No Conventional Miss

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ulink_f82a04ce-6fcb-59c4-85db-69cdab4acdb1)

Gibson Manor—1805

The child had been missing for three days.

Through the nursery windowpanes, Rilla watched the faint flickering of the men’s torches as they searched. Occasionally she heard their hoarse cries.

It was a wet spring. Heavy raindrops fell rhythmically off the shrubbery. A thick, obscuring mist hung low, tangling in the bare branches and turning the countryside a flat, featureless grey.

Rilla shivered and rested her head against the cool windowpane. She thought of Sophie. The little girl was new to the neighbourhood, a visitor and only five. Even at nine, Rilla would hate to be outside in this weather. And Rilla was strong and tall. She climbed trees, building perches in their upper branches and swinging from their limbs.

Oh, why did her head ache? Why did her limbs feel heavy as though weighted with huge sacks of flour?

Even the glow of twilight hurt and she squeezed her lids tight shut, pressing her palms to her eyes to cut out any vestige of light.

And then ‘it’ happened.

For ever after, Rilla said she slept and dreamed. There was, could be, no other explanation.

Except Rilla did not remember lying down. There was no rest, no comfortable drifting into slumber.

Instead, it felt as though she remained standing while everything about her changed and mutated: the whitewashed walls, the books, the rocking horse with its worn paint, the brick hearth, her grandmother’s ugly portrait and equally ugly embroidered sampler—gone.

Cold mist dampened her skin. Goosebumps prickled. Her breath came in harsh gulps. She stared into the fog’s whiteness, trying to make out indistinct forms and shadows.

Yes, she knew the place. It was the gamekeeper’s cottage, burned down years earlier and now a ruin, its blackened beams softened by ivy.

Sophie.

Sophie was here.

The knowledge came suddenly and completely, without doubt or question.

Sophie was trapped within the cellar, under the slate floor of the broken kitchen.

* * *

Rilla blinked. She was lying on the cold nursery floor, staring upwards at the whitewashed ceiling with its singular crack which looked like a lamb’s hind leg. She sat up. Tentatively she touched the cloth of her dress and twisted her fingers through the unruly tresses of her red hair.

Dry.

Her shoes were clean and dry also.

And yet...

In the distance, she heard the shouts of the men’s voices.

She jumped up, suddenly urgent. She must tell them. They did not know yet. They must know. Then they would find Sophie and save her.

Thank goodness.

And everything would change.

Chapter One (#ulink_fd83dbf9-af43-5fee-b858-d48fa7de604a)

Lyngate Estate—1817

‘This sounds like yet another of your ill-advised schemes,’ said Paul Lindsey, Viscount Wyburn, with as much patience as he could muster.

‘Piffle,’ his stepmother retorted, shaking her grey ringlets. ‘It would be a crime to allow such delightful girls to languish in the country.’

‘But hardly incumbent upon you to rectify the situation.’ Paul stood by the mantel. His gaze drifted from the china figurines to the requisite pink, dimpled Cupids depicted across the drawing-room ceiling.

‘Who else will take them in hand? Their dear mother is dead, and Sir George has a predilection for horses and cards. Very sad.’ Lady Wyburn bent with apparent diligence over her needlework.

Turning, Paul sat across from his relative and studied her more closely. He drummed his fingers on the low rosewood table. Lady Wyburn was the only person on God’s earth he gave tuppence for, and he’d not allow some sticky-fingered squire to rob her blind.

‘Stepmother.’ He leaned forward on the ludicrously low sofa. ‘People tend to take advantage of you. If you recall, your young nephew—’

‘Not the same thing.’ She fluttered her hand in front of her face as though shooing a non-existent pest. ‘Rilla and her younger sister, Imogene, are charming. Imogene’s looks are exceptional and Rilla is refreshing. Not beautiful exactly, but exotic and interesting.’

‘Admirable attributes in a book or a flower.’