Chapter Six

      Dressing like a girl took forever.

      Annie lamented her decision as she closed the last fastener on her dress and turned to the mirror.

      The green gown—her second favorite—looked nice, she decided, even if climbing into hoops, corset and petticoats took three times as long as dressing in her trousers. She’d coiled her hair atop her head, adding to the ordeal.

      But she looked like a nanny, or at least what she guessed a nanny should look like. Mrs. Flanders certainly couldn’t peer down her nose at her when she got downstairs this morning.

      Annie heard a voice in the room next door and found Georgia tending to little Hannah.

      “Slept all night, did she?” Georgia asked as Annie walked in.

      “Not a peep out of her.”

      Georgia lifted Hannah into her arms; the baby yawned and stretched her chubby arms.

      “I brought up her bottle for you,” Georgia said, nodding toward the table beside the rocker. “Mrs. Royce gets it ready first thing.”

      “I’ll feed Hannah, then wake the other children,” Annie said. It seemed a reasonable, organized way to start her day, even if she hadn’t read it in a book.

      Georgia shook her head. “They’re not in their room. I was just there.”

      Annie was mildly surprised. “Oh. Well, then they’re having their breakfast already.”

      Georgia uttered a short laugh. “I was just down there, and there’s not hide nor hair of those children anywhere in this house.”

      Mild surprise edged toward panic. Her first full day as nanny and Annie didn’t even know where the children were.

      She resisted the urge to utter a curse. “Could you start feeding Hannah while I check on the others? I don’t want to get you into trouble with Mrs. Flanders, but if you could just—”

      “Oh, never mind about that Mrs. Flanders.” Georgia gave the baby a hug. “Me and little Miss Hannah know a few places to hide out where that cranky ol’ woman won’t never find us.”

      “Thank you, Georgia. Thanks so much.” Annie hiked up her dress and rattled down the stairway.

      “Miss Martin!”

      Annie jerked to a stop in the downstairs hallway as Mrs. Flanders barked her name. Hands folded in front of her, the older woman stood in the center of the parlor, glaring at her.

      Annie’s first instinct was to tell Mrs. Flanders she had no time for her, and to hurry on about her business. But Mrs. Flanders ran the house. Being rude to her wouldn’t improve her employment longevity.

      “Yes?” Annie asked politely, forcing a smile, feigning interest.

      “I want to make it clear to you, Miss Martin, that you are to take charge of the children. Georgia is no longer available to assist with them in any way.”

      Annie pressed her lips together, sure Mrs. Flanders couldn’t possibly know that Georgia was taking care of the baby at this very moment.

      “A proper nanny would know that,” Mrs. Flanders told her, indicating by her tone that Annie was just the opposite. Her lips turned down even more sharply. “I understand a girl of your…background…isn’t accustomed to living in a fine home such as this.”

      Annie’s cheeks flushed in the face of yet another insult.

      “Mrs. Ingalls devoted countless hours to decorating her home.” Mrs. Flanders waved her hand about the elegantly furnished parlor. “Do you recognize the workmanship of that cabinet, Miss Martin?”

      Annie reined in her impatience to find the children, and eyed the mahogany cabinet with its slender tapering legs, carved feathers and oval, brass drawer handles. “Well…”

      “Hepplewhite, the renowned cabinetmaker in London. Many of the tables in this house are Sheraton’s, also from London. The wallpaper? Imported from France. The finest crystal, china, silver and linens from Europe.” Mrs. Flanders drew herself up and looked pointedly at Annie’s dress. “Mrs. Ingalls’s clothing was made for her by the finest dressmakers in the East and abroad.”

      Annie kept her chin up, fighting the instinct to explain her circumstances and shield her simple dress with her hands. Fighting, too, the instinct she hadn’t experienced since she was ten years old—to make a fist and pop Mrs. Flanders in her arrogant nose.

      Instead, she plastered on the closest thing to a smile she could manage. “I’m sure Mrs. Ingalls had exquisite taste. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

      “One more thing, Miss Martin. The children aren’t to play in the house. You are to confine them to their room upstairs.”

      Annie frowned. “But this is their home.”

      Mrs. Flanders raised a haughty brow. “That’s the way it’s done, Miss Martin.”

      “I understand,” Annie said, though really, she didn’t.

      She left, forbidding herself to hurry away, but unable to shake off the sting of Mrs. Flanders’s words. Had she heard the gossip about Annie’s family? Or did the older woman simply not like her?

      Either way, Annie intended to show Mrs. Flanders—and everyone else in the Ingalls household—that she was, indeed, worthy of the job entrusted to her.

      In the cookhouse, Mrs. Royce and her helpers were busy at the worktables. Steam rose from boiling pots on the cookstove.

      There was no sign of the three little Ingalls.

      “Did the children have their breakfast already?” Annie asked, trying to sound casual.

      The three cooks all looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

      “Down early, they were, before I got up,” Mrs. Royce muttered. “Fixed themselves a meal of jam and cookies, and a few other things, from the looks of the place.”

      A vision of the mess the cooks must have walked in on this morning sprang into Annie’s mind. She threaded her fingers together. “Do you know where they went?”

      “I’ve no clue,” Mrs. Royce said, and seemed relieved that she didn’t.

      “Well, thank you,” Annie said, trying to smile.

      It was only her first full day on the job and not only had she lost the children, she discovered they’d invaded the cookhouse and left it in a shambles.

      A shudder passed through Annie. What else might the children be up to at this very moment?

      Annie hurried out the back door. Shading her eyes against the morning sun, she gazed at the barns and outbuildings, the meadows and fields stretching into the distance. She circled the house twice. No sign of the children.

      Sighing, she considered the probability that they would come back home