Gray nodded in agreement. “This one.”
“Yes, this one,” Sebastian said.
“This seems almost unanimous,” David said. “At least among the older children. I daresay the others won’t care.” He grinned.
“What does Leah say?” West asked, looking about for his daughter, who was the oldest child. When he didn’t immediately see her, he called out her name.
“Oh!” Emmaline’s knees buckled, and her eyes rounded.
Lionel rushed to her side, catching her before she fell to the ground. He swept her into his arms as if she were a feather and not a woman far along with child. “You’re going back to the house.”
“I think that’s best.” She winced. “My waters have broken.”
Lionel swore softly as he hurried to the cart. West followed him. “I’ll go with you.”
“West!” His name came as a panicked plea from his wife. “Leah isn’t here.”
West spun about as ice plucked at his heart.
“Neither is Jasper.” This dark pronouncement came from the boy’s father, Graham.
Lionel settled Emmaline into the cart and handed her a blanket before turning to West. “Stay. I’ll take Emmaline back.”
Fear tripped along West’s spine, but he tamped it down. Leah and Jasper couldn’t have gone far. But Emmaline and Lionel needed to return to the house immediately.
“We’ll go too and take the children so you can focus on finding Leah and Jasper,” Fanny said, nodding toward her husband, who set to gathering them. He and Lionel began loading them into the second cart. Emmaline let out a gasp and gritted her teeth.
“Go,” David said to Lionel. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Lionel thanked him, then climbed into the cart with his wife. The groom steered the horses back toward the house.
Julia began to cry as Ivy handed her to Fanny. “Don’t cry, love,” Ivy said softly, patting Julia’s back. “Aunt Fanny will be with you, and I’ll be home before you know it.” She smiled warmly, but West saw the unease in her eyes.
West picked up Sebastian and set him in the cart. “Look after your sister.”
“You’ll find Leah?” The boy’s dark eyes were wide with worry. “She can pick whatever log she likes.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find her in a trice,” West said as much to alleviate his own concern as his son’s. He kissed the boy’s forehead and told the groom to drive.
When he turned, Ivy, Graham, and Arabella were already striding through the trees calling for Leah and Jasper.
But with each call that went unanswered and each minute that passed, West felt as if he’d swallowed lead. His unease became fear, and soon his fear would become panic. If anything happened to them, he didn’t know what he would do. His gaze strayed to the pale face of his wife, and he refused to give in to dread.
West reached for her hand and squeezed her tightly. “We’ll find them.”
She looked at him with determination, the steel in her eyes tempered by an edge of alarm. “We have to.”
Ivy tried to use logic to banish the panic that threatened. She would have expected Sebastian to be the one to run off and not answer when called, not Leah. That fact made Ivy wonder if she’d done so because of Jasper. Or if something terrible had happened...
No. She refused to think such a thing.
Had Leah followed Jasper to keep an eye on him? Though she was only five and a half, she had the natural instinct of a caregiver, probably because she had two younger siblings.
“Jasper!” The agitated sound of Arabella’s voice drove Ivy to the younger woman.
Ivy touched her arm soothingly, despite her own apprehension. “We’ll find him.”
“We should have left him at the house with Charlotte.” Arabella looked positively ashen. Even her lips were a faint gray. “I think I’m going to be ill.” She turned and rushed away, but the distinct sound of her tossing up her accounts was unmistakable.
Graham hurried to her side and caressed her back. Ivy couldn’t hear what was said, if anything.
West pressed his lips together in a grim line. “We’ll cover more ground if we split up, but Arabella shouldn’t be left alone. You and she must stay together—and stick close to this area in case Leah and Jasper find their way back to the cart. I will strike out with Graham and our men. We’ll choose directions and go individually.”
Ivy nodded. “A sound plan.”
West called out to the groom and four footmen who remained.
She watched as he went to share the scheme with Graham. After Arabella had straightened and Graham had briefly embraced her, Ivy made her way in their direction.
“I want to go search for them,” Arabella said, her arms wrapped around her middle.
“We can look around here.” Ivy noted that Arabella still looked rather pale. “But perhaps you should sit in the cart for a few minutes and warm up beneath a blanket.”
“I’m not unwell. At least, not in a sickness way. I’m with child. I’ve been meaning to ask you how you manage with three.”
“Not very well, apparently,” Ivy said. No, she wouldn’t think like that. “Come, we must keep a positive outlook. Jasper and Leah are fine. They’ve simply wandered off. Perhaps my daughter has taken after her Aunt Fanny and decided to follow a rabbit.”
“Isn’t that how Fanny met David?” Arabella asked.
Ivy nodded. “You’ve heard the story?”
“Yes. If not for that rabbit, I would likely be married to David instead.” Because their fathers had been best friends and arranged for their children to wed. Unfortunately for their fathers’ plans, David fell in love with Fanny. And as luck would have it, Arabella was meant to be with Graham, who had, incidentally, been David’s secretary before inheriting a dukedom—much to Graham’s shock. David and Graham remained close, which is how Ivy and West had come to know them so well.
“Now here you are expecting your third child with Graham,” Ivy said, seizing on a happy thought. “How lovely. As to your question about three children, I have it on good authority that anything after three makes no difference whatsoever.”
“Whose authority is that?” Arabella asked, half-smiling.
“Nora, of course. And her sister. Jo and Bran just welcomed their fourth some months ago.”
Arabella nodded in recognition. She was well acquainted with both Nora, the Duchess of Kendal, and Jo, the Countess of Knighton. Their circle of friends was quite large when Ivy thought about it. She could never have guessed this would be her life—a duchess, a husband who adored her and who she adored in return, a large group of close friends, family really, who took care of one another, and of course, her children who she loved beyond measure. Her heart squeezed as she thought of her firstborn.
No, not her firstborn. She’d delivered a stillborn child many years ago, long before she’d met West. When she’d been young and foolish. Before she’d understood what true love really was, what it could be.
“I’m feeling a bit better, I think,” Arabella said, drawing Ivy from her thoughts of the past. She walked a few yards. “Jasper! Leah!”