Free Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles 03] by Message on the Quilt Page A

looked toward the mansion silhouetted against the night sky. Even the horse seemed to sense the change in her mood, tossing its head and dancing away. She ordered it to settle down before speaking to Noah. “That lighted window on the second story? That’s my mother’s room.” She picked up the pace a bit, and when the front of the house came into view, she sighed. “And that second light? That’s Father’s.”
    Someone exited the side door and hurried toward the carriage house just visible beyond the porte cochere. Emilie groaned. “And there’s Father. I had so hoped to just slip in, retrieve the note I left for them, and sneak upstairs the back way. Now it looks like someone’s raised the alarm. They probably haven’t even seen my note.” She sighed. “If you’ll give me a hand up, Royal and I will catch up to Father before he gets the buggy hitched.”
    “I’ll come with you,” Noah said. “We can explain where you’ve been—and they’ll know you weren’t in any danger. Unless—but your Father knows me. Why would they be angry?”
    “Mother will be upset because I was ‘gadding about’ alone at night, and Father will be angry because I’ve upset Mother. Again.”
    She sounded so miserable. Noah almost reached out to offer a comforting hug. Instead, he set her bag down, circled her waist with his hands, and boosted her into the saddle. With a surprised
oh
, she found the stirrup with the toe of her boot, then gathered the reins and motioned for him to hand her the carpetbag.
    “Go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll bring it.”
    “Please just hand it over. I know you mean well, but your showing up will only create more trouble for me. The last thing I need is for my parents to think I’ve been wandering around with a strange man on a dark night.”
    “Your father knew I was headed out to the grounds to rehearse. I don’t see how—”
    She interrupted him. “You don’t see how because you haven’t met
Mrs.
Rhodes, the absolute queen of making mountains out of molehills. If you stroll up that drive with my carpetbag in hand, all my mother will see is her daughter and a man to whom she has not been properly introduced.” She waggled her fingers in the direction of the bag. “Please. I really do need to hurry.”
    Noah gave her the bag.
    The horse danced in place, seeming to sense her urgency. She held him back just long enough to say, “Thank you for rescuing me from slithers in the night. And don’t think this means I’m letting you out of an interview.”
    “I won’t. I still want to hear the rest of the story about BeATrice, the town born on a Missouri sandbar.”
    “And I’ll be happy to tell it,” Miss Rhodes said. “Assuming my parents don’t lock me in my room as punishment for tonight.”
    Noah smiled as she cantered toward the house, her apron strings waving in the moonlight. He looked back toward town and then after Miss Rhodes. Was this really going to turn into a crisis for her? Or did a streak of the dramatic reside beneath that lovely exterior, after all?
    Your father knew I was going out to the grounds.
He’d thought that a good thing just now, but with Miss Rhodes hurrying off to explain her absence—and not wanting Noah with her—a flicker of worry niggled. If Emilie’s mother really was in the habit of making mountains from molehills…if Emilie let it be known the way the two of them had met…
Emilie.
He was thinking of her as Emilie? He was. And he felt oddly protective of her. As if he should defend her somehow.
    He looked down at his hands, touching fingertip to fingertip. Her waist had fit perfectly into that circle just now when he lifted her into the saddle. He wondered what color her eyes were by the light of day. If he ever expected to find out, he could not allow the remotest chance that Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes would think he’d sneaked away into the night.
    Taking a deep breath, he headed up the drive toward the house.

    Emilie called, “I’m