He would have no other choice.

Meanwhile, she didn’t want Leo to be wounded by unkind remarks or cold scowls. He’d been happy since finding the portrait of Audrey, much to her relief. There had been no return of the nightmares he’d suffered after the massacre, and Natalie was determined to keep it that way.

She hastened along a downstairs corridor, her shoes silent on the plush carpet as she glanced into elegant rooms, retracing the route they’d taken on their tour with the duke. She even went up into the tower room, but the boy was nowhere to be found.

Every now and then, she called out his name. “Leo! Where are you?”

Descending to the ground floor by way of a side staircase, she turned a corner and almost collided with Lady Godwin. The countess wore a gown of military-blue silk that hugged her lavish bosom. With the lace cap on her salt-and-pepper hair, she might have been deemed stately if not for the way her lips were pursed in distaste. She attempted to look down her long nose, but Natalie was half a head too tall for the snobbish expression to have any effect on her.

“Miss Fanshawe. Did I hear you call that child just now?”

“His name is Leo,” Natalie said testily. “And yes, he left the schoolroom when my back was turned. I don’t suppose you’ve spied him anywhere?”

“If I had, I’d have sent him straight back upstairs with nothing but pap for his supper. See to it that you confine him to the nursery henceforth. I will not have strange boys wandering around this house.”

“He is not a strange boy. He’s Lord Godwin’s grandson.”

“That remains to be seen. Now, you had best find him before the earl discovers your negligence. My husband will not be so kind as I am.” On that incendiary statement, Lady Godwin sailed away in a rustling of skirts.

Natalie took several deep breaths to dispel the heat of her anger. She could tolerate criticism toward herself, but not when it was directed at Leo. After losing his parents in that horrific attack, he needed love and compassion, not rejection from his only blood kin. For the umpteenth time, she entertained serious regrets about ever bringing him to England.

But she had promised his mother. Audrey had comforted Natalie after the untimely passing of her father, had given her a home and a teaching post. The least Natalie could do was to honor her friend’s dying request.

After checking the ground-floor rooms, including an enormous library and a deserted dining chamber, she began to wonder if Leo might have left the house. From the nursery windows, they’d watched the gardeners at work far below them, digging in the winter-bare beds, preparing for springtime. They’d observed a pair of swallows building a nest in the eaves. Then this morning, they’d seen the duke out riding with Lady Ellen and Lord Wymark.

Natalie had stared at Clayton’s fine form until the small party on horseback had disappeared into a copse of trees. Had he finally cajoled the girl into accepting his courtship? The probability of that stirred disquiet in the pit of her belly. They seemed an ill-suited couple—not that she cared a whit how the English aristocracy conducted their grand marital alliances.