Robin stared out over the water. "Have you spoken to your own servants?"
"Yes. They don't know anything. Anyway, Val hired about a dozen extra footmen just for the evening and they left right after supper...before we knew Concordia was missing."
"And you're sure Lucia was the last person to talk to her?" Robin asked.
"Yes!" Peter said impatiently. "Where is she, Your Grace? We have to discover what she knows!" He peered up and down the docks as if he expected to see Lucia lurking in the shadows.
"Return to Lynkellyn House with me, then, gentlemen, and we'll awaken her." Robin said, reaching for his shoes.
A little after dawn, the gentlemen rushed past an amazed and affronted Laddock into Lynkellyn House. Robin led the others to Lucia's bedchamber door and knocked softly. Receiving no response, he bade his companions wait and entered. A moment later, Malkent and Norworth heard an agonized cry and hurried into the room.
Robin was kneeling beside a dilapidated old trunk, tossing its contents, willy-nilly, over his shoulder. When the trunk was empty, he rose and his hand brushed the empty pistol case on Lucia's vanity. His frown deepened as he fingered the velvet interior. "She's bolted!" he said. "Taken all her money, her breeches, her dueling pistols..."
"She'll be back, Rogue!" Tracy leaped to reassure him.
Robin sank onto the neatly turned down bed and stroked a silken nightgown that had been carelessly thrown across the covers. "No!" He shook his head with conviction. "No, she won't be coming back, Tracy. Not after the way I..."
"Well, then, you should go after her even if it's just to be certain that she is safely settled somewhere. Could you ever forgive yourself if you assumed she had bolted only to discover later that she was in some sort of danger and you were not there to save her?" Tracy said.
Robin's eyes met Tracy's. Suddenly he sprang from the bed and sped to the door, shouting, "Hercules!"
When the valet presented himself, Robin barraged him with commands in French. As Hercules bustled away, Robin turned to Tracy. "Although Lucia can be of no assistance in your search for Miss Lannington, my lord, perhaps if we go over last evening's events together, we might discover a clue to her whereabouts."
"Aren't you even going to search for Her Grace, Rogue?" Tracy asked. "She's out there all alone! Who knows what...!"
Robin held up one white hand. "I have already begun to look for her, Tracy. Hercules is questioning the staff, both in the household and in the stables. He may not seem impressive, but he is excellent at this sort of thing, je vous assure, and the grooms will soon have my black saddled and waiting." He turned to Peter. "Now, my lord, tell me about the events last night that led up to our...altercation."
Peter told him with painstaking detail of Mountheathe's proposal to Concordia, his own misreading of the situation, and his subsequent conversation with Lucia. "But I don't see what any of this has to do with anything."
Pacing the room in thought, Robin waved him to silence. "So Mountheathe offered for her," he said. "Not hard to understand! She's an heiress and she's the spitting image of Lady Malkent."
"What the devil do either of those things have to do with Concordia's disappearance?" Tracy asked.
"It's obvious Giles still wants Valeria, Tracy. Lady Chalfont resembles Valeria. Miss Lannington resembles Valeria. I'll wager any female who has seriously engaged Giles's interest in the last ten years has looked like Valeria. "
Tracy stiffened, his attention arrested. "God's truth! You're right, Rogue! Never seen him with any women except willowy brunettes."
"And he's badly dipped!" Robin said.
"Badly dipped! Nonsense! Why, his father left him forty thousand a year!"
Robin stared at Tracy from beneath auburn brows. "Whether you choose to believe it or not, my lord, Giles is addicted to women and gaming. To preserve his pristine reputation, he hides these predilections, frequenting places where he is unlikely to meet friends and acquaintances. His is a familiar face in some of the most dangerous and unsavory hells and brothels in Town. My sources tell me that Giles has almost completely dissipated his fortune. He's spent not only the interest, but the principal as well. All he has left is Heathe House and Heathe Manor with its attendant lands, both heavily mortgaged, but, fortunately, entailed."
"What the devil does all this have to do with Concordia's disappearance?" Peter said, fretting. "We should be out looking for her and Lucia, instead of concerning ourselves with that snake, Bridland's affairs. Personally, I'll be elated if he ends up in the Fleet for debt."
