A Duke of Her Own(60)

"It's behind the milking shed," a tall Sarah said suddenly, standing forward. "I've been there only once."

"And you see how healthy she is," Mrs. Minchem said defiantly.

"She always said—" Melinda piped up, then faltered to a stop after a glare from Mrs. Minchem.

"Yes, Melinda?" Villiers asked, peering down at the little girl attached to his leg.

"She said as how the hogs would eat us if we fell asleep," Melinda said, and pressed herself even harder against Villiers's thigh. "And she left Lucinda and Phyllinda in there all night long." She gulped. "Maybe they've been et up."

Villiers looked at Mrs. Minchem and she actually recoiled. "You might want to spend the next few minutes praying that your hogs haven't acquired a taste for little girls," he suggested.

He waited until he was out of earshot before assuring Melinda that pigs were vegetarians. But when he and Eleanor, trailed by various orphans, undid the huge rusty clasp shackling the door to the sty, and stuck their heads into the dark, odiferous place, he felt serious misgivings.

There was no one in the sty but three extraordinarily large pigs and a litter of piglets. The sow lumbered to her feet with a murderous look in her small eyes.

In the middle of the soiled straw was one small shoe.

"That's Jane-Lucinda's!" the eldest Jane said, bursting into noisy tears.





Chapter Fifteen


"They must have escaped," Eleanor said, giving the girl a hug. "They are, after all, your children, Villiers. That is surely what happened."

He had picked his way through the filthy straw and was examining the window, set up high and caked with indescribable dirt. "They didn't go out this way." Of course the pigs couldn't have eaten two children. One of the animals was so fat that he couldn't imagine it on its feet. Though one had to suppose that there was room in that vast stomach for a small child—

No. Of course not. One could not imagine that.

"Someone let them out," Eleanor said. "Someone in this house had the Christian decency to look out for two small girls locked in this nauseating place overnight."

His blood was beating in his ears and he heard only part of what she said. Suddenly she was next to him, hand on his arm. "A servant rescued them," she repeated.

A servant...a servant. Of course a servant rescued them. The red haze in his head miraculously cleared. He didn't even thank her, just pushed his sword back into its scabbard; he must have withdrawn it without realizing. "Whoever saved my children will be handsomely rewarded."

But after Mrs. Minchem had been led away by Villiers's grooms, cursing and protesting, and all the servants gathered around, it became clear that not one of them had dared to gainsay their mistress's commands.

"You frequently left children overnight," Villiers stated, looking from face to face.

"She weren't an easy woman," a servant said.

He was a craven fool who turned his face to the side rather than meet Villiers's eyes. "You're all dismissed," he said. "Lady Lisette will make certain that you are not hired within the county." He turned to Eleanor. "Where is Lisette?"

"She felt dizzy at the idea of the sty," Eleanor said. "I sent her home. She'll send the carriage back for us. Your twins are on the grounds somewhere. We must find them."

But two hours later the children had still not been found. Every room had been searched; the barns had been rifled; the sty was turned inside out.

There was no sign of two small girls.

"They must have run away," Villiers said. "That's what I would have done."

"There's nothing more we can do at the moment," Eleanor said. "We must go home. It's long past time for luncheon. You'll send your footmen out to search the surrounding countryside and they'll find the children in no time. They can't have gone far."

That was true. He could feel the logic of it like a balm to his soul. "You called me Leopold in the orphanage," he pointed out.

"A moment of weakness," she said, accepting a footman's hand to climb into the carriage.

Once in the carriage, he put his head back so he didn't have to meet her eyes and said, "You must think it's very odd that I..." He tried to figure out how to phrase exactly what happened to him.

"You were terrified," Eleanor said, pulling a little mirror from her net bag and rubbing a smudge on her cheek. "That sty! That grotesque woman! I was just as frightened, and the children aren't even mine."

"I can hardly claim them as my children, in that sense of the word. I didn't even know where they were living until a few days ago. I never gave them a second's thought until this year. They could have been spending every night in a sty, for all I knew."