Thrale jumped up. “I must say I am relieved to see you well.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“How did you get home?”
He lifted a hand. “Why, I walked.”
Thrale pursed his lips. “You’re not injured?”
“As you can see, I am in the pink.” He went to the sideboard. “May I offer you something? Brandy? Claret? Both are excellent.” The door opened. “Ah. Here is Merchant with coffee. My cook makes an excellent coffee. Comme les Turques, he calls it.” He poured for Thrale first then himself.
Thrale breathed in the aroma of Jubert’s thick coffee, then took an experimental taste meant to be no more than polite. As Ruan expected, Thrale’s eyes opened wide. “Excellent indeed, Cynssyr.”
“Why are you here?”
“Well, to be honest, I thought you might have come to some mischief. You’re certain everything’s well?”
“More sugar?”
“No.”
“May I ask, my Lord Thrale, what were you doing in that part of town?” He forced all emotion from him. There wasn’t anyone better at game-playing than the duke of Cynssyr. “I didn’t take you for one to visit the Hells.”
“Hardly a Hell.” Thrale’s eyebrows shot up in what appeared to be genuine confusion. “It wasn’t so far from here, as it happens, and—”
“Where, here?”
“The mews behind Lynlear Close. Only saw it by accident. Just caught my eye, the oddness of it, I suppose, and I went to have a look.”
“How the hell did my phaeton get there?”
Surprised mid-sip, Thrale made a face. “Not your phaeton. Your coach. Big hulking black thing.”
“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake, Thrale. You couldn’t have found one of my coaches anywhere but here.” A sense of foreboding turned his mouth to chalk. “There’s some mistake.” Ruan rang for Merchant. “Ah,” he said when the butler came in. “Thrale here tells me he’s found my coach. Who took it out and why?”
“The duchess, your grace.”
“Impossible. She’s halfway to Fargate Castle by now. In her own carriage.”
Thrale put down his coffee with such force the saucer broke in three.
“But, your grace—” Color drained from the servant’s face.
“I saw her off to Cornwall this early afternoon.”
“Yes. But, your grace, she went first to Portman Square to make her goodbyes to lord and Lady Aldreth and her sisters. She’d hardly got to Oxford Street when the carriage broke an axle.” He drew himself up. “You were at Whitehall by then. I understood, your grace, that you felt she must leave London without delay.”
“You understood correctly.”
“I took the liberty of sending her your father’s carriage.”
Ruan spun on his heel and walked a straight line from the fireplace to the exact midpoint of the room. He felt like he’d just walked into a furnace. The sensation was gone in an instant, replaced by bitter cold. He wasn’t even aware of his cup hitting the table with a thud. Anne. Oh, God, Anne.
“Cynssyr,” Thrale said. “Hear me out. I found two men near the carriage, mortally wounded both. Coachman and postilion. There can be no doubt. They wore your livery. Of your wife, I saw no sign.”
“Henry and Gant went as postilions,” Merchant said.
“That’s three men counting the coachman. Where is the third?”
Thrale shook his head. “I found but the two.”
After a rather distasteful description of the injured men Ruan was able to determine Henry was unaccounted for. The door opened and Ruan turned, feeling a surge of relief when he heard the whisper of silk. But it was not Anne. A footmen led Emily into the room. Ruan gave Thrale no time to greet her. “Is Anne with you? Do you know where she is?”
She’d been prepared to give him another lecture, he saw, but his peremptory manner and Thrale’s presence brought her up short. “No.”
“Have you heard from her?”
“I came here to make you tell me why you’ve sent her away.” She took in Ruan’s tense face, Thrale’s too-sober nod and Merchant close to having an emotion. “What’s happened?”
He knew Emily was too level-headed to panic. “Her carriage has been found abandoned. One postilion gone missing. The coachman and the other postilion gravely injured.” He moved toward her, ready to offer aid if she needed it, but she’d already sunk onto a chair.
Emily stared at Thrale. “What of Anne?”
“That is unclear just now,” Ruan said gently.
“It’s whoever’s been snatching all those women, isn’t it?” Emily asked. “They’ve got her.”
