was not in any of the outbuildings. Nor was she asleep in the attic, the wine cellar, nor the pantry. Nor the chapel, the belfry, and not even the goat shed nor the storage compartment of the carriage.
Sir David was now truly concerned. Where had the silly chit gone?
The company gathered in the gold saloon, minus Lady Bournaud, whom all agreed to spare from worry for the time being. Frowning, Chappell surveyed the gathering, his gaze finally settling on Lady Silvia. Her face was pale, and her eyes were glittering. When their gaze met, she burst into tears, and Rowland put his arm over her shoulders and bent his head to her.
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