One for the Rogue

by Charis Michaels

  “I am wrong for her,” he said instead. “And she is not pursuing me, not in a romantic way. She has ambitions for her future as a woman of business in America. And she is far too refined to give chase. But I am not refined, as you know, and if I give her too much regard, well . . . I feel responsible for safeguarding her innocence. I see no other way to effectively do this but to stay away.”

  “Another blow to your reputation as a scoundrel, I’m afraid. You feel very responsible all ’round.”

  “I don’t care about my reputation,” Beau said. “I care about hers.”

  To this, Ned Barnes had no answer, thank God, and they worked together in companionable silence until Polly Barnes came running to the orchard with a telltale folded letter in her hands.

  Cheerfully, she extended it to Beau. “Another letter came just now. I thought you would like to see right away.”

  Beau refused to look at Ned as he nodded to Polly and took the letter, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. Trying not to appear as eager as he felt, he broke the seal.

  Dear Beau,

  I’m sorry to entreat you in this manner, but I am frantic with worry. Teddy has gone missing again, and we are all desperate to find him. You discovered him before. May I impose upon you to return and do it again?

  Emma

  This letter, he only read once. After he read it, he folded it, tucked it into his pocket, and ran from the orchard. A quarter hour later, after he’d declined dinner and refused to wait out the threatening rain, he had saddled his horse, bolted to the road to London, and was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tears of relief stung Emmaline’s eyes when the viscount blew into her dower house with a cold blast of icy rain. He was mud-splattered and wind-whipped, soaked from the storm. His brother stood by the fire and called out to him, scolding him for dripping on the rug and wearing his hat indoors, but Beau ignored him and strode to Emmaline, coming to a stop before her and jerking off his hat. His blue eyes were creased with worry and something else, something starkly different from the regard of every other friend or stranger who’d turned up to help search. Resolve.

  Not anguish, not hopelessness—resolve.

  For the first time since Teddy had disappeared, Emmaline felt like someone looked beyond her alleged nerves or supposed hysterics and would get down to the business of simply finding her brother.

  “What’s happened?” the viscount said lowly.

  “Beau?” called his brother from behind him. “Don’t crowd her, for God’s sake. What are you doing here?”

  Rainsleigh ignored him. His eyes were locked on Emmaline’s. He raised his eyebrows.

  “Two nights ago,” she told him. “His Grace had called on us after dinner with six or seven of his children. One of the girls had prepared a song on the pianoforte, and the duke thought I would enjoy a listen. While the child played, the duke’s sons filed out into the garden, and they coaxed Teddy to follow. They were gone only minutes before I escaped to check on them. By then, one of the boys had opened the garden gate and Teddy, apparently . . . wandered out.” She paused, struggling for composure. “The boys claim they did not know how long he’d been gone or what direction he went.”

  “So the duke knows he gone?”

  Emmaline nodded. “Oh, he knows. And he is making a show of his deep concern. He volunteered to call personally to Bow Street for help, but he did not return with an officer for hours. Meanwhile, I searched up and down the intersecting streets surrounding Portman Square and Baker Street. I called his name. I knocked on doors in the dark. Out of desperation, I sent for your brother, who came with Joseph and Stoker, and they searched the park nearly all night. But we found nothing.” Her voice broke, and she gulped in a breath. “Not a trace. It’s as if he’s vanished into thin air. And now it’s been days. And it’s so cold, especially at night. By some miracle, he was wearing his coat, but . . . ”

  Her voice broke again, and the viscount bit off his glove and reached for her, closing his fingers around her arm.

  “Take heart,” he said lowly, stepping closer. “Emma, stop. Do not cry. I will find him.” The certainty of his words bolstered her as much as the touch of his hand. She nodded, composing herself, trying not to lean into him. She glanced at his brother, who hovered nearby, listening to their exchange.

  To her dismay, the tears in her eyes began to fall in earnest, jumping down her cheeks even while she blinked and blinked, breathing hard, trying not to give in to the threatening despair.

  The viscount sighed and bit off his second glove, scuffing the teardrops with his knuckles. “I found him the first time, didn’t I?” he whispered. “And I wasn’t even looking.”

  She chuckled, raising her chin, refusing to give in to the hysterics for which they’d all been waiting. The viscount squeezed her arm and held it. She topped his hand with her own.

  “Beau?” said Mr. Courtland, stepping up. “I worry that you’re not giving the dowager duchess enough—”

  “And I worry that you,” shot back Beau, “could not find sand if you fell from a bloody camel.” He squeezed her arm again before stepping away. “Where are Stoker and Joseph?” he asked his brother, tugging his gloves back on and reseating his hat.

