“Adelaide.”
“The cat, Dylan. Don’t follow us without it.”
“Now was that nice, Yer Grace?” Sully asked as they hurried up the alley where they’d left Lord Wessex’s animal wagon.
*
It was two hours before dawn when Marcus climbed into his carriage to return home. In spite of the hour and the night he had spent, he was very much awake. The thought of telling his mother she had been absolutely right about Jeffries was enough to keep any man awake, but Marcus knew that was not it.
The tale the man told of Addy’s daily visits to the house during Marcus’s recovery, of the conversations she and Julius had about him were nearly too good to be true. No betrothed in the world could have been as attentive and concerned as Addy was and he never even knew it. She’d sat by his bedside and read to him, talked to him. How he wished he could remember it all. All that time with her, wasted.
It made his actions since they’d married even more damnable in his eyes. Fully recovered and awake he’d wasted so much of the time they had together. His guilt over Julius’s death was the shield he’d used to keep away the thing he really feared—her rejection of him as her husband. Clementine had rejected him and betrayed his trust. She’d married so quickly after breaking their engagement, Marcus knew she’d never loved him for all her dramatic declarations before he left to return to war.
His lack of faith in Adelaide and his crippling guilt about Julius had blinded him to the possibility Addy might love him. Perhaps he loved her too. He couldn’t wait to tell her.
The step from the carriage to the ground was his first reminder of how badly he needed to rest his leg. He realized he hadn’t thought about it all evening. When he handed his hat and coat to Fosters he felt an altogether different pain. Seated on a bench in the entrance hall was the last person he wanted to see.
“Marcus, thank God you are home. I am afraid Adelaide is in terrible danger.” Clementine rose gracefully from the bench and attempted to drape herself over Marcus. He held her at arm’s length and sighed
“What are you talking about, Clementine? My wife is upstairs in her bed and I fully intend to join her there. Fosters, will you see the viscountess out?”
Fosters cleared his throat and looked from his master to Clementine and back. Marcus felt an odd prickling at the back of his neck.
“Her Grace is at home, isn’t she, Fosters?”
“Actually, Your Grace, no.” Fosters swallowed a few times. “I do expect her at any moment.”
Marcus took Clementine’s elbow and propelled her into the downstairs parlor. “Where is my wife?”
“Now, Marcus, I am only telling you this as a concerned sister. I have always tried to look after Addy and…”
“Where is she?” Marcus teeth hurt, he grounded them so.
With a sorrow he knew she did not feel Clementine told him. “I overheard her and Dylan plan to meet at Wessex’s townhouse hours ago. Something about a stolen dog.” Marcus pushed her away and shouted for Fosters to have the carriage brought back around.
“I do hope I have done the right thing, Marcus,” Clementine said sweetly as she put on her gloves and coat. “Dylan and Addy have always been so close. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him.”
“Get out of my house, Clementine,” he growled. “And don’t come back.”
*
By the time Dylan reached the mews behind his brother’s house he was furious, scratched up, dirty, and exhausted. He’d had to hide in a feed box in the back of the stable whilst holding a very angry cat for nigh on half an hour before the beadle stopped snooping around the building. It was a miracle the man didn’t stick his head inside and hear the cat growling whilst it sharpened its claws on Dylan’s arm.
“Addy?” he called as he stepped inside and closed the door. The cantankerous cat leapt from his arms, scratching him in the process, and dashed over the stall door to visit the bear, of all creatures. A stirring in the empty stall across the way alerted him to the presence of at least one of his co-conspirators.
Addy had obviously fallen asleep whilst she awaited his return. She sat up and stretched. Once she got a good look at the state he was in she began to laugh.
“Very funny,” he said as he sat down beside her on her makeshift pallet of straw and horse blankets. “Next time, you fetch the cat. Where are Sully and the boy?”
“Sully took him inside for some food and a warm bed. The poor boy was worried sick you had done something to his cat.” She pulled some straw from her hair and gave him an impish grin. “I trust the cat looks no worse than you?”