“Henry,” Ruan said not bothering to dissemble, “has probably followed whoever took her. If he is able, he will return with word. Find Bracebridge, Emily,” he said, fixing her with a look. He nodded when he was satisfied she understood why he was asking her. It was a measure of his state that he actually hoped Emily would find Anne with his best friend. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. “If Anne is with him, for God’s sake, make haste to tell me. If not, tell Dev what has happened and bring him back here. Merchant, go with her.”
“What are you going to do?” Emily asked.
What choice had he? “There is nothing I can do but wait here for a ransom demand.”
Thrale rose, but Ruan rapped out, “I’ll ask you to stay, Thrale. The better to put a bullet in your head if I find you had anything to do with this.”
CHAPTER 33
Devon heard a commotion somewhere in the house, but ignored it. Lydia Cooke’s arms were still around him while he basked in the afterglow of sexual congress. Better the second time than the first, and the first had been very good. An odd way, perhaps, for a man to celebrate his nuptials, but one thoroughly satisfying. He and Lydia had more or less agreed that within a year he would marry her daughter, Fanny. The noise grew louder.
Annoyed that the staff of his late father’s favorite St. James’s Street hideaway, whom he paid for discretion above all else, could not keep the quiet, he reluctantly sat up, sliding one leg off the bed. Behind him, Lydia caressed his back, trailing a fingertip along his spine.
The door flew open. His first thought was that Mr. Cooke had found them and there was about to be a distasteful scene. But no enraged husband burst into the room. Instead, Miss Emily Sinclair walked into his private bedchamber. Thunderstruck, he had no words, could only stare at the young woman. A veritable goddess of beauty.
“Thank God,” she said.
Every time he saw her, her beauty struck him like a blow. The fate of every man in London, no doubt. She wore a gown in a color popularly called London smoke, cut low after the fashion. With her agitation, a rather magnificent portion of bosom showed. Her mouth, that tender, kissable mouth, quivered. He had just enough wit to be thankful that the sheet, which barely covered him at the moment, at least hid his manly parts.
“My God, Bracebridge,” said Lydia, appalled and leaping to a conclusion more than warranted under the circumstances. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “If you’ve seduced this innocent girl...”
Absurdly, Emily bent them a knee as proper as if she’d found them having tea in a parlor. Her lovely eyes quickly scanned the room and settled on something. His shirt, he discovered when she walked over and threw it at him. “Not if I were the last woman on earth, Mrs. Cooke.” She snatched up his breeches, underclothes and waistcoat, too, moving quickly around the room since he and Lydia had not been careful about where their clothes ended up.
He caught sight of Merchant in the doorway. The man’s face was bright red, but he wasn’t doing a damn thing to get Emily the hell out of his bedroom. Not with Lydia Cooke naked in the bed. Emily had put Merchant in a fine pickle, walking in as if she expected tea and cakes. “Explain this outrage.”
“Merchant thought you might be here,” Emily said.
For God’s sake, the girl was holding his drawers! “You damned little brat. I ought to turn you over
my knee.”
“My lord, please.” Merchant peeked into the room and saw him sitting on the bed with only the sheet to cover his lap. “My lord—”
The panic in Merchant’s voice brought Devon up short. “What’s happened?”
Emily now held nearly all his clothes. The buttons of his breeches winked accusingly in the light. “Cynssyr’s coachman is dead,” she said. “A postilion, too, another missing.” She thrust his clothes at him. “Get dressed, Bracebridge, he needs you. Anne needs you.” When he sat without moving, Emily gesticulated. “Did you hear what I said? We haven’t a moment to lose.”
“Miss Sinclair. I am naked.”
“This is no time for modesty.” Her eyes, blue as the noon sky, filled with tears.
“Believe me, Cyn can take care of himself.” He spoke deliberately to hide his concern. “If they have him they’ll soon regret it.”
“Not Cynssyr, you dunderhead! Anne. They’ve taken Anne!” Her breath hitched. “What if something horrible has happened to her, too?”
Lydia slipped out of the bed, lucky enough to have found her chemise within reach. She now appeared next to Emily. “Perhaps, Miss Sinclair, if you would just turn your back?”
