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He exploded with a loud snort and stepped back from her. “Fine. Do what you must, Gracie. We will pick up the pieces and mend whatever needs mending once the children are safe.”

Without another word, she caught up her skirts and ran upstairs. “Nellie!” she shouted as she burst into the sitting room, crossed it, and ran down the short hallway to the dressing room. “Nellie, I need your help. Quickly.”

“My lady?” Nellie emerged from the bedroom with her hands clasped to her chest. “What has happened?”

“I need to change into my buckskins. Quick as a minute. Children have gone missing, and I must find them.”

“Children gone missing?” Nellie rushed to undo the buttons and hooks of Grace’s gown. “What on earth happened, my lady? Whose children?”

“I am unsure of the details.” Hopping on one foot, Grace loosened the laces of her walking boot, then kicked it off.

“Here, now. Let me tend to that, afore you fall and harm yourself.” Nellie knelt and helped her remove the other one.

“They are only seven years old,” Grace said, “a boy and girl. The Duke of Wolfebourne’s young brother and sister.” She fought with the laces of her stays so she could shed it and remove her shift. “They are full of mischief. I just hope they have not come to harm because of it.”

Nellie hissed like a boiling kettle. “There is talk, my lady. Those poor little mites may not have caused their own mishap. Might be, they had some help in whatever’s become of them.”

Grace froze with her buckskins halfway up over her hips. “What are you saying?”

The maid sadly shook her head as if that explained everything.

“Words, Nellie. I need words.” Grace yanked her clothes in place and fastened the falls.

“Lady Margaret and her mother planned to be rid of those children long ago. They blame those innocents for the duke taking so long to get to the altar. Lady Longmorten has especially been trying to shift those little ones away for a while now.”

“The children told me those women wanted to send them off, but surely His Grace would never allow that. Are they not his only family?” Grace chose her words carefully, not wanting to add any fuel to the gossip already swirling around her and the duke.

It was bad enough that everyone seemed to know they had been in the garden together—in a most compromising and unchaperoned way.

But it was her greatest hope that no one but her sisters knew about the kisses.

“I’d never let anyone send Chance or any of the girls away. Family is…well, everything!”

Nellie helped her step into her trusty riding boots, then helped her with her braces and handed over her tattered hat and jacket.

“Not everyone cherishes family the way yours does, my lady. Your mama and papa raised the lot of you to love and protect each other. Many are not so blessed. My lady—your hair!”

“I can’t wear my cap with it fluffed and pinned the way it is,” Grace said as she tore out the astonishing number of pins and let her thick braid fall down her back. “You can fix it when I return.”

“Yes, my lady.” Nellie gave a heavy sigh as she gathered the hairpins and returned them to the container on the dressing table.

Grace shrugged on her jacket and pulled on her cap. “Come now, Nellie, you know you wouldn’t have me any other way. Your life would be entirely too boring.”

“That be true, my lady. God be with you, and I hope you find those poor little mites.” Concern filled the maid’s eyes. “A shame they couldn’t be brought here, where they would be safe.”

It was as though the maid had read her mind. Grace nodded as she headed out the door. “I agree.”

She bounded down the stairs, slowing at the sight of Serendipity not only already dressed in her riding habit but cradling a gun in the crook of her arm.

Her sister was gifted with remarkable aim, but was a gun truly needed?

“Does Wolfebourne believe foul play is afoot? And how did you dress without my seeing you? I was in the dressing room.”

“Bess helped me dress in the bedroom, and Wolfebourne said nothing about foul play, but I suspect it.” Serendipity glanced up and down the hallway, then hurried Grace forward with a wave of her hand. “Come. I will share what I know on the way to the stables.”

“I already know the ladies in the Wolfebourne household wish to be rid of the little ones,” Grace said.

“But last I heard, they were only attempting to send them away. Not harm them. They planned to ship them off to boarding schools or studies abroad—which is ridiculous. They are entirely too young to be torn away from their brother.” Grace snapped her fingers as they passed through the kitchen and exited the house.

Her hounds responded with excited barks and loped ahead, their noses already to the ground.

