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My heart racing in my chest, I swallowed, scanning the shrubs below my window. All was still. All was quiet.
I reached for the curtain, about to draw it and close out the night, when a glint in the darkness caught my attention. Two glints, I realised with a jolt. Twin pinpoints of reflected moonlight. Eyes.
A pair of eyes
A pair of eyes that met mine.
Chapter 3
A cold wind rattled through the nursery as the children leaned over the table, sketching from their imaginations. William bit his tongue between his teeth and I smiled. We had spent the morning reading, and a break had been in order after all that exertion. This activity had held William’s complete attention for the past half an hour, and I leaned in now to inspect his drawing. Usually, he produced endless sketches of soldiers; soldiers marching, soldiers riding, soldiers fighting. Today, his sketch caught my breath in my throat. My hand rose to cover my mouth.
A wolf. The boy had drawn a wolf, large against a circular moon, its teeth pointed, its mouth snarling, its eyes murderous.
I’d told myself that what I’d seen last night had been a dream, or nothing more than a tired mind imagining things.
But there was something about that drawing that had my heart faltering as it had last night.
“A wolf? Where have you seen this, William?” I asked, my voice quaking.
“I dreamed it,” he said casually. I snatched up the papers and opened an arithmetic book.
“Time for your sums,” I told them, sliding the child's picture into the sleeve of my dress. They groaned, but I tapped my finger on the page and soon their heads bowed over their work.
The icy breeze sent a shiver down my spine, and I turned away to wrestle with the window. As I cursed under my breath at my failure to secure it shut, the door opened.
I swung around, surprised at the intrusion. Lady Edwards never visited the nursery, and neither did her husband. Fouro’clock sharp was the time I delivered the children, spick and span, to the morning room to visit their parents and only on the occasions they were not otherwise engaged.
But the intruder was not the children’s mother or their father, but their uncle. I gaped at him for a full minute, my mouth surely hanging open. Remembering my manners, I bobbed a curtsy.
“Are you lost, sir? The library is–”
“No.” He frowned at me in that way he had yesterday, a frown that would surely have made a weaker woman shake in her boots. “I am where I intend to be.”
“The nursery, sir?”
“The nursery. I wish to see my niece and nephew.”
William and Anne peered up at him, as surprised as I was.
“Certainly.” I strolled towards my prodigies, signalling with my hands for them to rise. “Children—”
He lifted his own palm to stop me, and I halted. “Please, do not disturb them. They are busy with their lessons.”
The children looked at me with wide eyes of terror, clearly unsure of what they should do. Their uncle was certainly a large and domineering man, with a voice that boomed in the confines of the nursery.
I placed my palm on William’s shoulder in reassurance.
“They are practising their multiplications.”
The man bent his head to look at their work. “You are teaching them both arithmetic?”
“Of course.”
His gaze snapped up to meet mine. In the daylight, his irises were lighter, the colour of walnuts. “Anne has no need for multiplication. You should teach her French and music.”
“I am teaching her those, too. But I would strongly disagree with you, sir–”
“You would, would you?” he said gruffly. My cheeks warmed. I had spoken out of turn and at once I feared what the man would have to say to his sister-in-law about it. “Please, do enlighten me.”
