Already His (The Caversham Chronicles - Book Two)

by Sandy Raven

  Beverly entered on Huddleston’s arm directly behind them, and soon her grandmother found her party near some open terrace doors in a corner of the ballroom. All the matrons, it seemed, were desperate for any breeze they could capture in the over-packed and stuffy ballroom. Elise stood next to Lady Royce and watched Beverly and Christopher already on the dance floor.

  “Lady Elise.” A familiar voice spoke behind her. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Sir Marlowe.” She smiled at the handsome cousin of The Not-So-Honorable Mr. Sinclair. “How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you.” He returned her smile and Elise noticed for the first time how perfectly straight his white teeth were. Even behind the demi-mask she thought him too handsome, with golden-blond hair and piercing blue eyes. For another woman, he would be considered an Adonis come to life. “But, I would be infinitely better if you agree to honor me with a dance later.”

  She nodded her head, and they conversed a moment before he excused himself promising to return soon.

  “Who is that nice-looking young man?” Grandmother asked, turning from her conversation with Lady Royce and Lady Stone, her face alight with interest. “Do we know him?”

  “Beverly and I do. His name is Sir Terence Marlowe, a young Baron from somewhere near Worcester, I believe. He is cousin to Mr. David Sinclair.”

  “That name sounds familiar. Isn’t he the one your brother has warned off you?”

  “Sinclair is, yes. Ren thinks the man desperate for my funds, and not interested in me.”

  “Your brother has excellent instincts when it comes to matters such as those. Please heed his warning.”

  “Oh, I have. But Marlowe is nothing like Sinclair. He’s handsome and has a sweet nature. He also has never pressed me with his attentions.”

  Her grandmother nodded, then greeted a matron who came up to speak with her. Elise accepted an invitation to a country dance and took the floor with Lord Underwood, then Lord Edgcumbe asked for a polonaise and she accepted. Before long she was dancing nearly every dance, resting only to have a watery lemonade to quench her thirst. At first, her eyes searched the room for Michael. When she realized he was not in this room at least, she began to relax and enjoy herself.

  Just as a waltz began, Marlowe arrived. “My lady, I believe this is our dance”

  “May I request we sit out this one. I am winded.” He appeared disappointed at first, but she offered, “Please, sit here next to me.” Elise pat the empty seat next to her as Beverly was out on the dance floor yet again, and Huddleston was in the card room. “You will be my next dance partner. But for now, we can gossip, just you and I.”

  Elise asked him about his plans for the autumn, and Marlowe began explaining his desire to see the Continent, as he’d never had the opportunity. She confessed, she’d never been, though wanted to go one day. And, as he spoke, Elise breathed a sigh of relief as she was spared dancing a waltz. In her heart, she’s promised every waltz to Michael, and even though there was no chance that would ever occur, she still couldn’t bring herself to dance one with anyone else just yet.

  A momentary awkward silence fell as that piece ended and the musicians began another song. People moved off and onto the dance floor and Marlowe asked, “Have you recovered, Lady Elise?” At her nod, he led her as they followed the others to the center of the room.

  Elise rested her hand on top of his and they began to parade across the floor in a polonaise. “I haven’t seen you about the past few days. Have you been well, my lady?” he asked. His concern appeared genuine, even if all she could see was the lower half of his face as his mask covered most of his brow. He was such a good-natured and caring young man, with an athletic look about him.

  But he isn’t Michael, her heart whispered.

  “It’s very kind of you to have noticed. I have been fighting a case of the sniffles.”

  “I knew something was amiss.” His blue eyes literally sparkled with merriment. “And it had to be something important to keep you from your morning rides in the park.”

  Elise smiled. She was flattered someone noticed her absence. “Oh, I’ve been about.” With Michael nowhere in sight, Elise relaxed in her partner’s arms. She met his gaze and asked him about his cousin.

  “He will glad to know you asked. He is, unfortunately, out of town right now and not due to return for several weeks. He’s handling some estate matters.” She looked up into his handsome eyes, his affect shy, almost saddened. “We recently lost a relative.”

