Page 20 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord

Chapter Eight

Hannah had been in a sulky mood all day, ever since Ben had left for—wherever it was he went during the day that brought him home each evening covered in dirt and worse. Nearly two weeks had passed since Diana had arrived, and not one day of them had been pleasant. She awoke each morning with a dreadful ache in her back, or otherwise a stiff neck. Though Ben had made good on his promise of fresh, hot bath water each morning, she had little enough time to do more than to give herself a quick scrub and choke down whatever he’d managed to cobble together for breakfast before he was off for the day, and she was left alone with a child who seemed to grow more truculent by the hour.

Hannah had, however begrudgingly, come to the conclusion that Diana would not be driven off by her poor behavior. But that had not engendered in her any particular benevolence or tendency toward obedience. A storm had been brewing beneath the surface for at least a few hours, and Diana had only been waiting for it to erupt.

And it had, at last, as afternoon waned slowly toward evening.

“Come do your sums,” Diana instructed, as she laid out the paper and pencil upon the table.

“I don’t want to,” Hannah replied, thrusting out her chin in a childish pout. “I want to wait for Papa.”

“He’ll be home soon enough,” Diana said, glancing through the window over her shoulder to judge the position of the slowly setting sun. Probably he’d be home before Hannah finished her sums. “If you do your sums, you can show him how very clever you are.” She couldn’t do them in her head just yet, but she’d swiftly gained an understanding of simple addition. Diana had purchased a massive bag of toffee candies, doling out a reward of one for each sum correctly figured, and the added inducement had, until now, worked like a charm.

But it took only a single glance to recognize that today Hannah wouldnot be bribed into compliance. There was a certain stubbornness etched into her face that Diana could only assume meant that she intended to have her way, and damn the consequences.

She said, “Hannah.” A warning. A plea, more like—she was beginning to suspect she had developed something of a fondness for the little girl. She had never favored being a disciplinarian, even if the occasion did merit it. “Please come and do your sums.”

“No!” Arms akimbo, Hannah tipped up her chin. “I want to wait for Papa,” she repeated firmly.

“Right now it is time to do your sums.” Diana nodded toward the chair at the table, before which rested a sheet of paper and a pencil. “If you have finished your sums before your father has returned,thenwe will go wait for him.” It wasn’t far; he rode in from the northeast, from a dirt path just past the pond.

Hannah wavered, her chin dropping. At last she heaved a little sigh of concession—and Diana did, too, her shoulders falling from their stern set. “Could I have something to eat?” Hannah inquired, inching toward the chair.

“I suppose I can manage that, provided you don’t spoil your supper.” Diana stifled a sigh of relief to have averted the tantrum, and turned to root through the cabinets, searching for a plate. She might not possess a great deal in the way of culinary skills, but it was a simple enough task to throw together a couple of strawberries and a slice of buttered bread. It was the work of only a few moments, and she turned—

The plate wobbled on the flat of her hand.Moments, it seemed, had been enough.

Hannah was gone, the door left ajar in her wake.

“Blast.” She let the plate clatter to the table beside the paper. “Hannah!” she shouted as she strode through the door. In the fading light, a little blond head was disappearing in the distance to the northeast, ducking between trees as she went.

The little hellion had had altogether too much of a head start. But Diana hiked up her skirts and ran nonetheless, her lungs burning behind the laces of her stays as she gave chase, following the child’s path through the trees. She shaded her eyes against the flare of sunset hovering over the horizon as she burst past the last of the trees, peering out across the landscape for any sign of the child.

“Hannah!” she called again. But there was only the bucolic peace of the countryside; the shimmer of the wind through the trees behind her, thedelicate ripples across the surface of the small pond that lay beside the dirt path which struggled upward through the hills.

Ripples?

A nameless terror shook her to the tips of her toes.No—oh no. Her shaking hands snatched her spectacles off of her face, and she jammed them into the depths of her pocket as she charged into a sprint, her boots slipping on the muddy bank of the pond as she crashed beneath the cold shock of the water, arms stretching out in desperate swipes, searching for any sign of the small body that must surely have been carried far beneath the surface.

Please, please, please. The word resounded in her head, and the toes of her boots scraped the murky bottom of the pond as she surfaced once for a great gulp of air and dived again. Her lungs ached; her eyes stung. There was nothing in her ears but a dreadful buzz, and her stomach roiled with the certainty that she was too late, too late—

Another massive breath. Another dive. Her fingers touched only reeds and silt. She kicked to the surface once again to reorient herself and renew the search, and as the water leaked from her ears, there came the thunder of hooves beating across the path.Ben.

“Help!” Diana screeched, flailing in the water to attract his notice before he rode straight past. “Ben,help—Hannah, she—”

“Papa!” A delighted squeal emerged somewhere behind her. Diana braced the toes of her boots upon the bottom of the pond and took a shuddering breath as she realized that she’d been had—but the relief that swept over her between one desperate breath and the next was too strong for her to care. She swiped the water from her face with one hand and muffled a tiny sob in her palm.

The horse slowed, stopped, and Ben swung down, landing at the edge of the pond just in time to scoop Hannah into his arms. “Sweetheart,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

“I came to wait for you!” Hannah said, laying her head onto his shoulder.

Ben’s gaze slid straight toward Diana, bafflement scrawled across his face. “You were swimming?”

“Not intentionally.” Diana managed to spit the words out through a scowl, and she waded toward the edge of the pond. What a fool she must look to him!

“I hid behind that tree, there,” Hannah said with a small gesture of her hand. “Diana didn’t even notice me! She went straight into the pond.”

Diana closed her eyes and tried to remind herself that murder was a hanging offense, no matter how much the victim might have deserved it. “We were meant to be doing sums. But Hannah saw fit to sneak out of the house, and then—when I couldn’t find her, I thought—”