The following morning George and Finn rode with him to the drop-off point. Hart dismounted and lifted away the broken stone—and swore. He turned to George with agonized eyes.
“What is it?” George called.
“The money is still here.” There was no sign that anyone had been by—and no sign of Phillip.
Tears sprang to George’s eyes. “Oh, Hart, I’m so sorry.” George slipped off her horse and ran to embrace him. “You did all you could.”
But Hart wasn’t to be comforted. They had found the ransom note too late and Phillip had paid the price. All they could hope for was that the kidnappers had released him, but as Hart said, that was unlikely. The boy would be able to identify them.
They rode back in gloomy silence. As they passed the lake, Finn veered off investigating something. George ignored him at first, but when she whistled and he made no move to return to them, she became curious. “I’ll just see what he’s up to,” she told her husband apologetically. “It’s probably something disgusting and he’ll want to roll in it. I need to stop him. I won’t be a moment.”
Hart made an indifferent gesture, waving her to go.
George rode to the edge of the lake, and when she dismounted she found Finn snuffing interestedly at a small shoe. Something caught in her throat. A few feet away lay another shoe. They were small, well-made leather shoes, about the size a seven-year-old would wear.
“Hart, I think you should see this,” she called.
Hart rode over. He examined the shoes and swore underhis breath. “No village cobbler made these,” he said heavily. “They can only be Phillip’s.”
They turned to look out over the lake. “What’s that?” George said. Before Hart could react, she’d waded into the shallows and pulled up a sopping pair of nankeen breeches. Again they were boy-sized, and quality made by a professional tailor. Silently she passed them to Hart.
The shoes and breeches told a terrible tale.
Poor little boy. They must have thrown him in the lake; he was probably tied up. Or already dead. Though why they’d divested him of his shoes and breeches, she shuddered to imagine.
Gazing over the deceptively placid surface of the lake, she noticed a stream of bubbles rising to the surface near a clump of reeds. “Look, Hart, bubbles!” Without hesitation she dived in.
“No, don’t—” Hart yelled, but she was already underwater.
He waited, anxiety rising. More bubbles rose, but there was no sign of George. He dived in after her, and found her caught underwater, fighting a snag that had caught her divided skirt and trapped her.
In a surge of fear and rage he ripped it free and they bobbed to the surface, George coughing and spluttering.
“Nobody there,” she managed between coughs. She was filthy and dripping with lake weed.
He wanted to shake her. He pounded her on the back, scolding her fiercely. “You damned little fool, what the hell did you think you were doing, risking yourself like that? It’s madness!”
“M’all right,” she gasped and vomited up a gush of brown lake water.
“You are damned well not all right!” He stood over her furiously, helplessly, and when she’d finally stopped vomiting water, he lifted her into his arms and marched toward his horse.
“I can walk.” She struggled weakly to get down.
“Shut up,” he said savagely. “One more word or argument and I—I’ll throttle you.” She laughed weakly. He placed her carefully on the horse, and swung up behind her.
“I thought... the shoes, the breeches—”
“I know what you thought.” He wanted to shake her and at the same time cradle her next to his heart and never let her go. Bad enough that he’d lost Phillip, but the thought of losing her...
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said.
Hart nodded. After a while he said, “The lake will have to be dragged.”
She leaned into him then, her face pressed to his throat, and he realized she was weeping silently.
He carried her into the house, and called for hot water and a bath. “And then it’s bed for you,” he told her severely.
Chapter Twenty-one
