The Vanishing at Loxby Manor by Abigail Wilson (grave mercy .TXT) 📕

before Avery andPiers will be able to escort us home, and I swear I cannot just sit here and fret. It will do my heart no good.” She worriedher hands in her lap. “Perhaps a card game might distract me for the time being.”

A card game? Now? Mrs. Cavanagh had always been a curious creature to me, but never more so than in that moment. I drummedmy fingers on the wooden armrest. Or maybe she was right. She would be nothing but a rattled mess if I were to leave her toher own devices. At least in the card room she’d have the comfort of friends.

And a place to gossip, no doubt. A scandal that had nothing to do with her family—her lips were itching to spread the news.

I gave her a wan smile. “If you think a game of Whist will calm your nerves. I, however, am completely unable to concentrateon anything, let alone a game of skill.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I can hardly leave you here alone. It just wouldn’t be proper.”

I chose not to point out how often she did so, nodding instead as I rose to accompany her into the card room, but Piers appearedthrough the door.

Catching sight of us, he hurried over. “Avery’s determined to assist Lord Kendal at the stables. He’ll find his own way home.I think it best for us to leave at once.”

“Whatever you suggest.” Mrs. Cavanagh’s voice had taken on a leaden tone.

Piers extended his arm, and we made our way to the front hall to await our carriage. Mrs. Cavanagh was pleased to find a friendthere waiting as well. Her predilection for gossip allowed Piers and me a precious moment to ourselves.

The multitude of candles still blazed, revealing the disquiet on his face. He crossed his arms as he tilted against a nearbypillar, his eyes on the bright lights. “What an infernal waste of money this all has been.”

I breathed out a laugh. “I quite agree.”

Small talk felt foreign on such a night, and I could see it sour in Piers’s eyes. He pressed the palm of his hand againstthe column. “Tony said something out there that I cannot get out of my mind.”

I moved in close. “What was that?”

“You were there. The bit about him taking something to Kendal in the ballroom.”

“You think it was the note you found in Kendal’s pocket.”

His eyes flashed. “Exactly.” He played with his quizzing glass. “You know, I was standing quite close to Avery when Tony wasspeaking to him, and I could have sworn I felt a muscle stiffen in his arm, almost as if he flinched.”

I stepped forward. “What if you are right and there’s more to Seline’s disappearance than what we think we know? Miles Lacywas not murdered by accident. Miles and Seline have been connected since the scandal, and Miles didn’t leave the county whenhe swore he would. Something must have kept him here.”

Caught up in the moment, I laid my hand on Piers’s arm, which drew his sharp gaze. I pulled away, the silence of the hallbuzzing in my ears.

He let out a sigh, but I couldn’t read the intricacies buried within that halting breath. His hand brushed my arm. “Habitscan be difficult to break.”

“Yes, yes they can.”

“Listen, I spoke to the groom who witnessed Miles leave the stables. The groom said Miles acted quite strange, as if somethinghad shocked him. When the groom went to the window himself, he thought he saw a figure in the trees, but he couldn’t makeout who it was.”

Mrs. Cavanagh drew up at Piers’s side. “Our carriage is here and I have no intention of staying one moment longer in thishouse. I daresay it isn’t safe at all.” Piers gave me a knowing glance, then offered her his arm.

But I didn’t move, not yet, churning over what Piers had discovered. So the groom had seen someone in the woods. Hugh perhaps?Or Tony? It could have even been Avery.

I said little as we traversed the front door and moved into the swirling night, my hopes for the evening vanishing into thin air. All our efforts to uncover the details regarding Seline’s disappearance, and we were no closer to figuring out what had happened. Miles was dead, and now Piers had the duel to contend with. Our plans had been designed in vain.

I climbed into the carriage as the thoughts I’d been wrestling with arrested my steps.

The air around me shifted, scaling my arms and sliding across my shoulders, and for a moment I thought my legs would giveout beneath me.

Was I right in my earlier assumptions? Had Seline disappeared without a clue because, like Miles Lacy, she was no longer alive?

*  *  *

Piers sent a note by my maid the following morning. I was to meet him in the entrance hall at three in the afternoon. He’darranged for a carriage to take us to Tony Shaw’s estate.

I spent the morning held up in the drawing room by Mrs. Cavanagh, whose spirits were surprisingly light after all we’d enduredthe previous day.

She caught me watching her from my seat on the scrolled end sofa. “What is nagging you, my dear?” She set her needlepointon her lap, her shrewd eyes quick to follow me.

I slipped my book closed on my lap, keeping my finger between the pages. “I must have been woolgathering. Please forgive me.”

“Humph.” She pressed her lips together. “I suppose you think my elevated mood out of place on such a day.”

“Not at all.”

“Don’t lie.” She lifted her eyebrows. “It can become a nasty little habit.”

I paused. “I was wondering if you might have received word about Seline? You seem different today.”

“No.” A deep breath. “When I returned to my room last night, I set aside some time for thinking. I do that on occasion, youunderstand, because I find the practice remarkable in improving the mind. You really should try it. Not too often, mind you,or it can irritate the nerves.”

She straightened her skirt. “In fact, I take Mr. Cavanagh’s pocket watch and when ten minutes have passed, I’ve either solvedwhatever crisis drove