  “They’ve been out for two hours, searching the park again,” Mr. Courtland answered cautiously. He stared at the viscount with something akin to astonishment. “But Beau, take care. You lead these raids to collect Elisabeth’s girls, I know. And you’ve seen God knows what kind of adventure on your travels. But the Duke of Ticking has been very involved in the search, going so far as to muster Bow Street himself. He’s not present at the moment, but I feel—”

  The viscount cut him off. “I don’t care about the duke or Bow Street. Will Falcondale help?”

  Mr. Courtland opened his mouth to oppose him, but his wife was suddenly beside him, yanking him to her height and whispering feverishly in his ear. Emmaline could not hear the words, but Elisabeth’s expression dared him to contradict her.

  When he spoke again, Mr. Courtland was contrite. “Elisabeth wishes to vouch for your leadership.” He coughed. “And of course I trust you. Forgive me. Tensions are high. No one is gladder that you’ve come than I.”

  I am, thought Emmaline. I am gladder. She looked back and forth between the two brothers.

  Mr. Courtland continued. “Falcondale and I were making inquiries on the other side of the park, but only I returned. I came in at sunset to encourage Elisabeth to go home.” Now it was his turn to cast a threatening look on his wife. “Miss Breedlowe will wait with the dowager duchess.”

  Rainsleigh nodded. “Elisabeth, go home and rest. You bring extra worry for all of us, not to mention fresh guilt for the dowager duchess if you overextend yourself or the baby.”

  He didn’t wait for her to reply but turned back to Emmaline. “I’ll spend thirty minutes changing horses and walking the length of the garden myself. I’ll examine the gate by which Teddy allegedly left. When Joseph and Stoker return”—he looked at his brother—“we’ll make a plan for our next move based on anything they may have discovered. It is lucky the boys have not yet returned to school. Bryson, have you slept? Can you ride?”

  Mr. Courtland nodded slowly, watching his brother. “Yes. I can ride.”

  “Can your stables provide me with a fresh mount?”

  “Yes, of course. They’re your bloody horses.”

  Rainsleigh scowled, and Emmaline stepped up. “I’ve asked the kitchen to bring whatever they can for you and the other searchers.”

  When he looked at her—really looked at her—she wanted to go to him so badly, she ached with it.

  “Thank you,” he said, and then he winked at her. It was exactly the right gesture, and her heart lurched.

  “Which way to the garden?” he asked. “I’ll need two grooms with lanterns outside so I can bloody see in the bloody dark.”

  When he was gone, Emmaline raced to the kitchen to check on a meal and then to her desk to writ
e a list of the events of the night as best she remembered, with times and the names and ages of the duke’s sons from the garden. She added her hasty impression of each boy, just to be thorough. If she had to guess, she knew which one had opened the gate, and she made a note of this too.

  How good it felt to write this down, she thought, her pen racing across the paper, to give it to someone who would read it, who might bloody use it. Mr. Courtland had been concerned and helpful, but he deferred to the Duke of Ticking. And His Grace?

  The duke had responded to Teddy’s disappearance with pompous bluster but fractional sincerity. He’d taken a very high-handed, almost saintly role in the ensuing search. With escalating volume, he’d lamented the danger the boy was in while also tsking over the daily risk Teddy posed as a “dim-witted imbecile” who would be “better served by confinement” under the safety of lock and key.

  Emmaline had failed at civility every time the duke called, despite his obvious displeasure. On a normal day, he would never stand for such rudeness, but he was too busy making a lordly impression on the various officers to scold her. The more they “Your Grace’d” him and bent and stooped, the less he seemed to notice Emmaline’s failed reverence. The search for Teddy was clearly an afterthought.

  If it had not been for her friends, she would have no effective help at all.

  Through it all, Emmaline held her tongue. Teddy would be found, she told herself—she forced herself to believe. After that, her plan to leave London and seek her fortune in New York would commence. The more she rankled Ticking, even now, the more difficult it would be to make this escape. So she endured his false worry and ineffective lordly intervention, and she relied on her friends. And she paced. And she prayed.

  And then the viscount had come, and now the real work of finding Teddy was underway.

  Just after dawn on the morning of the third day, not long after the Duke of Ticking had called on the dower house to check on the progress of the Bow Street Runners, Emmaline had her first flicker of an answered prayer.

  She’d been enduring the ruminations of the duke, refilling his coffee and calling for more cake, when Rainsleigh, followed by Mr. Courtland, Lord Falcondale, Stoker, and Joseph crowded into her breakfast room. She gasped, her heart lodging in her throat, and scrambled around the table.

  Please, please, please, she thought, seeking out the viscount.

  He stood near the back, wetter and more mud-streaked than the others. Their gazes locked, and he did not look away.

  His brother, meanwhile, had seen the duke and stepped forward.