  “I am sorry, Sir Marlowe. I didn’t know,” she said as he whirled her around the floor in the crescendoing finish to their polonaise. He bowed to her and Elise curtsied. She was starting to feel very warm and thirsty. “I think I shall sit out a bit. It’s very stuffy in here, is it not? Here, let us go sit with my grandmother, as she is near the terrace doors, and there is a delicious breeze coming through them.”

  “Of course these silly masks we are forced to wear only serves to heighten the sensation. Shall I get you a lemonade, my lady?” Marlowe asked as he walked her back to her grandmother’s side.

  “Yes, thank you. I would appreciate that very much. I will catch my breath if you don’t mind.”

  He left, winding his way through the crowd. Elise tried, but couldn’t follow the conversation her grandmother and several of her friends were carrying. Looking around the room, she didn’t see Beverly or Christopher anywhere and smiled to herself hoping they were finally getting a few minutes alone.

  Several minutes later, Marlowe returned with two lemonades. She drank readily of the liquid, quenching her thirst, and he offered her his, saying he would fetch more. This one she drank more slowly, as he left. Elise stood near the doors, thinking it so much cooler outside now that the rain had stopped and stepped out. Keeping her eye on her grandmother, she leaned on the balustrade feeling suddenly very tired.

  Shadows in the bushes below caught her attention. She thought it odd that a couple seeking privacy would actually go into the bushes as it would seriously muss the lady’s dress. Then again, she thought, if the woman was a lady she wouldn’t be in the bushes would she?

  Elise pushed off the railing and made to return to her grandmother’s side when a hand stopped her. Marlowe helped her stand for suddenly her knees didn’t want to support her weight.

  “Could you please bring me back to....”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said as he wrapped a heavy mantle around her shoulders.

  And remembered nothing more.

  Michael scanned the room looking for Elise. With any luck, her grandmother would have convinced her to come tonight. He’d been working himself up to apologizing to her all day, and decided the perfect time to do it was while they waltzed. At her come-out ball, she told him it was the dance she would forever save for him alone. And tonight, while they danced it, he would also give her his heart.

  She’d said something on that fateful night, before his cruel accusation, that had stuck in his heart. Until now, he’d been unable to actually voice the words, though he’d known all along he felt them. He didn’t know why he was tongue-tied over saying them, but that, too, ended tonight. He loved her. He loved Elise with an intensity that scared him. If he didn’t love her, he would not be fearful she might refuse him.

  After speaking with Martin Whippleworth, he’d arranged to have the orchestra play the same piece he and Elise had waltzed to at Beverly’s ball—the one he’d taken her out to the terrace to dance. That was the night he knew he had to speak to Ren, or lose her forever to someone else.

  Her tall, elegant form always stood out over the sea of average belles. Spying Lady Sewell, he watched as she scanned the room, concern marring her weathered, delicate brow. He excused himself from the party greeting him, and made his way over to the lady’s side, intending to greet her and inquire after Elise. The concern on her face began to turn to worry as she looked out toward the balcony. He watched Marlowe enter through the doors and walk to Lady Sewell’s side with two glasses o
f lemonade.

  “Is Lady Elise dancing again?” Michael heard the grinning younger man ask as he drew closer.

  “No. I believe she’s gone out to get air. Didn’t you see her?” He saw Marlowe shake his head. Lady Sewell stood, leaning heavily on her cane, then went through the doors. She looked both ways and over the rail. “I am concerned, it’s been several minutes and she hasn’t returned.”

  Michael came forward. “Is something amiss, Lady Sewell?”

  The light mist changed to rain again as Marlowe set the lemonades down on the balustrade and asked. “Shall I search for her, ma’am? I will take the garden, if Lord Camden will take the inside.”

  Lady Sewell nodded to Marlowe who left immediately down the terraced steps into the darkened garden. “Camden, find her. Please.” There was a plea in her voice that, as close as he was to the family, he understood. Marlowe would not know the seriousness in which they took the threat to Elise. Thankfully, there were three of Cartland’s men on the premises, hopefully one saw something. With the heavy mist and light rain that had been falling off and on all night, there weren’t any others enjoying the terrace to question.