“Yes, well as I said, the next time…”
“There isn’t going to be a next time, Dylan. I told you that and I meant it.” She pulled herself up and began to brush the straw from her dress and coat. “From now on I am simply the Duchess of Selridge. God help the peerage.”
Dylan was about to argue with her when the door at the end of the mews slammed open with a violent crash.
“Adelaide! Adelaide, are you in here?”
He could not say why he did it. Dylan really didn’t know. At the sound of Selridge’s bellowing voice and halting strides he looked up at Addy’s stricken face and did the first thing that came to mind. Dylan grabbed her hand, dragged her down onto the pallet and before she could utter a sound, he kissed her.
Marcus might have missed finding her at all had he not heard a loud rustling as he stormed through the mews. He wished to God he had remained deaf. There on a bed of straw was his lovely young wife in the arms of the man he suspected she loved all along. The blade of the Frenchman’s sword did not cut so deep nor wound so painfully as this. This blow struck him to his very soul. It hurt to think, to breathe, just to exist with this terrible sight in his mind.
With an inarticulate roar, he grabbed his wife’s lover by the collar and dragged him out of the stall. Crosby tried to fight him off to no avail. It was Addy’s voice that stayed his hand.
“Let him go, Marcus. It isn’t what you think.” The woman had the nerve to order him about as she rose from the dirty floor where she had allowed her lover to take her? Marcus’s fury was an inferno. It turned his reason to ash and threatened to take over his body.
“You are in no position to give me orders, Your Grace. You’ll wait in the carriage whilst I deal with your lover. I will deal with you at home.”
Her pale face and hunched posture almost fooled him into believing she was sorry. It was all a lie, a terrible destructive lie. Crosby had stilled and now stared at Addy’s face.
“She’s right, Selridge. It isn’t what you think. I did this. She didn’t come here for this. She loves you. She…”
“Be still, Crosby. Next, you’ll be challenging me to a duel over my wife’s dubious honor. Which would leave me in the awkward position of having to decline.”
Every sentence he uttered seemed to shake her body like a blow.
“You, madam, will return to Winfield Park until we are certain you aren’t carrying Crosby’s bastard. After which—”
“No, Your Grace. I think not.” Her eyes were flat and cold emphasizing more sharply the paleness of her skin.
“Winfield Park is not the place a duke sends his castoff mistress. It is a place for your wife. I will return to Winfield Abbey. It seems an appropriate place for a woman to contemplate her sins.” The last word was spat at him with sarcastic contempt.
“You are still my wife. You will—”
“No.” she shouted. She lurched toward him, unsteady with rage. “I am not your wife. You have made me your whore by every word you have said. I know now all I ever was to you was a place to take your pleasure. A man does not treat his wife as you have treated me today. A man trusts his wife. I was never your wife.”
They stood locked in silent combat as the onlookers waited in stunned disbelief. In addition to Crosby, the odd little man who had tried to stop Marcus entering the mews, and a young boy looked on as he and Addy stared at each other,
unmoving.
“Sully?” she said. Her voice was but a ghost of sound.
“Yes, Yer Grace?”
“Will you take me to Winfield Abbey?”
“Of course, Yer Grace.” He scurried away and took the boy with him, Marcus assumed to ready a carriage.
“I’ll escort you, Addy. This is all my fault,” Crosby offered. Marcus stepped toward him threateningly, but Addy beat him to it.
She delivered a ringing slap to the man’s cheek, and then another. “I will never forgive you for what you have done, Dylan Crosby. Never.” She walked away cloaked in such dignity and pain it hurt Marcus to watch.
“I will send Bess and your things.” The words felt like broken glass as they crawled out of his throat. Her expression as she turned back staggered him. With deliberate care, she slipped off her rings and dropped them at his feet.
“Don’t bother, Your Grace. There is nothing here I want,” she replied.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The study reeked of stale cigars, old brandy, and absolute misery. They had obviously come to the right place. Creighton and Tillie weaved around the broken glass, pieces of newspaper, and other debris until they arrived at the large horsehair sofa that held their prey—their very lumpy, smelly prey. When a few shakes of the shoulder did not suffice, Creighton grabbed a corner of the blanket tucked in around Selridge and rolled him out onto the floor.