"Don't you see?" Robin said. "Giles is desperate for money and Miss Lannington denied him her dowry when she refused his offer; he hasn't been able to rid himself of Lucia and me; and his creditors are undoubtedly nipping at his heels. When Mountheathe feels cornered, as I'm certain he does at this point, gentlemen, he is likely to do almost anything to save himself. Since Miss Lannington will not willingly wed him, he may well have decided to force her to Gretna."
"Are you suggesting that Giles abducted her from the ball? From beneath our noses?" Tracy said.
"Abduction must be your family's vocation, Your Grace!" Peter growled.
Robin cast Peter a darkling glance and addressed Tracy. "It's only a theory, naturellement, but I'll wager that if you make inquiries to the north, you'll discover that Giles and Miss Lannington are headed toward Scotland."
Tracy's eyes met Peter's. "He may be right. It's worth investigating, anyway."
"While I would like nothing more than to aid you in your search for Miss Lannington, mes amis," Robin said, "I fear I shall require my entire staff and all my time to find my wife."
"Yes, well, we wish you luck, Your Grace." Peter was already moving toward the door. "Come, Tracy. My house is not far from here. I will send my footmen to inquire along the main roads out of London." He sketched a swift bow and left.
Following more slowly, Tracy turned in the doorway. "Thank you for helping us, Rogue. After last night's scene, many men would not have been so benevolent."
Robin stood transfixed, staring at the floor. He bent down to pick up a glossy, black curl, cradling it gingerly in his hand. "She's cut her hair, Tracy! All those soft, gleaming tresses...like a balmy Caribbean night. How I loved to stroke her hair!"
Robin's voice held an odd mixture of pain, longing, and anger. When he lifted his eyes to the earl's, Tracy felt as if he were looking upon the devastation of a soul. "Rogue? Are you going to be alright?"
Suddenly heavy lids veiled the agony in Robin's eyes and his mouth curled into its habitual mocking smile. "I am desolated, naturellement, that my lady wife has found more amusing diversion elsewhere, my lord," he drawled, "but I will survive. I always do. Your niece requires your assistance a great deal more than I, héin?"
"If you need help, Robin, you have but to ask." Tracy bowed and was gone.
As soon as Robin was alone, his smile disappeared. He sank to his knees amongst Lucia's scattered tresses, silent tears coursing down his cheeks as he carefully collected the dusky locks. He placed the curls in a silver casket on the vanity, lifting one ebony coil to his lips.
The truth twisted inside him like a knife as he rose, still cradling the curl. His heart beat in ironbound thrall to a woman who hated him...was entitled to hate him!...with all the righteous fury she could muster.
Lucia had endured only scandal, humiliation, and brutality at his hands, he thought, staring down at the ebony curl he had unconsciously crushed in his fist. Little wonder she had fled from him, preferring peril and poverty unfettered to luxury and security as his prisoner. He had, en effet, driven her away!
He was no longer willing to be the cause of her misery. If he could find her, he would free her from their disastrous union and give her the happiness and freedom she deserved. He heard a slight clearing of the throat at the door. "Well?" His heart brimming with despair, his eyes never left the gleaming, ebony curl in his hand.
"Your horse is ready, Your Grace," said Laddock.
"Bon! I shall be down directly. Send Hercules to me, s'il vous plâit."
While Hercules helped Robin dress, he reported that the house and stable staff knew nothing and that no one at any of the city's gates had seen a young man answering the duchess's description leaving London.
As Robin descended the stairs in buff coat and riding boots some twenty minutes later, Lady Easterbury hurried toward him, her flushed face veiled in tears. "I just spoke to Laddock, Your Grace! You have to find Lucia! Only to think of her...alone...out there..." Trailing Lady Corinna, Miss Twyll, her own eyes wet, patted the older woman's shoulder.
"I will find her, my lady, I promise you!" Robin clasped her hands reassuringly. With an eye to the presence of an interested footman, he suggested, "Perhaps we should step into the Blue Salon?"
Following the women into the room, Robin firmly closed the door as Miss Twyll retired to a chair in the corner to indulge in a quiet bout of tears and Lady Easterbury rounded on her nephew- in-law, twisting her handkerchief in agitated fingers. "My pretty child...all alone...and in a delicate way! It doesn't bear thinking on! Why did she leave? Why?"
