her nieces to perceive a curiosity they would question.
Even now Sophie risked good manners and broached a topic of her own.
‘Will Lord Cristo be coming alone, madam?’
‘He will, Miss Cameron, although I am not certain whether he will spend the night here or not.’
Better and better, Eleanor thought and smiled properly for the first time in days. Twelve hours at most to be in his company and then that would be the end of it. Apart from a few moments of polite and general conversation what really could go wrong? A clap of thunder and the beginning of a shower of rain sent them hurrying inside.
She should never have got on this stupid horse, she thought the next day as it again took the lead and tried to head into the thinning forest away from the track.
‘Keep up, Eleanor,’ Diana called from in front. ‘Use the whip and then it won’t tarry.’
All morning she had been struggling with the steed, and though the whole party had made great allowances for her and had slowed their pace considerably, the beautiful wide tracks in the forest had become too much of a temptation and they had gone ahead to wait for her at the end of the pathway.
The skin beneath the gloves on Eleanor’s hands was beginning to ache with the constant tugging and the rain threatening yesterday was again in sight, bands of dark grey clouds looming overhead.
Suddenly she had just had enough, and, dismounting, she determined to lead her horse on foot.
‘You go on, Diana.’ Her shout made Diana stop, caught between the outlines of her disappearing daughters and Eleanor’s distress.
‘Should I stay with you?’
‘No. Sophie and Margaret may need you and I think I have had enough of riding. Besides, I can see the house from here so shall make my own way back.’ The countryside of Kent was beautiful and in the places where the trees did not stand she saw fields in the distance and the house of Beaconsmeade on the ridge behind.
There was a short silence and then acquiescence. ‘Well, if you are certain …’
‘I am.’
‘I’ll send back a servant to accompany you when I catch them up.’
When Eleanor nodded Diana used her whip hard against the flanks of her mount and was gone, the noises of the small forest closing in again around her.
Silence in a natural way. She felt elated by her solitude, something she rarely had in London. Removing her hat, she loosened her hair so that it fell in waves down her back, the length of it almost touching her waist.
Cristo Wellingham had not come. She had thought he would be there in the morning when she had gone down for breakfast, but he had been delayed and was not now expected to arrive till well after luncheon.
Her eyes went to the watch in her pocket. The servant that Diana had spoken of had not appeared and she wondered why. Almost twelve o’clock now. If she tarried a little and explored a few of the paths that went off this one, she might be away for a while longer. Her thoughts calculated how long she could be away without raising any alarm and she decided thirty minutes or so might not go amiss. The path to her left looked fairly robust and flat and the trees around it thinner than any of the other tracks. If she turned off here?
Marking her exit with a stone she gathered a few of the wildflowers around it and placed them on the top. When she returned to this point she would know to proceed left. Glancing up and down the well-used track once more just to see that no servant had been sent back to help her, she walked into the dimness, leading the horse, and her shape was lost in the shadows.
‘She said she would go directly back and I watched her turn for Beaconsmeade.’
Lady Diana Cameron, Westbury’s sister, was speaking and the shrill panic in her voice was easily heard. Outside the weather was worsening and the clouds threatening all morning had finally broken into rain.
Cristo stepped into the pandemonium, having set foot in Beaconsmeade only ten minutes prior.
‘Lady Dromorne has not been seen since she turned back from our ride at around twelve o’clock. Her sister-in-law was certain that she said she was returning here and the house was able to be seen from the track.’ Beatrice looked a little harried as the parlour clock struck three.
‘Have people been sent out to look for her?’ Cristo felt his own sense of alarm as they nodded.
‘Asher went out an hour ago with some servants but hasn’t returned, though I am certain he will find her.’
‘I’ll take Demeter and see if I can be of some use.’ The property was new to him, too, so he asked for directions that would lead him to the area used for the morning’s ride.
Half an hour later Cristo found a rock that had been newly overturned on the edge of a small track leading farther into the forest. When he dismounted he noticed a few wilting flowers lying on the side of it, the wind having pushed them there out of the way.
Kneeling, he looked for other things. A broken twig and grass that was worn.
Here. She had left the track here. Setting the stone in the middle of the trail as a message to alert the others, he turned his horse into the shadows.
She should never have thought of such an idea, because with all the turns in the pathway she was now well and truly lost and the horse had dug in its feet and refused to move another inch. Goodness, it was already nearly four o’clock and Diana must be frantic by now.
‘Stupid horse,’ she said to him as she sat on a log near a small stream. ‘Stupid, stupid horse.’ The words brought his head up and he looked directly at her, interest written in his soft brown eyes; because of that she laughed, feeling vaguely mean about growling at an animal who just wanted an easy life.
If she left him here and walked on alone would he be all right? Would he follow? She decided to try it, disappearing around a corner and waiting to see if the steed would move.
He didn’t.
Returning, she grabbed at his reins and tried again to drag him.
‘You cannot possibly wish to stay here all by yourself and, besides, it is about to rain.’ As she said it the clouds burst open, sending a downpour across the small glade and pinning her curls to her head and clothes.
‘Now look what has happened,’ she continued, ‘and it is all your fault. Come on. We have to get home before it becomes dark.’
A noise a little way away made her stiffen. Something was coming their way. Some forest predator? Finding a substantial piece of wood near her feet, she lifted it and went to stand at the head of the stubborn horse.
‘It will be perfectly all right. Don’t you worry, I will make certain that nothing eats you.’
She hated the tremble she could hear in her voice and the ache of fright banding her stomach.
It was coming closer through the trees, she determined, along the path she had turned off a moment or so back. Her fingers tightened about the wood.
She
