Free Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark by Donna Lea Simpson

also took the opportunity to hint at his troubled thoughts about the “werewolf” and his superstitious dread that the lambs, once born, would be carried off by the creature or cursed in some inexplicable manner. Superstition it might be, but several of their sheep had been killed and gutted, as had Grover’s and a few others nearer Hornethwaite. It had to stop.
    “Hallo, Lord Darkefell!”
    He looked around at the greeting. There, at the lip of the hill where the last explosion had broken away a chunk of rock and rubble, was Lady Anne, surveying the debris. Damnation. If he had seen her, he would have avoided her, for she was the sort of female who would demand answers of him, answers he didn’t have. However, he did need to see her at some point to establish exactly what she saw and if she suspected anything. Taking a deep breath, he tried to settle his features in some kind of moderately welcoming expression.
    She waited for him to join her and then remarked, looking at the scarred hillside and the dressing of dirt that a nearby grove of hawthorn bushes wore, “If you’re looking for Lady Darkefell’s gardener, you are too late. He’s gone to the village for supplies from the blacksmith, he mumbled as he left. I had several questions for him, but he seemed in such a hurry to go!” She stared at the rubble. “I am told that this destructive fury is aimed at creating a rockery for your mother.”
    Hands on his hips, feet planted apart, he surveyed the scarred hill. It seemed a travesty to try to rearrange nature to suit oneself, though it had already been done to much of the estate by none other than Capability himself. “She’s done what she wanted to the inside of Ivy Lodge and now wishes to beautify the outside,” he complained morosely.
    Turning away from the scarred rock ledge, Lady Anne said, “The inside of Ivy Lodge is lovely.” She cocked her head to one side. “How grateful you—and everyone else—must be that she didn’t use explosives to effect that change.”
    He laughed out loud; his dark mood lightened a shade. He hadn’t expected to laugh on this grim day. Examining her, he began to reassess his first impression of a plain spinsterish woman of mounting years. She was probably only in her twenties, though it was hard to tell, for her face was shadowed by an ugly bonnet with broken feathers. The monstrous hairstyle he had seen at the breakfast table was covered, at least, and that was a good thing, for the snakelike locks were distracting. She gazed up at him from under her bonnet, and he noticed that her skin was good, her lips full, and her eyes a brilliant, clear gray. She fairly gleamed with health and vigor, and that made her as attractive as she ever would be.
    He would take the opportunity to speak with her about the previous night. “May I show you some of the property, my lady?” he asked, offering her his arm.
    “Certainly.”
    “Shall we walk toward the castle?”
    “I’m at your command, my lord, so ‘whither thou goest, I will go.’”
    “Ah, quoting from ‘Ruth’? I didn’t think fashionable young ladies quoted from the Old Testament.”
    “I’m not a fashionable young lady, as you surely must have noticed,” she replied calmly, matching her steps to his long strides.
    “But you didn’t have your bags until after breakfast. I expect to see you decked in silks and satins when next we meet, at dinner.”
    “After the events of the last twenty-four hours, my lord, I don’t think I would garb myself in satin even if it was a part of my apparel.”
    Rebuked, he muttered, “You shame my light tone.”
    “Not at all,” she replied. “I merely found a creative way to introduce the subject that is on both of our minds and the reason you have enticed me to walk with you.”
    There was no need to dance around the topic. “You’re right, of course; Cecilia’s murder. But first, let’s walk. I’m so seldom home this time of year, and spring is, above all times at