"Because she has very wisely decided that I am not a fit husband for her! And who could blame her?" Robin said.
"I thought you two were getting along very well...that is, until you..." Her ladyship's mouth tightened.
"...Until I leaped to the wrong conclusion, would hear nothing to contradict my own unsound judgment, and, consequently, made a damned, bloody fool of myself!" Robin paced angrily to the mantle and stared into the empty fireplace. "And now both Lucia and I are paying for my stupidity." He straightened to meet Corinna's troubled gaze. "I shall find your niece, my lady, and then I shall free her from this ill-starred marriage."
"A divorce?" Lady Easterbury almost squealed. "But think of the scandal, the shame, the humiliation! Lucia would be well and truly ruined then! You could not be so cruel!"
"Certainly not a divorce!" Robin said indignantly. "What sort of unfeeling monster do you take me for? I shall arrange a separate maintenance, my lady. Lucia shall never lack for anything or the babe either. I will take myself off to parts unknown so that she need never see me again and she can be comfortable. She may even take a lover if she chooses." Robin's voice trembled a little upon his final words, but when Corinna peered up at him, his face was an unreadable mask.
"Maybe if...when you find her, you should give your marriage another chance, Your Grace. You've both made mistakes, I grant, but many couples have achieved great happiness by wiping the slate clean and beginning again."
Robin stared at the countess. "I never thought to hear such advice from your lips, my lady. I imagined that you would be delighted to see me go!"
"When I first heard all the misdeeds Lucia laid at your door, I had quite made up my mind to despise you, but since I've been living here, I've seen how happy she is when you are together..." Her eyes darkened. "At least, she was happy until a few weeks ago... You must find her and...and make a new start!"
"I will find her, my lady. You have my word on it. As for a new start, I can make no promises. I fear events may have gone beyond reconciliation. If you will excuse me, I must go." He bowed and strode from the room.
Lady Easterbury and Miss Twill trailed him out of the house. Standing on the stairs, they watched him mount his huge black stallion. As he swung into the saddle, Corinna said, "You will let me know if...?"
"When I find her, my lady, I shall send word as soon as I can." With a lift of his hat, he urged his horse into the street.
Robin spent the next several hours calling on any of Lucia's acquaintances who might have had even the remotest urge to help her flee him. He stopped at the Malkents' and the Blaynes', questioning both Val and Amaryllis intensively. He received a frosty and fruitless reception at the Saddewythes' and was physically threatened at both the Cothcourts' and the Laddons'.
In desperation, he called upon Mountheathe, discovering without surprise that Giles had left Town for an extended period. The servant could not or would not tell him where Giles had gone.
Since Sir Winston Rochedale's lodging was not far from Heathe House, Robin impulsively elected to visit him as well. In answer to Robin's inquiry, the landlord, a certain Mr. Rumby, told him that Sir Winston had settled his accounts and apparently left the country.
"Left the country!" Robin's brows snapped together as foreboding stirred within him like a waking man.
"E didn't tell me nuffin', do ye see, Your Grace," Rumby said, "but I 'eard 'im mention summat to 'is manservant while they was packin' the coach." Rumby stretched out his hand and Robin pressed a sovereign into it. "'E was talkin' about going to Scotland, sir, and meetin' some uvver cove who owed 'im money. Not that I was eavesdroppin', mind. I just 'appened to over'ear."
***
Robin urged his horse through the morning's traffic, fear and suspicion whirling in his brain as he sifted through Rumby's information and its possible implications. The fact that both Giles and Rochedale should be absent from London at the same time and that Scotland should be touted as a possible destination for each of them could not, in Robin's estimation, be viewed with equanimity. Indeed, the back of his neck prickled as he contemplated this sinister coincidence.
Could it be that Rochedale was somehow involved with Mountheathe in Concordia's abduction...that was, assuming it was true that Giles had carried the young lady off? Fear gripped his heart as he considered the danger to Concordia and to Lucia, too, if the ladies were somehow embroiled together in that pair's unsavory affairs.
