Page 37 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

“She has been wandering?” she asked.

“Yes, she has been exploring for the last six days,” Mrs. Patterson replied with the tact of a woman long practiced in making trouble sound less troublesome. “She is a spirited child.”

“She is only four, and this house is huge. What if she gets lost? Or stuck somewhere?” Poppy did not mean to raise her voice, but as her pulse rose, so did her tone.

“I will send a search team right away, Your Grace.” Mrs. Patterson looked troubled as she curtsied.

“I will help,” Annabelle said, and they parted ways.

Poppy felt guilty for startling a staff member in the household, but she could not help herself. Aurora and Princess were like her own children, and hearing that they were left alone to do as they pleased was troubling.

Poppy turned and continued down the hall, though she had no idea where she was going.

“Aurora!” Poppy’s voice echoed in the uneasy silence, and she grew more concerned when she heard no response.

She searched in all the sensible places first. The nursery, the sitting room nearest it, and a chamber whose coverlet had been disturbed, though whether by child or maid she could not tell. Then she began opening doors with less ceremony. The house seemed determined to prove that it contained enough spaces for a child to vanish in without leaving the building.

“Aurora?” she called again, softly at first.

No answer.

She moved through another hallway, then another. Her irritation with the duke shifted into anger.

“He wanted order?” she laughed without humor but stopped when she heard a faint knocking sound from behind her.

Poppy entered a room that seemed to be a study or a library. Next to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf was a large closet where another soft knock resounded.

“Aurora?” Poppy called again, keeping fear from her voice. “It is only I.”

Silence. Then, a whisper came.

“O…o…over here.”

Poppy walked toward the closet and turned the handle, opening it only a crack. Inside, in the dimness, Aurora crouched among hanging coats, and a faint smell of dust and wool hung in the air.

“There you are,” Poppy breathed.

Aurora lifted a finger to her lips. “You must come in.”

“Must I?” she pouted.

“Yes.” Aurora nodded her head with urgency.

Poppy looked at the narrow space and surrendered with no dignity at all. She opened the door only enough to slip inside, gathering her skirts as best she could. The closet was larger than some, but still not designed to accommodate a grown woman in morning dress. She had to angle herself between the wall and the hanging garments, then draw her knees in slightly when Aurora tugged the door closed and darkness folded over them.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Until Aurora flung herself at Poppy.

“Oh!” The force of that small body nearly knocked her back against the closet.

She wrapped her arms around the girl at once, holding her tight and breathing in the familiar scent of her. It had only been six days, but for Aurora, six days could become abandonment, or exile, or an age in which love might be questioned.

“I missed you, Poppy,” Aurora whispered into her shoulder.

“I missed you too, my darling.” She planted a small kiss on her curls.

“It was a century!” Aurora let go and widened her arms to show Poppy how long it had been.

“That is a very long time, indeed,” Poppy agreed.