  Huddleston and Beverly finished their dance and seeing the look on Lady Sewell’s face hurried over. “Where is Elise?” Beverly asked. “What has happened?”

  “I don’t know,” the older woman choked out. “She was here one minute and gone the next.”

  Lady Sewell began to get frantic and she, along with Lord and Lady Stone and Lady Royce, quickly moved into Lord Whippleworth’s office. Michael asked Huddleston to hurry and fetch Mr. Cartland to them, giving him the investigator’s Oxford Street address.

  “I would like to do this so that there is minimal damage to my future wife’s reputation,” Michael said to those in the room. Whippleworth and Stone nodded, as did the ladies. They began to discuss who might have taken Elise when a footman arrived with word that two men were found unconscious in the garden—one just under the terrace behind bushes, and another on the far side of the house.

  “Guests?” asked Michael.

  The footman looked to Lord Whippleworth for permission to speak freely in front of mixed company. With a nod of Whippleworth’s head the man said, “One appears to be a guest, the other is one of the security detail sent over from Caversham House before the festivities began.”

  “There were three assigned to the ladies,” Michael told Whippleworth and Stone. “Since the third guard is nowhere to be found, I am praying he is following them.” He raked his hands through his hair. “How are the men? Can we speak with them?”

  The footman shook his head, his expression grim. “They are unconscious.”

  “Send for a physician quick,” Michael told the footman.

  “Already done, my lord.”

  Beverly sat next to Lady Sewell, near tears herself, yet trying to comfort the older woman. “Who could have done this?” Elise’s grandmother sobbed.

  Beverly looked directly at him and said, “You know she did not willingly leave this property. If you believe nothing else of her, you must believe this.”

  Her meaning was not lost on him. Elise, it seemed, had confided in her friend. He nodded his head and agreed with Beverly. He knew Elise well enough to know she’d never leave willingly. As to who her abductor was, he had only one suspect. He thought back to Lady Sewell’s expression when he’d first seen her after entering the ballroom. He recalled Marlowe entering from the terrace with two glasses of lemonade. Why enter from the terrace if the refreshments were in a room not accessed from the outdoors?

  “Lady Sewell, please tell me everything you remember.”

  She did. Every detail she could recall, she recounted for them—including the fact that the two glasses Marlowe carried in when he saw him after the disappearance were the second glasses of lemonade he’d fetched for Elise and himself in a matter of minutes.

  Michael began to understand their plan. He looked at Whippleworth. “Can you ask a footman to bring Sir Marlowe to us for questioning.”

  “Do you think Marlowe is involved?” Lady Sewell asked, her face white with fear. “Elise said she thought he was harmless.” The elderly lady held onto to Lady Royce and Lady Stone’s hands. “Think about it, he is here while my granddaughter is not.”

  “He’s involved because he gave her both drinks—” Michael said, the attorney in him finding the flaw in Marlowe’s execution. “—And didn’t drink either one himself. His cousin Sinclair is also involved somehow—” Michael paced the length of the room mumbling to himself as he worked out a possible theory. “—Then when he left to get more lemonade, he slipped out another door and handed over a drugged Elise to Sinclair. Marlowe then returned to the ballroom, secure in the knowledge that he’ll never be suspected as he’d gone to fetch more lemonade which he could have had placed ahead of time in a location easy for him to retrieve later, making it appear as though he’d gone for more.”

  “You’re right,” Beverly said. “I’m willing to bet, that he got four lemonades the first time and placed two outside to pick up on his way back in.”

  “If you are correct,” Whippleworth said to him, “then Marlowe is long gone. My guess is he’s either with—or right behind—Sinclair and Lady Elise.”