But Dev had already come to his feet, and he didn’t care if Emily Sinclair saw him naked or not. He saw the quick downsweep of her eyes. In her turmoil, the look was dispassionate. Whatever she felt at the sight of him thrusting his very naked self into his underclothes was put away. Maidenly shock, if any there was, awaited some other time and place.
“Merchant,” he said, raising his voice more for the sake of breaking the silence than having the question answered. “What were you thinking to let her in here?”
“She is a force of nature, milord.” In the interest of Mrs. Cooke’s modesty and reputation, Merchant remained at the door, steadfastly staring down the hall so that he could, in all honesty, say he did not know with whom Bracebridge had been found.
Emily had now fallen to her knees. For a very brief moment an outright evil thought entered Devon’s head, heating his blood at the thought of having London’s most notorious beauty at his feet. Then she pulled one of his boots from underneath the bed and twisted around to snatch up the cravat dangling from the bedpost. “Come with me,” she said. “There isn’t time to call for your carriage and ours is waiting outside. Merchant will see your companion safely home. Have you a veil?” She didn’t wait for a response. She reached for her hat and jerked off the veil. For a woman in crisis, Emily was remarkably clear-headed. “Here is mine. See that you use it, Ma’am.”
He let Lydia help with his cravat while he buttoned his waistcoat. “I’ll need my pistols.”
“Unless you have them here, you will have to borrow some from Cynssyr. No, wait, Merchant can stop at Cavendish Square after he’s dropped her at some convenient location.” Emily glanced over her shoulder at Merchant, still steadfastly staring down the hall. “Did you hear that, Merchant?”
“Yes, Miss.”
Emily continued. “For whom and for what shall Merchant ask when he gets there, Bracebridge?”
Dev sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his boots. “Johnson. Ask him for the Pauly. He’ll know which one.”
“Yes, milord,” said Merchant.
Emily gave Lydia a look. “I never saw you here. Nor you me. Is that understood?”
“I shall pray for your sister’s safety.”
“Thank you.”
Devon stood. “Remind me to take you with me the next time I go to war, Em. We could have used a few men like you.” He grabbed his coat and followed his intrepid beauty to the carriage.
He sat across from Emily during a surreal ride, feeling as if he were escorting some silly virgin to a party. Only he wasn’t. “Tell me what you know.” Aside from appreciating Emily Sinclair’s beauty, he’d paid very little attention to her except when her spoiled ways forced him to notice her.
Quite wrongly it appeared, he’d assumed her to be like every other girl put on the marriage block. Young, vapid, naive, and eager to make a match above her station. A beauty like Emily Sinclair, connected now to two noble families, would certainly make a brilliant match. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with Anne, like as not he’d have courted her himself. Luckily he hadn’t. He’d seen the heartless way she treated her suitors. But, there were depths to her, hitherto unsuspected depths.
She spoke quickly, giving only the necessary facts. “Anne came to Portman Square to say goodbye because Cynssyr was sending her away. She wouldn’t tell us why. She just gave one of those ridiculous excuses she’s always providing for that odious man. I could see she didn’t really want to go. The moment I had a chance, I went straight to Cyrwthorn. I thought the man had finally come to his senses about my sister, and I wanted to know how he’d managed to bungle things so quickly.” She drew a breath that hovered on the precipice of a sob. “Thrale was there because he’d found her carriage and the servants dead. That is everything I know.”
He could see panic behind her eyes, so he did not let the silence linger. “First he jilts you. Now this. How you must despise him.”
She shook her head. “Not for this.”
“No?”
“He is not responsible for the actions of a man low enough to harm all those women. And, by the way, he did not jilt me. I would have told him no. Yes, Bracebridge, I know about the kidnappings. We women are not as ignorant as men would like to keep us.”
“You are hardly a woman,” he murmured just to provoke her.
Her eyes flashed. “One might more accurately say you are hardly a gentleman.”
Devon was acutely aware of the circumstances under which Emily had found him, of the complete dispassion with which she had looked at his person. The way she was looking at him, he felt naked now. “I know how you feel about my sister,” she said surprising him by laying her hand on his. “I am sorry you weren’t the one to marry her. You should have been her husband. We all thought so.”
