Chapter 11 #2
“I didn’t do it for the cat—”
“Hecate. Her name is Hecate.”
“Very well, then. I didn’t do it for Hecate.” Though if he ever were going to befriend a cat, it would be that one. She was a greedy opportunist, just as he’d said, but he couldn’t help but admire the creature’s pluck.
“Ah. Who, then?”
“The boys.”
She already knew it, of course. She’d guessed it days ago, but naturally she wouldn’t rest until she’d made him confess everything to her.
If ever there was a lady for poking about in things that didn’t concern her, it was this one.
“They seem fond of her, and they’ll be heartbroken if anything happens to her, so I’m making sure nothing does. ”
“But that’s lovely, Lord Hawke. I don’t know why you’d want to make a secret of it.”
It was a simple question, but the answer was complicated. So much so that even he wasn’t sure he understood it all, so he said nothing.
“You will join us for feline husbandry today, won’t you, Lord Hawke? Just think, Hecate could be giving birth at this very moment. You wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?”
“Nonsense. It’s only the fifty-seventh day of Hecate’s gestational cycle. According to your charts, she’s still six days shy of the period she’s most likely to give birth.”
Her jaw dropped open. “You consulted the charts?”
“I might have glanced at it.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he blew out a breath. “Oh, very well, I consulted the charts, but only because they were right there, pinned to the stable wall. I wonder who put them there?” He reached around her and opened the stable door with a tug. “Come on, then. If we’re going to go, let’s go.”
She followed him, rubbing her hands together. “I do hope Hecate wasn’t cold last night. It was quite bitter when I came out this morning, and remains so, despite the sunshine.”
“She wasn’t cold, I assure you.” He sighed. Was a man permitted no secrets? “Hecate has my coat. I wrapped it around her before I went to bed last night.”
She laughed again, and he turned to gaze at her as the sweet sound echoed in the frosty morning, warming him from the inside out.
She had a lovely laugh, bright and joyous.
It was the sort of laugh that lured a smile to the face of anyone who happened to be near her, the sort of laugh one wanted to hear again and again.
“It’s just as well you’re coming in today, my lord. I daresay Hecate would be dreadfully put out if she discovered you’d passed by the stables without paying homage to her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of disappointing Hecate.” He’d missed feline husbandry lessons yesterday, and he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Lead on, Miss Templeton.”
“We’ll have to hurry through it, I’m afraid,” she was saying as they joined the boys by the pen. “It’s only a few hours until the decorating committee arrives, and the boys still need their luncheon—”
“The decorating committee! What, are they coming here today?”
“Why, yes, this afternoon. You agreed to it at the meeting just now.” She turned to face him, her lips twitching. “Oh, dear. You weren’t listening to a word Lady Goodall said, were you?”
“Not as attentively as I should have been, it seems.” Fortunately, just as he’d expected, there was no shortage of ladies eager to tell him what to do.
By the time Hawke’s Run’s iron-studded doors closed behind the ladies of the Benevolent Society’s decorating committee later that evening, Adrian’s ears were ringing, and his fingers ached from the effort it had taken not to wring Lady Codswaddle’s neck.
Lady Anne had tried to warn him.
It was astonishing, the unrelenting chaos a mere dozen ladies could cause.
They’d poked their inquisitive little noses into every nook and cranny of the castle.
Not a single corner from the entryway to the ballroom escaped their notice, and from the discussions he’d overheard, every inch of it was doomed to be draped with holiday finery.
How they’d produce enough ribbons and baubles to blanket every inch of Hawke’s Run he couldn’t say, but he’d wager his one remaining Hessian boot they’d find a way.
The afternoon had gone on far longer than any of them had anticipated it would. Ryan and Etienne had fled as soon as they saw the contingent of ladies bearing down on them, and had long since had their tea and escaped to their bedchamber.
He wanted nothing more than to do the same, but before he could drag himself up the stairs, order that a bath and a tray be brought to his room and spend the rest of the evening recovering from the assault on his senses, he had one small matter to see to first.