  The clock on the mantle chimed the hour, and Michael surmised at least forty minutes had passed. He felt he should be out searching the streets, but didn’t know where to begin. Up above them, the dancing continued because Michael, Lord Whippleworth, and Lady Sewell all agreed that to call off the event already underway would only draw attention to the fact that something was amiss. As it was, there was a little chatter and speculation as to why their party departed the room en masse.

  Lord and Lady Stone and Lady Royce all volunteered to return to the ballroom, hoping to fend off any potential rumors. The story everyone in the office agreed to was that Lady Elise had taken ill and was now in the carriage on the way home. It was believable enough because, as most everyone already knew, Elise had been ill earlier this week. Lady Sewell’s cousins then left the office, but only after promising to visit her in the morning. Beverly would remain with Elise’s grandmother this night.

  Huddleston returned with a message from Cartland. “As we were speaking a boy came running up with a message for him. It turns out one of the agents assigned here is following a heavy traveling coach that reportedly here almost an hour ago.”

  “Cartland doesn’t yet know it, but his other two agents were blackjacked at their posts,” Michael told him.

  Huddleston nodded. “Cartland said he would meet us at Caversham House.”

  Whippleworth then assisted their leaving, showing them the way from his office across the lower terrace, then on the gravel path to the back gate where Marlowe or Sinclair likely carried Elise, and where the Caversham carriage now waited. Just the idea that this was where she had been made Michael sick with worry. A small part of him wondered if he’d ever see her smile again. The bigger part of him wondered what he’d do if he couldn’t.

  Minutes later their carriage pulled up in front of Caversham House and Michael noticed Cartland standing near the lamplight in the fog. He held his horse’s reins in one hand, and a glowing cheroot in the other. Their groom came forward and opened the door to the coach and lowered the steps. Once inside, he turned over the stunned Lady Sewell and Beverly to the competent care of the housekeeper and maids, while Cartland and Huddleston followed Michael into the duke’s office. He took a sheet of vellum, a pen and ink bottle from the drawer, and as he began to write his note to Ren, he said, “Cartland, I hope one of your men saw something.”

  In an enclosed, unmarked carriage headed west from London, David Sinclair smiled to himself in the dim, candle-lit conveyance. He peeled the black wool cloak’s hood from his guest, revealing her short mouse-brown hair. Then he lifted the mask off her face and saw she still slept. Good. Drinking both glasses should keep her unconscious until tomorrow.

  Laying her across the seat opposit
e him, he knelt on the floor and leaned down to nuzzle her neck, inhaling her scent. He wanted desperately to suck on her delicate flesh and leave the first of the many marks she would receive over the next few weeks from him and his cohorts. The lady would pay for the sins of her brother.

  After the beating he took the other day from Caversham’s lackeys in the alley behind his club, Sinclair arrived at the idea of stealing away this beauty for their little party next week. He’d show Caversham. The bastard thought his sister too good for the likes of him and his friends. He’ll show His-hoity-toity-Grace who his trollop sister wants in her bed—and it isn’t going to be that barrister friend of his.

  He ran his tongue over the delicate flesh of her collarbone, it was like the finest silk and tasted of flowers. When he reached the area under her ear he began to suck, and the bitch moaned. But when she called out for that bastard Camden, he reached back his hand and slapped her. His signet ring broke the skin on her cheek and a few drops of blood began to mar her milky white complexion. Her eyes fluttered once but still she slept, evidence of the power of the sleeping draught.

  Even through closed eyes her tears fell, sliding into the hair at her temples. That angered him further and a familiar stirring began in his groin as the anticipation and excitement of the weeks ahead rose within him. He couldn’t wait to brand her, fuck her, then watch her get fucked by his friends. As much as he wanted her now, later when she was awake and struggling would be much, much more enjoyable.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Niles, the Caversham House butler, entered with a footman bearing a tray with a pot and several cups. The footman placed the tray on his grace’s beverage sideboard then was gone from the room. The butler poured coffee for the three gentlemen. Michael handed the sealed note to Niles with the instruction that it was to go at once to Haldenwood and delivered directly into His Grace’s hand. Once Niles closed the door to the office, Michael prompted the investigator again.