Page 19 of Winterset

“And so I should,” the housekeeper said sternly, the very bows on her nightcap quivering with remembered indignation. “Covering up for that doxy Estelle! In my day, we would never have dreamed of hiding such a thing from the housekeeper, I can tell you.”

“Yes, I am sure she was foolish,” Anna said quickly before Mrs. Michaels could warm to her story. “However, she is a very skilled personal maid, and I should not want to lose her.”

“Oh, no, miss, I would never presume to turn out your personal maid,” Mrs. Michaels told her, looking shocked.

“But I wanted to ask you about Estelle.”

“That pert baggage!” Mrs. Michaels made a face of disdain. “Looking back on it, I can see that we should never have hired her! Always giving herself airs…”

“I am rather worried about what might have happened to her,” Anna said, cutting into the other woman’s tirade.

“Happened to her! Why, nothing’s happened to her. I’m sure she just ran off with that man she’s been meeting. She was a sly one.”

“Well, but—doesn’t it seem rather sudden? Why didn’t she tell Penny if she was not planning to return?”

“Probably didn’t want Penny fussing at her. For all her silliness, Penny’s a more sensible girl than that. She’d have told her it was wrong to just take off with some man.”

“Yes, but, you see, we don’t know that that is what she has done,” Anna pointed out. “Did she take any of her things with her? I would think Penny would have noticed if she had.”

“No, miss, Penny looked through her things, and she didn’t think she took anything other than what she was wearing.”

“Wouldn’t she have taken her things if she was planning to run away?”

Mrs. Michaels looked thoughtful. “Mayhap she didn’t run away with the man. Maybe she was just so late that she realized she couldn’t come back without getting into trouble. So she took off.”

“Without any of her possessions?” Anna asked skeptically.

“It wasn’t much, miss, just a few bits of clothes and a brush and such. She was wearing her earrings, Penny said.”

“Yes, but if you haven’t much, I would think what you do have is precious to you,” Anna said.

Mrs. Michaels frowned. “I don’t understand, miss. Why do you think she didn’t run away? I mean, what else could it have been?”

“I don’t know.” Anna thought again of her shivery feeling in the woods. She wasn’t sure why she connected it with Estelle’s disappearance. It probably had nothing to do with it. And yet…she could not shake the feeling that there was something wrong. However, she could scarcely tell her very practical housekeeper that she was worried because of a strange sensation that had come over her in the woods that day.

“But it seems to me,” she went on, “that we ought to make a push to see if we can find her. Ask her family, tell the constable that she’s gone missing, send some men out to search around a bit. I mean, what if she fell down as she was returning to the house and is out there somewhere, hurt?”

“Well, yes, miss, of course, if that is what you want,” Mrs. Michaels agreed, her expression plainly stating that she found Anna far too softhearted in her dealings with the servants.

“Yes, that is what I want,” Anna told her firmly. Mrs. Michaels had been the housekeeper at Holcomb Manor since before Anna was born, and she would never have dreamed of replacing her. The Holcombs were known for their loyalty. But she had learned early on that unless she was firm and spoke with authority, the older woman would run everything exactly as she pleased, rather than as Anna wanted.

Anna went to bed feeling easier in her mind, knowing that whatever Mrs. Michaels might think, now that Anna had given her an order, she would do whatever she could to find the girl.

As the week wore on, however, there was no news of Estelle. Her family had not seen her in several weeks, nor had anyone else in the village. The gamekeeper had taken the grooms and some of the gardeners and had fanned out around the garden and grounds the next day, searching all the way back into the woods almost to Craydon Tor. There was no sign of Estelle, and Anna was forced to agree that the maid must have run away, probably with the man she had been sneaking out to meet at night. No one, including Penny, seemed to know who that man had been, so there was no way of checking whether he was still around or had left town, too.

The twins took her up on her invitation to visit Holcomb Manor, and the three of them hiked over to Nick Perkins’ cottage to check on the dog. They found the patient alive and apparently healing, though he was able to do no more than lift his head and thump his tail somewhat feebly when they drew near him. The boys wound up spending most of the afternoon there, helping Nick with his garden and learning about all his herbs and their healing properties.

Anna enjoyed the afternoon thoroughly. Having grown up with a younger brother, she was well used to boys, and she found the twins bright and entertaining, if at times almost too full of energy. Looking at them, she could see Reed at that age or the children they might have had if she had agreed to his proposal. But that, of course, was not worth thinking of, as she quickly reminded herself.

She had planned not to attend Kyria’s party on Friday evening, intending to come up with a headache at the last minute, but as the days went by, she found herself thinking about what she would wear and discussing hairstyles with Penny, just as if she was really going to go. Finally, on Friday, she had to admit to herself that she wanted to go to the party. Social occasions were not that common here in their rural backwater, and she hated to miss out on the one that would probably be the highlight of the season. Kyria had seemed quite nice, and it would be rude, she told herself, not to attend, especially with no better excuse than a mere headache. Besides, even though she would insist that Kit go on without her, it would put something of a damper on his enjoyment of the evening. And the prospect of spending the evening in her bed, with a lavender-soaked cloth on her head, pretending to be sick and thinking about the gaiety that was going on without her, struck her as a thoroughly unpleasant way to spend an evening.

It wasn’t as if she would have to spend the evening with Reed, she reasoned. There would an ample number of other people there with whom she could mingle. And after their talk in the carriage the other night, she suspected that he would have as much interest in avoiding her as she had in avoiding him. Besides, she could not resist the ignoble urge to let Reed see her looking her best instead of the ragtag way she had looked the other times he had run into her recently.

And so Friday evening found her dressed in her newest ball gown, a sky-blue dress that did wonderful things for her skin and eyes, and which, with its wide scoop neck and small puffed sleeves, showed off her creamy white shoulders to perfection. It was adorned in back with the smallest of bustles, over which the skirt was pulled back and gathered to fall in a cascade of blue satin. A simple pearl necklace and eardrops completed the outfit, and Penny had arranged her golden brown hair in a fall of ringlets from a knot at the crown of her head, with soft curls escaping around her face. She did look her best, she was pleased to think, and she hoped it was not terrible of her to hope that when he looked at her, Reed would think that she was as pretty as she had been three years ago.

Not, of course, she reminded herself, that she wanted anything to come of it. She did not. That part of her life was over, and it was best that way. But surely there was not so much wrong with just a little vanity on her part.

She smiled at her brother as he helped her up into their carriage, her stomach tightening with anticipation. Kit looked equally eager, she thought, and she wondered if his anticipation centered around the lovely Miss Farrington. The thought worried her a trifle. Kit, of course, was both realistic and dutiful; he would not do anything he should not. But that did not mean that his heart might not get bruised. However, she said nothing, not wanting to cast a pall over their first evening out in weeks. In general, she loved the country and her life there, but at times the quiet life could be almost stifling.