‘Now there’s a considerate soul for you, Janet!’ McGann announced, entering the kitchen, with a pile of logs for the stove, in time to catch his master’s final remark.
‘If the truth be known, I was thinking more of Katherine than you,’ Daniel enlightened him. ‘I don’t want her working her fingers to the bone attempting to get the garden in order.’
‘She enjoys herself out there, sir,’ Janet assured him. ‘Besides, she ain’t one to be idle. If she didn’t work in the garden, she’d be doing something else.’
Janet smiled to herself as she detected her master’s low growl of disapproval before he went stalking out. She turned in time to see him pass the window, heading in the direction of the garden, and was a little startled when he returned a minute or so later, carrying Katherine’s cloak, and looking decidedly grim.
‘She isn’t there. Are you certain she didn’t come back into the house?’
‘She might have done,’ Janet conceded. ‘I’ll go and check.’
‘No, I’ll do it!’ Daniel responded curtly, leaving Janet now in little doubt as to his frame of mind.
She exchanged a concerned glance with McGann as she heard her master’s raised voice calling Katherine’s name filtering through from the hall. ‘Dear Lord, I hope nothing has happened. The master did say to keep an eye on her.’
‘Yes, damn it!’ Daniel snarled, returning to the kitchen. ‘So why the hell didn’t you?’
‘Easy, sir. Easy,’ McGann soothed. He had seen the Major rant and rage at raw recruits who had done something foolhardy, but he had never heard him speak so sharply to Janet before. ‘There’s no saying that Miss Katherine didn’t just take it into her head to go off for a wee walk, the day being so nice an’ all. You can’t expect Janet to watch her every moment.’
‘It’s all right, McGann.’ Although touched by this staunch show of support, Janet was not in the least offended by her master’s harsh reprimand. In fact, if it had not been for the qualms she was now experiencing herself over Katherine’s well-being, she would have given vent to a whoop of pure joy, for she was more than willing to make allowances for the understandable concern of a man very much in love. ‘The master is right. I ought to have kept a better watch over her. I’m sorry, sir.’
Daniel’s anger instantly ebbed. ‘No, Janet, it is I who ought to apologise.’ He placed his arm briefly about her thin shoulders, almost bringing tears to her eyes with the smile he cast down at her. ‘I’ll leave you to make a thorough search of the house and gardens. McGann, you come with me. We’ll search the surrounding countryside. There’s no saying that what you suspect is true—the damnable little idiot might well have taken it into her head to go off by herself. I’ll skin her alive when I find her!’
Janet was more successful in suppressing a chuckle than McGann who, shoulders shaking, followed the Major out to the yard. But an hour later, when all three reassembled in the kitchen, there wasn’t so much as a semblance of a smile on anyone’s face, least of all on Daniel’s.
He paused in his worried pacing. ‘Where the deuce could she have gone? She doesn’t know anyone hereabouts now, so she wouldn’t have taken it into her head to go visiting the neighbours.’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about that, sir.’ Janet raised troubled eyes to his. ‘You don’t suppose she had a fancy to visit her grandfather’s old place, do you?’
‘But that’s four miles away, Janet.’
‘Not if you cut across the fields, it isn’t,’ she countered. ‘It’d be no more than an hour’s stroll.’
After silently conceding that it might be worthwhile checking this out, Daniel asked, ‘Do you happen to know if the Cranfords are in residence, Janet?’
‘I’m certain Mrs Cranford is there. Her husband has been away in London for the past few weeks, so I understand. He might be back now, though. It’s the party next week … Or had you forgotten?’
‘I’ve better things to think about than parties, Janet,’ he responded testily, just as a carriage, which seemed vaguely familiar, entered the yard, and a moment later none other than the person whose absence was causing him no little concern alighted from it.
The immense relief Daniel experienced at seeing her completely unharmed was swiftly tempered by a surge of irritation as he watched her trip lightly towards the house, swinging her bonnet to and fro by its ribbons and smiling brightly, just as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Her cheerful greeting as she entered the kitchen, swiftly followed by the laughingly uttered hope that she hadn’t kept them all waiting for luncheon, only resulted in fuelling his rapidly mounting wrath.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
The bellowed demand, humiliatingly clear and belittling, echoed round the large room, leaving no one in any doubt, least of all Katherine, as to his mood. Hands on hips, and now glowering like some ferocious creature about to pounce on its hapless prey, Daniel betrayed no signs of the anguish he had been experiencing only minutes before.
‘Kindly do not adopt that dictatorial tone with me, sir,’ Katherine told him, chin lifting as she turned to face him squarely. ‘When you have managed to regain control of your temper, I shall be only too happy to enlighten you. In the meantime, I shall be in the parlour.’ And so saying, she turned on her heels and headed for the door, leaving Daniel almost gaping at her retreating form in astonishment.
He recovered soon enough. ‘Did you hear that?’ he demanded of neither of his remaining listeners in particular, both of whom were having the utmost difficulty in suppressing smiles at his expression of outrage. ‘You come back here at once, you damnable little shrew!’ he yelled, striding purposefully across to the door himself. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet … no, not by a long chalk!’
His threat fell on deaf ears, even though his firm, stalking footsteps did not. Katherine, well aware that he was right behind her, continued to walk calmly into the parlour, and across to the chest in the corner of the large room in order to collect the curtain that she had been sewing the evening before.
She experienced a strange mixture of annoyance and relief. Although she refused to be addressed in such a fashion, and had no intention of tamely kowtowing to such dictatorial behaviour, his intolerable outburst had, she was forced silently to own, made it so very much easier to face him again; had made it a simple matter not to reveal those feelings which she must now strive to keep well hidden from those all too perceptive brown eyes.
‘If you have followed me in here to continue bellowing like a bull, I think it best you leave,’ she told him, determined to maintain her self-control.
‘Damn it, woman!’ His knuckles clearly showed white as he grasped the door. ‘Who’s master here?’
‘No one is disputing your authority, Daniel,’ Katherine responded, before calmly settling herself in one of the chairs by the hearth. ‘My position under this roof, however, evidently is in need of some clarification. I am not your chattel, sir, and I shall not tolerate being spoken to in such a fashion, most especially in front of servants. If you envisage that this will put an undue strain upon you, then I think it best I remove forthwith to the local inn.’
For answer he slammed the door closed, and went stalking over to the decanters. Katherine heard the chink of glass, and could almost feel those brown orbs firing angry darts into the back of her head.
Swiftly suppressing a smile, she concentrated for a moment on threading her needle. ‘I can appreciate that we all give vent to our emotions from time to time. And I am no exception.’
‘Ha! An understatement if ever there was one!’
She ignored the muttered interruption. ‘Even so, unlike you, I do attempt to