Wiping her face with her apron Mrs. Harris led them inside. Hart asked to speak to the tutor, but he was out searching for Phillip. Apparently he’d gone out searching every day since Phillip went missing.

Hart then assembled all the servants in the sitting room and questioned them closely about the last time they’d seen Phillip and where they thought he might be. Had they searched the house and outbuildings thoroughly? Even the attics? The cellars?

Yes, of course, but there was no sign of him.

Had anything upsetting or out-of-the-way occurred before he went missing?

No, everything had been quite normal. Which made it all so very worrying.

George sat, watching and listening and trying to understand what had happened. They all seemed quite distressed about Phillip, and every single one of the servants stressed over and over, what a good, quiet, well-behaved little boy Phillip was.

George distrusted “good, quiet and well-behaved.” In her opinion, it wasn’t a natural state for a small boy.

Hart then instituted a search of his own and, aided by George and the servants, he personally examined every nook and cranny of the big house and every corner of the outbuildings.

George was most unimpressed with the stables. Oh, they were clean and well-kept, but there was only an elderly horse and a gig. Where was the pony for Phillip? A growing boy needed a horse. Apart from Finn, there were no dogs to be seen either.

“Well, that’s that,” Hart said when the search was concluded. He sent the servants back to their duties. “No sign of him. He can’t be hiding.”

“You don’t know that yet,” George said. “You’ve only searched the buildings.”

Seeing his confusion, she explained. “He could be hiding beneath a haystack, or in the hedgerows—there are all kinds of nooks outside where people can hide. In all weathers.” She smiled at his amazement. “Finn and I will look for them in the morning.”

“How do you know to look in these kinds of places?”

“You had a big house with attics and storerooms and hidden closets. I didn’t. Where do you think I disappeared to when I needed to be alone?”

“Alone?” He raised a brow.

“With my dog, of course, and sometimes my horse, though Sultan wasn’t as easy to hide.”

He looked shocked. “By yourself, outside? In all weathers?”

She gave a huff of amusement. “I’m no delicate flower, you know.”

“I’m beginning to see that. And appreciate it.”

George felt a warm glow inside. To be appreciated for knowing how to hide in hedgerows and haystacks—it was the last thing she would have expected from the duke.