“Gastric too?” Serendipity gave the short-legged dog a pained look. “He can’t keep up, Gracie.”

“He rides with me in the saddle carrier Tom made for him. When we stop and search the ravine, he has the best nose of them all and has met Connor and Sissy.” Grace lengthened her stride, anxious to get to it. “Now, tell me what you know about what may have happened to the children.”

“Word has it that Lady Longmorten’s patience has reached its limit.

Since the duke refuses to set his siblings aside and get on with a new life with her daughter, she intends to be rid of them in any way possible.

” Serendipity struggled to keep up, the long skirts of her riding habit sweeping the ground behind her.

“I believe this is the first time I ever envied you your buckskins.”

“Why in heaven’s name would the servants not step in and warn the duke?

How could they let anything happen to Connor and Sissy?

If that woman hurt those children…” Grace trembled with rage the likes of which she had never felt before.

“I will shoot her myself, and then clear his house of every servant who chose to remain quiet rather than defend those dears.”

Serendipity hushed her as they reached the horses already saddled and ready in front of the stable.

“Who do you intend to shoot, my lady?” Wolfebourne asked.

“And what do I need to know about my house and my servants?” The man took her breath away as he approached her, moving with the mesmerizing grace of a lethal predator.

He was broad shouldered, dark, and dangerous.

Her pounding heart and fluttering middle made her swallow hard.

What she wouldn’t give for this man to be free of his ties.

“Lady Grace?” he said, staring down at her, his gaze searing her soul.

“Lady Longmorten wants to be rid of Connor and Sissy, and your cold-hearted servants appear to be disinclined to protect them and come to you about that woman’s treacherous ways.”

“And you know of this how?” he asked through clenched teeth.

She turned to her sister. “Tell him.”

“I can’t reveal my sources, Your Grace.” Serendipity jutted her chin higher. “But they are reliable, I assure you. Lady Longmorten intends to take matters into her own hands so that your marriage to her daughter will not be delayed any longer.”

He launched himself up into the saddle of the borrowed horse. “You will not be required to shoot that woman, Lady Grace. If what your sister says is true, I will dispatch Lady Longmorten and my servants myself.”

“I understand.” Grace mounted Pegasus, then nodded to Jasper to place Gastric into his seat behind her.

“I say we go to the ravine first. That was where I first met your brother and sister. If they ran away, as we all hope they did, they might hide there. Did you check to see if Hector or Galileo have gone missing too?”

Wolfebourne bowed his head, then bared his teeth and rumbled with a frustrated growl. “I am a bloody fool. I never thought to check.”

Grace sidled her horse closer to his and, without thinking, reached over and touched his arm. “You are not a fool. Merely frantic to find them. Do you happen to have anything of theirs that would give my lads a good scent? Their noses are quite good, even though they never hunt.”

He stared down at her hand on his arm, as if memorizing the feel of it. “I have nothing of theirs with me,” he said quietly. “Should we ride to the lodge and fetch something?”

“No. Not yet.” Grace whistled for the dogs, waved them in the direction she wished them to go, then gave Pegasus his head.

They barreled across the meadow to the ravine.

As a child, whenever she ran away to get Chance and Serendipity in trouble for losing her, she had always gone there.

It was the perfect place for a child to hide, what with the overgrown gullies and washed-out holes in the embankments that the wayward stream carved into the land.

She prayed the children had merely run off and were safe.

If they had, when she found them, she would give them a stern tongue lashing, but only after she had hugged them so tightly it made them squeak.

They simply had to be safe. She couldn’t bear it if they weren’t.

As they neared the overgrown patch of land, her worry for Connor and Sissy increased.

The dogs had yet to signal the scent of anything out of the ordinary.

Heads down and tails in the air, they trotted along, giving no excited barks or yips to tell her they had found something they wanted her to see.

“I am going down there.” She swung down from the saddle and reached up for Gastric.

“Let me help with him,” Wolfebourne said. “It is the least I can do.” He unbuckled the straps that kept the dog from leaping out and harming himself during a ride. “Come along, old man. I need your help more than you can imagine.”

Gastric wiggled with excitement, his entire back end wagging along with his tail.