“What the bloody hell!” Selridge fought with the blanket and once he was free of it, tried to sit up. He failed. With bloodshot eyes, he stared up at them and blinked. “Who let you in?”
“We let ourselves in actually. It appears you gave your staff the day off.” Creighton looked around the room. “Perhaps several days, actually.” A lie. Selridge didn’t need to know that. The thing about the Selridge household was nothing short of a plague would stop the efficiency Fosters instilled in the duke’s staff. And their loyalty was without question. That is why he and Tillie were summoned. The duke was not doing well with the sudden departure of his duchess.
“Well you can just let yourselves out,” Selridge muttered as he crawled to the couch and used it to pull himself up. “The duke is not at home to anyone.”
“We’re not anyone, Selridge,” Tillie said sunnily. “We’re your friends. And besides, we have an important message for you.”
Creighton rolled his eyes and sighed. He should never have agreed to this hair-brained scheme, let alone have involved Tildenbury. The man was incapable of keeping secrets.
“What kind of message?” Selridge was trying to feign disinterest, and failing abysmally.
“Not from your wife, if that is what you thought,” Tillie said. “We don’t know anything about your wife.”
Creighton stifled a groan. It was time to put an end to this before Tillie ruined the entire thing. He produced a sealed envelope from his pocket and shoved it at Selridge. “It’s from your steward. They need you at Winfield Park right away. Some sort of crisis. I suggest you clean yourself up whilst I tell Fosters to have someone saddle your horse.”
“My horse? Why do I need my horse? I have a carriage. I have several carriages.” Selridge got to his feet and stumbled around in search of something. When he spied one of his Hessians in a chair he picked it up and sat in the chair. Tillie waddled around in search of the other boot.
“A horse will be quicker. Can’t be good news if your man sent a personal courier. Best to hurry.”
Tillie dragged the boot from under a broken table and handed it to Selridge. “Yes, you need to be at the gates of Winfield Park in a few—” Creighton clapped his hand over Tillie’s mouth and proceeded to hurry him out the door.
“I’ll just tell Fosters to send to the stables for your horse, Selridge.” With a slight wave, he left the man to contemplate his boots and hurried Tillie out the front door and down the street. As they reached the corner, Crosby stepped out of the shrubbery to meet them.
“Well? Did he take the bait?” he asked.
“I think so. We’ll know in a few minutes.” Creighton looked at Crosby skeptically.
“I’m still not sure we should be doing this.” Tillie shook his head over and over.
“Tildenbury, we don’t have a choice. Addy is pining away at Winfield Abbey. She won’t see me. She won’t eat. She’s not sleeping. We have to fix this.” Crosby didn’t look too well himself. He looked almost as bad as Selridge.
“It is interesting you are the one who caused this mess, and we are the ones who have to clean it up,” Creighton observed.
“Selridge isn’t likely to listen to anything I have to say under the present circumstances. I thought if I showed him…”
At the sound of hoofbeats on the cobblestones, all three of them stepped around the corner and watched as Selridge cantered by on one of his prime pieces of horseflesh. “Is that one of the Turk’s colts?” Tillie inquired. “Fine goers those. It’ll be hard to keep up.”
Creighton couldn’t believe the man had actually said something intelligent and useful. He stared at Crosby who stared at Tildenbury in puzzled awe. “Well, even a blind dog finds a bone on occasion.” They each grabbed Tillie by an arm and rushed to their own mounts.
*
All along the road between London and his Kent estate, Marcus thought of Adelaide. In fact, she was all he had thought about since that night, or rather that morning after the Fathringham Ball. Those wounded eyes, the pain in her voice, and the sound of her rings as they dropped to the dirt at his feet haunted his dreams.