A small matter with red lips, blue-gray eyes, and a laugh like Christmas itself.
He hadn’t seen Helena all afternoon, not since the sea of ladies had arrived and overflowed the entryway, all of them talking at once. Lady Goodall had asked him to take Lady Anne throughout the house soon after that, and he hadn’t laid eyes on Helena since.
“Have you seen Miss Templeton anywhere, Mrs. Norris?”
Mrs. Norris was no stranger to the ladies of the Benevolent Society.
She’d wrangled them before, but no one could have predicted the horror of a dozen of them here at once.
His poor housekeeper looked as if she’d been trampled by a herd of cattle.
“Miss Templeton? Let me think. I saw her several hours ago. Lady Codswaddle cornered her in the stairwell, and was going on and on about something to do with the kissing balls. Poor Miss Templeton appeared a bit frayed around the edges.”
No doubt. Lady Codswaddle was enough to fray anyone’s edges. Helena had volunteered them for this misadventure, yes, but an afternoon with Lady Codswaddle bellowing in her ear was punishment enough. “You didn’t see her again after that?”
Mrs. Norris frowned. “Now you ask, I haven’t laid eyes on her since. How strange. It’s not at all like Miss Templeton to call that horde down upon our heads and then disappear in the midst of the torment. Perhaps I’d better go and—”
“No, it’s alright, Mrs. Norris. I’ll go find her.” She couldn’t have gotten far.
Mrs. Norris breathed out a sigh of relief. “If you’re quite sure, my lord, then I’ll go and see to Cook. One of the ladies made a rather rude comment about her curd tarts, and Cook didn’t take it well.”
He could guess which lady that had been. “I’m sure. Not to worry, Mrs. Norris.”
A quick turn about the ground floor didn’t turn up Helena.
She wasn’t in the kitchens, the breakfast parlor or the dining room.
He peeked into the boys’ bedchamber and found Ryan and Etienne there, fast asleep with their coverlets tucked under their chins, but there was no sign of Helena, and a knock on her bedchamber door went unanswered.
Where could she have gone to? Had she been shut in somewhere by accident? Perhaps Lady Codswaddle had kidnapped her. For a lady who was meant to be benevolent, that woman was a frightening old harridan.
He wandered back down the stairs, an uncomfortable twinge in his chest. It wasn’t worry, precisely. Helena was perfectly able to take care of herself. He’d have felt the same twinge if anyone in his household had disappeared so thoroughly—
Wait. The stables! Of course. She’d been fretting about the cold earlier. She must have slipped outside to check on Hecate.
He made his way from the entryway to the staircase that led to the kitchens, but just as he was about to head down the pathway, he spotted a dim light peeking out from a crack in the stillroom door.
He crept toward it and pushed it open.
There was Miss Templeton, hunched over the long wooden table, her hair falling out of its tidy bun, a mass of what looked like thorny branches spread out before her, a single lantern shedding a dim circle of light over her work surface.
She was fussing with something in her hands and muttering crossly to herself.
“Six dozen! Seventy-two of the cursed things. I’ll have to go up the alder tree again—”
“What in God’s name are you doing down here?”
She jumped, a shriek falling from her lips, the little bundle in her hands sailing into the air as the stool she was sitting upon tipped backwards.
“Helena!” He caught her before she could topple over, and for one delirious instant she was in his arms, the slender curve of her back pressed to his chest, her hair tickling his chin.
She’s your sons’ governess, your sons’ governess…
He held her against him for a heartbeat, breathing in her scent, then set her firmly away from him before he forgot he was a gentleman, and leaned down to pick up the bundle she’d dropped.
“What’s this?” He held it closer to the lamp and inspected it, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. It looked like a haphazard collection of sticks and leaves, with a wrinkled bit of white ribbon tied in a straggling bow around it.
“What do you mean, what is it?” She glared at him. “It’s a kissing ball! Can’t you tell?”
“Er, well, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a kissing—”
That was as far as he got. She snatched the ball out of his hand, threw it aside, then folded her arms on the table, rested her head upon them, and burst into tears.