Page 66 of Winterset

“It has been a very disturbing evening,” Reed told her. “You have every right to be upset. I want to help you, Anna.”

“I need your help,” she admitted. Her eyes were huge and luminous as she looked at him. “I am very grateful for it.”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” he responded tightly. “I am not doing it for that. I want—I want you to be happy.”

“Thank you.” She would not tell him that what he wanted was impossible. She had known real happiness once, when she had loved him, and now she was sworn to live without it.

“We will work on this and find out who did it,” Reed went on firmly. “Whoever it is, we will put a stop to it.”

Anna nodded and drew a steadying breath. “I should go see about Kit.”

“Yes, of course. I will take my leave of you.”

“Reed…” Anna reached out a hand, touching his sleeve. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” He took her hand and pressed a brief kiss on the back of it. It would have passed for a polite gesture, if not for the heat of his skin and the thrill that ran up Anna’s arm.

She drew a shaky breath, unable to say anything.

Reed turned and left, and Anna sank down onto a chair. It took her a moment to recover her composure. Then she rose and made her way up the stairs to Kit’s room.

Thompkins was sitting there, and he jumped up at her entrance.

“How is he?” Anna asked.

“Unchanged, miss. I—he is breathing regularly. He seems to be asleep. I will sit up with him tonight,” the valet offered.

“That is very good of you, Thompkins. But I think that I will sit up with him, at least for the first while. Perhaps you should go and get some sleep, and I will call you later if I need you.”

“Very good, miss.”

Thompkins left the room, and Anna sat down in the chair beside her brother’s bed. The oil lamp was turned down very low, so she could barely see Kit’s face, but he did seem, as Thompkins had said, to be sleeping peacefully.

She sat for a few minutes, watching him, then rose and walked over to the window. Pushing aside the drape and leaning close to the window, she looked out at the night sky. The stars were shining, but she could not see the moon any longer, and she knew it must by now have climbed high in the sky.

Anna looked down at the garden. Directly below were flowers and small shrubs, with paths winding through them and back into the larger trees that lay beyond. As she looked, she thought she saw a flicker of movement, a shifting of something in the trees. Pulling the sides of the drapes close to her face to cut out the dim light inside the room, she peered into the darkness.

Yes, there, beneath the mulberry, a shadow moved, resolving itself into a dark shape. It was blocky and foreshortened from this angle, and it took a moment for Anna to realize that it was the figure of a man in a hat and cloak. As she watched, he turned his face toward the house.

She could see no features, only darkness beneath the wide brim of the hat. The head turned, looking first one way and then the other, moving with an eerie slowness. The head stopped when it reached her window.

A chill ran through her. He was waiting, watching them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Anna drew in her breath sharply and stepped back from the window. For an instant her thoughts were scattered, and she could not move. Then she whirled and ran out of Kit’s room and down the stairs, calling for the butler. She ran to the side door and checked to make sure it was locked. She ducked into the next room, which was the study and almost directly across from where she had seen the figure in the trees. She did not light a lamp, but hurried over to the window and peeked through the drapes.

But even though she was closer to the spot where the creature had stood, she could not see it clearly, for the shrubs in the garden blocked her view. She went to each window, making sure that it was securely locked. By the time she reached the hallway, the butler, Hargrove, had arrived, followed by one of the footmen. The butler had already retired, and his dignity was considerably diminished by the nightcap he wore on his head and the robe wrapped around his ample girth.

“Miss? Is something amiss?”

“I saw—I saw something outside,” Anna told him. It sounded weak and foolish now that she said it. “A person in the trees beyond the garden.”

The footman gaped at her, and though Hargrove was better at hiding his astonishment, his voice could not completely conceal a note of disbelief as he said, “A person, miss?”

“Yes,” Anna said firmly, and looked him in the eye. “My brother was attacked tonight. I do not know who I saw just now or why he is here, but I think that, considering the things that have been occurring lately, we cannot take anything lightly.”

“No, miss, of course not.” The man hesitated. “Should I…send someone outside?”