She had betrayed him. He was certain of it and still his heart would not let her go. Or more to the point, she would not let him go. He’d tried to remember everything Jeffries said, but the memory of her in Crosby’s arms continued to get in the way. It didn’t matter. Two things he knew for certain. She was not coming back, and he would love her until the day he died. And death was being damned slow about coming. He’d even allowed his mother and Lady Haverly into the house in the hope the two of them would at least talk him to death. No luck there either, although not for lack of trying on their part.
He missed her so much it became a living breathing thing in his life—this want of his wife. The house was cold and empty without her. His bed was cold and empty. His life was cold and empty. All he saw ahead of him was a lifetime of cold and empty. Rather like a grave he had dug himself and could not gain the courage to escape.
The loud report of a pistol and the snort and shy of his horse brought Marcus quickly back to earth. He was at the gates of Winfield Park, but they were blocked by an ancient relic of a carriage. A black bundle of rags appeared to be on the driver’s bench and three masked men on horseback came around it to circle him. They were brandishing pistols and shouting in strange, low voices.
“Climb down, guv, and nobody gets ’urt,” one of them ordered. Were it not for the guns he would laugh at the irony of it all. If he played his cards right he could at least make Addy a rich widow. Before he knew it, two of them dragged him from his horse and hitched the animal to the back of the carriage. There seemed to be some sort of disagreement about the proper way to tie him up. He opened his mouth to offer to help only to have a gag thrust in it. They got that much right at least. He couldn’t make a sound.
He didn’t understand why he wasn’t more afraid. He was obviously being kidnapped and yet he felt no fear. He felt nothing. Addy had taken all of that with her. However, once they covered his head with a feed sack that smelled distinctly of rotten apples he did feel something—revolted. Marcus grunted in pain as they picked him up and attempted to shove him in the carriage. They banged his head on the door and then dropped him into a large puddle of water.
An argument broke out as to whose fault it was. They sounded like a bunch of fishwives haggling over the price of cod. Yet their voices rang vaguely familiar. In spite of the stench Marcus tried to take a deep breath. It was a mistake as he inhaled a good bit of muddy water and very little air. It wasn’t until he began to choke in earnest his capto
rs realized he might be drowning. Then he was hauled up, wet and smelly, and shoved onto the seat of the old carriage. In moments, the ancient conveyance rocked to a start and began to bounce along the road like a boy’s marble tossed down the stairs.
Marcus wondered. Could his life possibly get any worse?
*
Delbert Finch stared at the short round figure of Winfield Abbey’s housekeeper and smiled. He had all the evidence he needed to arrest the Duchess of Selridge for thievery and the murder of his son. Once he had her, he knew the duplicitous Mr. Crosby would turn himself in as well. Everyone knew the chit had retired to the Abbey under mysterious circumstances, but he knew the truth. Thanks to his new friend, Viscountess Edgehill, he had all the proof he needed.
“She isn’t at home to anyone, sir. I’ll thank you to get off the doorstep so I can close the door,” Mrs. Church said as she made good on her threat to close the door in his face.
Finch slammed his hand against the door and growled. He’d send for the militia. In a week’s time, Selridge’s upstart duchess would pay for her poor treatment of him. Just wait and see.
Inside the house, Mrs. Church looked nervously from the maids to the footmen, to the estate manager, Mr. Puddlesby. “What do we do now?” She glanced up the stairs. “That poor girl is in no shape to deal with that horrible man. What do we do, Mr. Puddlesby?” They all looked at him expectantly.
“Thomas, do you ride?” he asked the footman.
“Like I was born to it, Mr. Puddlesby,” the young man said with a knowing grin.
“Well, there you have it, Mrs. Church. Thomas, take the fastest horse we have and fetch the duke. Our duchess is in trouble.”
The young man dashed towards the back of the house, the quickest route to the stables.
“What happens if the magistrate comes back before His Grace arrives?” This question came from one of the young maids.
“Do you shoot, Mrs. Church?” Puddlesby asked.
“Like I was born to it, Mr. Puddlesby. Do I look like a woman who can’t shoot her own dinner?”
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