AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So you’ve been keeping quite an eye on her then,” his cousin said.
Thomas cleared his throat. “She is Cameron’s sister. Of course I am concerned.”
Polk looked toward Cameron, still engrossed in speaking with his brother-in-law, the duke. “His lordship doesn’t seem overly concerned.”
Thomas had nothing to say to that. He brushed by both of them and swept through the foyer, stopping a servant.
“Yes, my lord?” the young servant said.
“I beg your pardon, but did you see the Lady Patricia Price-Adams out here?”
“I believe she might have been out here earlier,” the servant said, “but I haven’t seen her in at least the last half hour.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your help.”
The servant bowed. “My pleasure, my lord.”
Thomas walked through the first floor of his mansion, checking every room, the parlor, the drawing room, the music room, the library. The dining room and the large kitchen. He even walked over to the servants’ quarters on the first floor that were off to the side of the mansion itself.
Tricia was nowhere.
He did not want to disturb her bedchamber because Katrina was most likely already abed. Still, he knocked softly on the room that had been assigned to Ladies Patricia and Katrina. There was no answer, so on a lark, he took out his skeleton key and opened the door. After his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Lady Katrina asleep in bed. Tricia was not there. He sneaked back out, closing the door behind him and making sure it was locked.
Where could Patricia have gone? She might simply be in the ladies’ retiring room. But since he was up on the third floor, he may as well have a look around. Finding no sign of her, he walked up to the fourth.
The fourth floor of the mansion was rarely used. Only when a house party became so large that they needed to open and air out the rooms.
The fourth floor had been Thomas’s playground as a child. When it was too cold to play out of doors, Thomas would come up here and run around, playing pirates in the rooms and rescuing damsels from the parapet.
This place had been his respite during the few hours per week that he had to himself when he was a boy. His training to become the next Earl of Ashford had begun nearly as soon as he was taken from his mother’s womb. When he could, he stole up to the fourth floor and had a wonderful time pretending he was a pirate king and the fourth floor was his ship, complete with a telescope and all kinds of pirate’s treasure.
And indeed there was treasure up here. This floor housed so many objects that had been passed down from the earldom each generation. No one got rid of anything, and that which became obsolete found a place up here on the fourth floor in one of several extra rooms. Thomas would delight in finding pieces of dulled medieval weaponry, discarded nautical instruments, and busts of family members that had been forgotten or—God forbid—disinherited.
Thomas delighted in foraging through the old rooms, finding his treasures.
He found himself smiling. How long had it been since he had been up here?
In that moment, all of his hosting duties fell by the wayside. He was a child again, foraging for treasure in these rooms. He absentmindedly picked up a tarnished sextant and examined it, for one moment forgetting his troubles as Earl of Ashford and reliving the folly of his youth.
One of his favorite places was the small balcony with a parapet on the west side of the mansion. It looked over the rolling green meadows of Hampshire, and he loved just sitting out there, letting the wind whip through his hair, as he pretended he was on his pirate ship. He stole to the end of the fourth floor, to the door that led to the parapet that crowned the edges of the rooftop.
He opened the door, ascended the narrow, hidden staircase, and there she was, looking out at the stars. He could see only from behind, but already he knew it was her.
It was Tricia.
“My lady…”
That was the voice. The voice Tricia dreamed of every night.
He had come to find her. Her own Earl of Ashford.
She turned, but as she did, the heel of her slipper caught on a loose piece of gravel and she lost her footing. In the next instant, the railing broke beneath her?—
“Tricia!”
Strong arms grabbed her as she watched the railing fall four stories onto the lawn below. Thomas grasped her in his arms and held her as her heart stampeded so hard she was sure he must be able to feel it against his own chest.
“My God, Tricia. Are you all right?”
