A Lady's Point of View Read Online Free PDF Page B

nephew, Bryn frequently found himself repeating
words in disbelief.
    “A mouse, I believe,” said the
butler. “In her, er, consternation over the creature, she lost sight of them,
and now they are nowhere to be found.”
    “Search the house,” instructed
his lordship.
    “That has been done.” Franklin
betrayed a hint of exasperation. “We know their hiding places, my lord, and
they are not in them.”
    How one seven-year-old girl and
one five-year-old boy could create such continual chaos, Lord Bryn could not
imagine. In the eighteen months since his sister and her husband died in a
carriage accident, the children had demolished no fewer than three governesses.
    “Then search the grounds,” he
said.
    “Yes, my lord, we are doing so,”
replied Franklin. “However, I thought you might wish to be informed.”
    “How long have the children been
missing?”
    “Three hours, my lord.’’
    That was a long time for two such
small children. “They may have got themselves in too deep this time.” The
marquis pushed away from his desk. I’ll take King Arthur and join the search.”
    A few minutes later, he was
urging the roan stallion forward. This time his young charges might be in
serious difficulty, and if night fell before they were rescued, their
misadventure could prove dangerous, even deadly.
    The rolling countryside of the
Cheshire Plain was deceptive. One had the impression that one could see
everything for miles, but, in truth, clumps of trees provided more than ample
hiding for a pair of tots. Here and there lay crumbling Roman fortifications.
Most were located high on wooded ridges, beyond the distance a child might hike
in a few hours.
    But Bryn knew well from his own
childhood that one could stumble upon an intriguing pile of rocks in the most
unlikely places. Of these innocent-seeming ruins, more than one had tumbled in
treacherously upon a curious child. He had barely escaped injury in such an
accident himself.
    Tom and Vanessa. They’d been
entrusted to him. Had he failed them as tragically as he’d failed Harry?
    Distressed, the marquis spurred
his horse on toward the town of Marple. He doubted the children had got that
far, but couldn’t disregard the chance they had become lost on the moors.
    Prior to the past year and a
half, it had been Lord Bryn’s impression that his niece and nephew were angelic
sprites who, done up in bows and ruffles, descended from their nursery to bow
and curtsey silently to their elders before retreating.
    He had never been more mistaken
in his life.
    Perhaps the problem was the
governesses one could secure, living so far from London. Well, Standish had
apparently found the solution to that, and if the woman were on the mail coach
as planned, she should be arriving at Brynwood that same evening. A welcome
sight she would be, too, if she proved the equal of this pair of scalawags.
    As the sun sank toward the west,
the marquis’s spirits lowered accordingly. After shouting their names until he
was hoarse, he rode back by the house to be sure the children hadn’t been
found. They had not.
    Darkness would soon arrive, he
thought worriedly, heading south this time. “Tom! Vanessa!” His voice mingled
with the thud of King Arthur’s hooves against the soft earth.
    Damn. His blasted leg was
beginning to hurt where the bullet had nicked the bone. The pain brought with
it, as always, a double hurt, the memory of one hot humid August day on the
coast of Portugal two years before.
    Fresh from his triumphs in the
ballrooms of London, the swaggering young Lord Bryn—as he unflatteringly
considered his younger self—had set out with Wellington’s troops to teach that
Frenchman Bonaparte, a lesson in English courage.
    The scene blurred, as the marquis rode through the
gathering twilight shouting the youngsters’ names. So long ago, so far away...
    The horse leaped a fence and
jolted his rider’s sore leg. The renewed torment brought the event back
sharply.
    Andrew could