green and blue quilt. Charles looked under the pillows, smoothed out the covers, picked up the quilt and shook it, so hard the fabric snapped like a banner in the wind.
“What are you looking for?” Melanie appeared in the doorway behind him.
“A note. If he did run away, I thought he might have left one. Is Jessica all right?”
“Laura’s telling her a story in our room.” Melanie crossed to the bed and picked up Colin’s stuffed bear. “I can’t believe he’d run away without taking Figaro.” She hugged the bear to her chest, smoothing its fur. “Charles —”
He looked into her eyes. “No.” The word came out more harshly than he intended. “There’s a simple explanation, Mel. There has to be.”
Melanie moved to the writing desk they had given Colin just last year, picked up his Latin primer, glanced in the drawers, riffled through the sheets of drawing paper.
Charles was looking through the wardrobe. “None of his clothes seem to be missing.”
“That’s not surprising. Colin’s far less interested in his clothes than he is in his bear.”
The door creaked softly. Berowne, the cat, pushed his way into the room and wound against Melanie’s legs. Melanie scooped him into her arms. “Did you see anything, Berowne?” She pressed her face against the cat’s fur and moved to the window. “It’s started to rain.”
Charles closed the wardrobe. He realized he had been aware of the patter on the roof and the creak of branches for some time, without registering what they meant.
Melanie pushed up the sash with her left hand, while she held Berowne against her shoulder with her right. A blast of wind blew the hair back from her face and ruffled the papers on the desk. Berowne yowled. Melanie started to close the window, then went still. “Charles.”
He was at her side in an instant. “What?”
She plucked something from the ivory-painted sash and held it out to him. It was a scrap of linen, almost indistinguishable against the paint. “It looks like a bit of Colin’s nightshirt,” she said.
Charles let out a low whistle. “Christ, I
Melanie stared at him. “Why, for heaven’s sake? He can unbolt the doors. If he wanted to slip out, he had his choice of the hall or the garden or the kitchen—Oh, of course, I’m being silly. Going out tamely through the door wouldn’t be nearly as much of an adventure.”
“Precisely. This explains why he didn’t take Figaro. Edgar and I climbed out the nursery window more than once. Only our nursery was in the attic, so it was a longer way down.” He didn’t add that he’d turned his ankle more than once and Edgar had broken his arm. He’d be more alarmed about Colin, save that they’d know by now if he’d fallen and hurt himself. He picked up the lamp from the chest of drawers, pushed the sash higher, and leaned out the window. The wind drove the rain against his face and whipped the branches of the apple tree by the garden wall. A light flickered across the mews in the stable, where Addison was searching. Charles studied the wall below, seeking signs of Colin’s descent. The stone was smooth, but there were possible footholds and handholds in the grouting.
Melanie leaned out the window beside him, holding the cat against her shoulder with one hand and pushing her wind-spattered hair back from her face with the other. “He probably doubled a rope up over something at the window level.” She gestured to a corner of the window ledge, which protruded from the wall. “Then he could climb down maneuvering with both ends and pull the whole thing down after him when he reached the ground.”
“Quite,” Charles said. They had done the same themselves in Spain on more than one occasion. “I was telling Colin about the time we got out of Salamanca only a few days ago. It never occurred to me he’d actually try it himself.”
“Charles.” Melanie shifted the compliant cat against her shoulder. “Our son climbed down two stories using a rope that was only draped over a bit of wood and is now hiding outside somewhere in the midst of a rainstorm. And we’re talking as if we’re
“Well, I am. Concerned but proud. Aren’t you?”
“That’s not the point. As I remember, by the time we got out of Salamanca you had a cracked rib and my hands were torn to ribbons.”
“That was a medieval fortress and we had French snipers to worry about. A London town house is a lot tamer.” Charles tilted the lamp so the light fell flush against the wall. No telltale strands of rope were caught against the stone in the part he could see. But something caught his eye just above the peaked pediment of the first-floor window, something showing dark against the pale gray stone. He tilted the lamp further, anchoring the glass chimney with his hand. A chill that had nothing to do with the night air ran along his nerves.
“What is it?” Melanie said.
“Dirt. On the wall.” He kept his voice conversational.
There was a brief pause. When Melanie spoke, her voice was equally conversational. “You mean Colin didn’t climb down. Somebody else climbed up.”
“Possibly.” He saw torchlight crossing the mews and heard the creak of the garden gate. “Addison,” he called.
“Sir?” His valet disengaged himself from the shadows of the garden wall, one hand raised to shield his face from the rain. “He’s not in the stable, I’m afraid.”
“Come over here,” Charles said. “Take care to stay on the flagstones. Tell me if there are any footprints beneath the window.”
The moonlight picked out Addison’s pale hair as he crossed the garden. Charles took Melanie’s hand and gripped it. Her fingers closed hard round his own. Otherwise she was absolutely still. The cat gave a distressed mew that echoed out into the night.
“Blimey.” Addison looked up at them, his face a white blur. “Sorry, sir. But it looks as if someone’s been tramping about in the primrose beds.”
A lead weight settled in Charles’s chest, equal parts inevitability and disbelief. Melanie clenched his hand, so tight he could feel the scrape of bone against bone. “Look at the wall,” Charles said. “Do you see any dirt? As though someone’s been climbing it?”
“Yes.” The word was clipped, but the edge of fear in Addison’s voice said that he too realized the significance. “Especially near the bottom. Looks as though it scraped off someone’s shoe.”
Charles drew a long, uneven breath. Melanie’s hand was ice cold in his own. “All right, we’d better call off the search. Thank everyone for their hard work and send one of the footmen round to Bow Street. It looks as though someone’s taken Colin.”
Colin’s head felt as though someone had been jumping on it. He opened his eyes, but all he could see was blackness, which was funny, because Laura always made sure the night-light was lit.
He turned his head. Something wet and scratchy rubbed against his face. It seemed to be draped over him or wrapped round him. It didn’t feel like a bedsheet or even a blanket. The floor beneath him seemed to keep shifting and jolting, only it was hard to tell because his head was spinning so badly.
Memory jabbed at him, sharp as the pain in his head. Rough hands, harsh voices, a fist smashing into his face. He tried to sit up and found he couldn’t. His feet and hands were tied. He let out a scream into the rough stuff that covered his face.
“Oh, Christ.” A voice cut through the blackness. “He’s awake. Pull over, Jack.”
Colin heard a muffled curse, felt a quick, sideways jerk, and then all of a sudden the floor beneath him stopped moving. He heard a horse whicker. He wasn’t in a room, he must be in a carriage or cart or something.
He drew a deep breath. Daddy always told him to breathe when he was frightened.
The boards creaked as though someone had climbed into the back of the cart. “Don’t scream, lad, or we’ll have to clout you again.” It was a woman’s voice. There’d been a woman before, in the kitchen. He remembered now.
The scratchy stuff was jerked off his head. He didn’t scream, not because of the warning so much as because his throat had gone tight and all his fear seemed to be bottled up inside him. Raindrops spattered against his face. He found himself staring at a triangular face set beneath a dark felt cap. It was a man’s cap, but it was a woman’s
