Free The Bride of Time by Dawn Thompson Page A

thin gray muslin. Her scent ghosted past his nostrils. Why couldn’t he identify that flower? Had that stifled moan just come from his own throat?
    His hand jerked back as if he’d touched live coals, and he cleared his voice. “Remember,” he said, “I will call you to me in the morning before you resume your duties with the boy.”
    Tessa nodded, and he waited until he heard the rasp of the bolt being thrown before sprinting off toward the staircase.
    He’d just started down the stairs when Foster met him coming up from the first-floor landing. The valet wore a haggard look. Giles didn’t need to ask him if he’d found the boy; failure was written all over Foster’s face. Clinging to hope, Giles asked nonetheless.
    “No luck, I take it,” he said.
    The valet wagged his head, leaning on the banister. “I’ve searched his usual hiding places on the first floor and below stairs, but he isn’t in any of them. I’ve alerted the others.”
    “You didn’t tell them—?”
    “No, no, of course not!” the valet assured him. “We wouldn’t have a servant on the place if I did. Trust me to have some semblance of intelligence. Besides, I scarce believe it myself!”
    “Yes, well, you overheard I’m sure, so I shan’t go into it again. We have to find the boy and see he doesn’t escape again. The little blighter is dangerous. Considering what he’s done to me, no one in residence is exempt from danger, and meanwhile, Miss LaPrelle thinks I am a beast who brutalizes children. God only knows what lies he’s told her.”

    “Begging your pardon, sir, but don’t you think you need to make her aware now?”
    “Once I know exactly what we’re facing, yes,” Giles said.
    The valet clicked his tongue and wagged his head. “You’re afraid she’ll leave the Abbey,” he said.
    “Let us just say I would not like her to do so for no reason, and we’ll leave it at that, shall we?”
    “If you’re forming a tendre for the gel, I’d imagine keeping her safe from harm would be your first priority, sir.”
    Giles heaved a sigh and raked his hair back roughly. Foster meant well, but this was not the time for moralizing. “Not now, Foster.” He slapped his forehead. “Zeus! I forgot to lock the studio. I wouldn’t put it past the little bastard to savage ‘The Bride of Time’! Go ’round to the stables and ask Able and Andy to search the grounds…just in case. I’ll join you directly.”
    Turning back the way he’d come, Giles scaled the staircase toward the upper regions, taking the steps two at a stride.
       
    Tessa listened at the door until Giles’s footfalls grew distant along the corridor. She would stay put, indeed. She was not about to go prowling about the darkened halls of Longhollow Abbey in search of an obstreperous child. Giles Longworth could have that pleasure. If she had any sense, she’d leave the Abbey straightaway. It was plain Longworth did not share her attraction; she was merely a con ve nience to keep the boy out of his way. Yes, she should leave. She should run and keep on running, but she couldn’t. The fates had brought her here. There must be a reason.
    Wracking her brain, she tried to pinpoint the exact moment she’d crossed over from her time to his. She’d been running eastward, trying to get out of the city, andshe’d traveled some distance when the cobblestones underfoot softened to a dirt lane tufted with grass down the center. Tall clumps of grass, bracken and gorse hemmed it. Could she have stumbled upon a lay line in the fog? Folks claimed there were such corridors crosshatching the land between London and the Cornish coast. It was said that they threaded through the region, linking churches named St. Michael’s like beads on a string. It was also said that the churches were built on the invisible lines deliberately, and named for the Warrior Angel of God to ward off the supernatural phenomena associated with lay lines, not the least of which was that they were