Walking along the banks of the Thames, Robin asked after a dark-haired young man who might have bought a passage to America or the Continent or perhaps had signed on as a crewmember aboard some ship headed for foreign shores.
Despite his bribery and persistence, the only information he garnered was that no one had seen a person answering Lucia's description around the docks and that a large ship, carrying both a heavy complement of crew and numerous passengers, had set sail for America with the morning tide. If Lucia had been aboard that ship, he truly had lost her, for he knew from personal experience how easy it was to disappear in the uncharted American wilderness.
He returned to Lynkellyn House at last, weary and confused, a knot of panicky fear tightening his stomach as he envisioned all the evils that might beset Lucia. As he entered the house, shoulders slumped and eyes lowered, a cacophony of voices pleading for news barraged him. The Blaynes and the Malkents had joined Lady Easterbury and Miss Twyll to await his return and they all demanded details of his search.
He straightened to confront this frantic little band, lifting his hand for silence. "Enough!" he shouted above the noise. They fell silent as he said, "I've scoured London... been everywhere I can think of that Lucia might have gone. No one has seen her. I didn't find out a da-" with a glance at the ladies, he amended his speech, "dashed thing, save that both Rochedale and Giles have left Town." Their voices swelled once more and Robin raised his voice to be heard over the din. "Why don't we go into the Blue Salon, ladies and gentlemen? We may talk privately there."
The others followed him into the room. Before he closed the door, he asked Laddock to bring in a tea tray as he had not eaten since the evening before.
His companions began to babble again with renewed fervor and he called for silence, saying, "Tracy, since you are here instead of following Miss Lannington's trail, you must have something of importance to tell us."
"Yes, indeed, Rogue! Norworth and I made some inquiries to the north as you suggested. A man fitting Giles's description pulled into the Red Lion Inn not far from London along the Great North Road and bespoke rooms some two hours after midnight; claimed his valet was sick. The innkeeper didn't actually see the valet because he was completely enveloped in a large travelling cloak. He insisted upon nursing the servant himself."
"Didn't you and Norworth pursue him?" Robin asked.
"The landlord said he left just after dawn and we followed his trail throug
h the next three posting inns, but when we reached the fourth, they had not seen him. Somehow he escaped us. I left Peter to the hunt and hurried back here because the innkeeper also told us something of possible significance to you."
Laddock entered with a heavily laden tea tray. While Lady Easterbury poured tea and the butler served it, Robin tore into a buttered scone.
"According to the Red Lion's proprietor, Giles placed his sick valet in his coach and left around half-past seven this morning," Tracy said. "The landlord remembers it clearly because just before Mountheathe left, another coach drove into the innyard and one of the passengers inside alighted to speak to him. Robin, the second man's description fit Sir Winston Rochedale like a glove."
Silence, interrupted only by the tense rattle of china, permeated the room as Robin's worried grey eyes searched Tracy's. "And?"
"And while checking Mountheathe's harness, one of the hostlers overheard his conversation with Rochedale. The man told me that Giles asked Rochedale if some unnamed deed had been done. Rochedale answered that it had and demanded money. Mountheathe told him he would be paid in a more private place nearer Scotland. Then they named a rendezvous point...the Crown and Thistle Inn, outside Carlisle."
Robin stiffened, his eyes widening. "Not..."
"The very same!" Tracy nodded with a grim smile. "And that's not the whole of it. The hostler also said that he saw a young man, mostly hidden under a black cloak, sleeping in Rochedale's coach. At least, he assumes the young man was asleep. The passenger did not stir or seem even to breath during the period Rochedale spent at the inn. The hostler's description of the youth's face tallied very closely to Lucia's features." As Robin's eyes met Malkent's, his countenance drained of all color and his teacup shook.
Laddock cleared his throat self-consciously, having never before dared to break in on an employer's conversation. "Begging Your Grace's pardon... No desire to interrupt, but..." Amberley shifted his worried gaze to the butler and lifted a brow. "Sir Winston Rochedale called on Her Grace several days ago," Laddock said. "She insisted upon receiving him, but she seemed extremely anxious, terrified, one might even venture to say. Before I announced him, she gave orders for me to wait in the foyer near the door until he left."
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