silver and linens from Europe.” Mrs. Flanders drew herself up and looked pointedly at Annie’s dress. “Mrs. Ingalls’s clothing was made for her by the finest dressmakers in the East and abroad.”
Annie kept her chin up, fighting the instinct to explain her circumstances and shield her simple dress with her hands. Fighting, too, the instinct she hadn’t experienced since she was ten years old—to make a fist and pop Mrs. Flanders in her arrogant nose.
Instead, she plastered on the closest thing to a smile she could manage. “I’m sure Mrs. Ingalls had exquisite taste. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“One more thing, Miss Martin. The children aren’t to play in the house. You are to confine them to their room upstairs.”
Annie frowned. “But this is their home.”
Mrs. Flanders raised a haughty brow. “That’s the way it’s done, Miss Martin.”
“I understand,” Annie said, though really, she didn’t.
She left, forbidding herself to hurry away, but unable to shake off the sting of Mrs. Flanders’s words. Had she heard the gossip about Annie’s family? Or did the older woman simply not like her?
Either way, Annie intended to show Mrs. Flanders—and everyone else in the Ingalls household—that she was, indeed, worthy of the job entrusted to her.
In the cookhouse, Mrs. Royce and her helpers were busy at the worktables. Steam rose from boiling pots on the cookstove.
There was no sign of the three little Ingalls.
“Did the children have their breakfast already?” Annie asked, trying to sound casual.
The three cooks all looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
“Down early, they were, before I got up,” Mrs. Royce muttered. “Fixed themselves a meal of jam and cookies, and a few other things, from the looks of the place.”
A vision of the mess the cooks must have walked in on this morning sprang into Annie’s mind. She threaded her fingers together. “Do you know where they went?”
“I’ve no clue,” Mrs. Royce said, and seemed relieved that she didn’t.
“Well, thank you,” Annie said, trying to smile.
It was only her first full day on the job and not only had she lost the children, she discovered they’d invaded the cookhouse and left it in a shambles.
A shudder passed through Annie. What else might the children be up to at this very moment?
Annie hurried out the back door. Shading her eyes against the morning sun, she gazed at the barns and outbuildings, the meadows and fields stretching into the distance. She circled the house twice. No sign of the children.
Sighing, she considered the probability that they would come back home once they got hungry. Sooner or later, her charges would reappear. She could simply wait them out.
Annie wasn’t willing to do that.
Muttering under her breath, she trudged back into the house and up the stairs. Mrs. Flanders might look down her nose at her. The cooks might wonder about her competence. Josh Ingalls could resent her nosy questions.
But those children—those three little children—were not going to get the best of her.
“What the…?”
Josh pulled his horse to a stop at the edge of the field, squinting his eyes against the sharp rays of the sun. Green rolling hills spread out as far as he could see, dotted by trees and an occasional rabbit and squirrel.
And here, amid this vast emptiness, he saw Annie.
Annie. Josh pressed his lips together as he watched her hiking up the hill toward a spreading elm tree. She had on the same straw hat he’d seen her in yesterday.
And she was wearing those trousers.
Annoying. Yes, annoying, finding her out here, he decided. Yet he wasn’t clear on just why he felt that way.
It couldn’t possibly be the trousers. Could it?
No. Of course not, he decided, shifting in the saddle. Probably it was because he needed the solitude of his farm this morning. He didn’t want to be reminded of problems. He didn’t want to make decisions at the moment.
Or was it because he’d found her creeping into his thoughts since daybreak? Without trousers?
Josh snorted, then nudged his stallion’s sides and headed toward her.
Good gracious, Annie thought as she saw Josh approach. The man owned hundreds of acres—hundreds. How could he possibly be in the same place as she?
And why had he showed up at this particular moment, on this particular spot when she didn’t have the foggiest idea where his children were? Just how was she going to explain that?
Above all, she couldn’t let him know that she’d failed so terribly at her new job.
Annie waited as he drew nearer, licking her dry lips, trying to work up some moisture—and a reasonable explanation.
She was hot and thirsty. She hadn’t brought any water with her. She’d always lived in towns. She wasn’t used to these wide-open spaces. She hadn’t thought the morning would turn so warm, or that she’d walk so far, or that she’d get lost. But at least she was more comfortable than she would have been if she hadn’t gone back upstairs and changed out of her dress before setting out.
“Good morning.” Annie put on a smile when Josh stopped his horse beside her under the shade of the elm.
He leaned on the saddle horn, gazing down at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “What are you doing way out here?”
“Just taking a walk,” she said with a smile and a breezy air, trying to look as if she weren’t about to melt into her shoe tops.
“You’re a long way from the house.” He looked around. “Where are the children?”
Darn. He’d noticed.
“They’re here,” Annie said, waving her hand, freezing her smile in place.
He raised in the stirrups and looked around once more. “I don’t see them.”
Annie smacked her dry lips. “Well, we’re…we’re playing a game. We’re playing…hide-and-seek.”
“So the children are…hiding?”
“Yes.” Annie stretched her mouth into a wider smile. “And let me tell you, Mr. Ingalls, those children of yours are terrific little hiders.”
“I guess they are,” Josh said, raising his eyebrows, “considering that I just saw them at the pond.”
The pond? The children were at the pond?
Annie’s knees nearly gave out with relief.