It made the hair on the back of his arms prickle to think she understood so much. “We are here,” Devon said, glad to be free of her penetrating eyes.
They joined Ruan in the parlor. Thrale had not left. Benjamin stood by the fireplace, a grim expression on his amiable face. Unlike Ruan who looked like he’d slept in his rumpled trousers and coat, Ben still wore evening dress. There were no greetings. Ruan handed Dev a sheet of paper. “As I feared.”
“Damn it to hell.” Benjamin kicked over the fireplace grate.
Emily sat heavily on the sofa, and Thrale immediately went to her. Fascinated, Devon watched her start to crumble. Her eyes glistened with tears, and her mouth quivered. At that moment, he would have sworn his own heart was breaking, too. Then she straightened her shoulders and gently pushed Thrale from her. Her mouth smoothed. “That’s a ransom note, isn’t it?” she asked with hardly a trace of emotion.
When neither Benjamin nor Ruan denied it, Devon quickly read it. “The diamonds Anne wore at the ball. They’re worth thousands!”
Ruan reached into his pocket and when he withdrew it, slapped his hand on the table. “You had an explanation why these did not incriminate you,” he said to Thrale, lifting his hand to reveal the ring and button they’d recovered. “Make no mistake, it’s your life if it’s not so.”
“I swear it’s not. On my soul, it’s not so.”
Emily cleared her throat, a dainty cough. “Did you not mention once, my Lord Thrale, that you have a new valet?”
“What of it?”
“Does not a gentleman’s valet,” she suggested prettily, “have access to his employer’s most personal belongings? A ring, for example, or, if not the buttons on his coat, the coat itself. I should think a valet would know his master’s whereabouts and even his plans. Quite intimately.”
“I didn’t hire him until after the kidnappings began.”
“About the time Cynssyr began to find you a compelling suspect, I expect.” She waved a slender hand. “I’d even wager,
my lord, that the unfortunate dismissal of your footman wasn’t necessary until after your valet began his employment.”
“My valet?” Thrale said. “My own damned valet?”
“Caitiff bastard,” said Devon.
“Why in God’s name did you hire a servant without a character?” Ben said, throwing his hands into the air.
“But he had one. An impeccable one!”
“From whom?”
“Wilberfoss.”
Emily stood up and snatched the ransom letter from Devon’s hand. “I’m going with you.”
“The hell you will,” he said, knowing Ruan and Benjamin would back him up.
“Out of the question.” Devon and Ruan exchanged a glance. Benjamin, the coward, bent down to right the screen he’d kicked over. A tumult outside the room startled them. The door flew open and Henry stumbled inside, followed by one of the footmen who looked horrified and terrified both. Dust coated the postilion’s shoulders. An ugly mass of congealing blood covered his temple and ran in a thin, jagged line from ear to cheek.
“Is Anne with you?” Ruan asked with such raw passion that Devon and Benjamin stared in shock. A man who’d withstood the horrors of war now sounded like a man frantic with loss, near to breakdown. Devon had never in all the years he’d known Ruan, heard him sound like that.
Henry shook his head, wincing from the pain. “No, your grace.”
“What the hell happened?” Benjamin demanded.
But it was Emily who cut to the heart of the matter. “Never mind that now.” She walked to Henry and pressed a handkerchief to his bleeding head. “Where have they taken my sister?”
Henry, the fool, took one look at that angelic face and told her everything. “Bit east of Waltham Abby, near Epping way, Miss. Ah, such kind hands to lay on me. A cottage at the end of the lane just after a stand of oaks.”
“How many men were there?” she asked serenely.
“Three.” Henry visibly melted, thoroughly enslaved to her beauty. “That I saw, Miss.”
Emily glanced at Ruan. “Have you pistols for Bracebridge and Thrale, Cynssyr? We haven’t much time. I am sorry, Bracebridge, we cannot wait for Merchant to return.” She called for a servant, completely in charge. No one did a thing to stop her. “We shall want fresh horses.” She was too sensible, damn it all. Should anyone countermand her, they’d only have to give the same bloody instructions.
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