  “Your Grace, good morning. Forgive this disruption to your breakfast.”

  “The duke is not breakfasting,” Emmaline cut in. “Please, tell me what you’ve found. Anything?”

  Mr. Courtland held out a hand, gesturing . . . what? His gesture was beyond interpretation. She was desperate for an earnest answer. She looked frantically between Mr. Courtland and the viscount.

  Mr. Courtland continued, still addressing the duke. “We’ve come straight from searching through the night, and we do have a small piece of news.”

  Emmaline gasped again and clasped the back of the nearest chair.

  “At the risk of misleading you, I am happy to report that we have happened on a clue.”

  Now Emmaline clapped a hand over her mouth to contain a sob. She looked to the viscount again. He was watching her, and he gave a slow, measured nod. He eyed the duke, looked annoyed, and then looked at her again. He waited for his brother to continue.

  “Two ballet dancers leaving Covent Garden after a performance last night,” continued Mr. Courtland, “claimed to have seen a boy matching Teddy’s description sitting on a bench beneath a lamplight, eating something—a piece of fruit or a potato, perhaps.”

  “Was he wearing his coat and hat?” Emmaline interjected. She’d lain awake every night, imagining him freezing to death in an alley.

  “They did not mention a hat,” Mr. Courtland said. “But they did see his coat. Distinctive, you’d said. Red.”

  Emmaline reached out for the next chair back, then the next. “Did they speak to him?”

  “No, unfortunately, but they claim he was talking to someone else. An old man. This man approached the boy, and they said he looked like a priest or some member of clergy. They were under the impression he was giving the boy some kind of aid, perhaps taking him in.”

  Emmaline considered this, clutching the chair tightly enough to fracture the back. If only Teddy could recite his address. She and Miss Breedlowe had worked with him on this for hours. He could easily memorize the direction; it was just a matter of getting him to say the words.

  She asked, “But how can we find this clergyman? Did the women know his church?”

  Now the duke was making belligerent snorting noises, shoving away from the table and throwing his napkin with a flourish. He stumped to Emmaline and stood beside her, taking full measure of the men, their wet clothing, and red eyes, bleary from no sleep. Only Mr. Courtland was dressed like a true gentleman, and his coat and boots were smeared with mud. They all smelled like damp horse and frost.

  Before Mr. Courtland could answer her question, the duke cut in, “I beg your pardon, Courtland, this is all very colorful and dramatic, and look how you have distressed the dowager duchess. If this was your goal, you’ve certainly achieved it. But let me assure you that I have applied to the Runners of Bow Street on this matter, and I have every confidence that their official search will produce the errant boy in due time. The officer assigned to the incident calls on me with regular briefings, and I can assure you that I’ve heard no such thing about ballet dancers, or red coats, or men in the night.”

  Mr. Courtland cleared his throat. “Quite so, sir . . . ” He revealed the first twinge of annoyance but remained cordial. “Since the boy has been missing, I’ve worked—”

  From behind him, the viscount cut his brother off. “Bryson, please. The duchess asked a bloody question. Her sanity hangs in the balance.”

  Mr. Courtland hesitated, looking from the viscount to Emmaline to the duke. The viscount swore under his breath and shoved his way to the front. Ignoring the duke, he said to Emmaline, “The dancers have seen the man in Covent Garden before. He ministers to drunks and street boys, apparently. They could not give us his name or direction, but they felt sure he would be a friend to your brother, not a threat.”

  “Yes, right,” murmured Emmaline, making sense of this.

  The viscount continued. “You’ll remember that ministries such as these are your friend Elisabeth’s bread and butter. Her foundation would not operate without the network of charitable-minded parsons, vicars, rabbis, and priests that inform her and give her patrons aid. She knows every open door and hot meal in the city. She will help us discover this man.”

  “Yes, of course.” Emmaline nodded, blinking back tears. Her heart raced. She felt spent and exhilarated at the same time. The viscount was right. If the man really was a clergyman, Elisabeth’s connections could provide a place for them to start.

  Rainsleigh went on. “But I’ll need you to work with her to draw up a clear list. When we know on which doors to knock, we can return to the streets with a little direction.”

  “Work?” blustered the duke beside Emmaline. “Perhaps you were not aware, sir, but the dowager duchess is in mourning. There is no place for her dealing personally in this search. And certainly not on the hearsay of . . . ballet dancers or men who prowl Covent Garden at night.”

  Emmaline ignored the duke. “I can do it,” she said. She signaled for Dyson to bring her coat.

  To the duke, she said, “It’s no fool’s errand, Your Grace. It is the only lead we have.”

  The duke’s eyes narrowed as he considered this. He glanced back and forth between the group of men and Emmaline. She went on, invoking a new tone. “Please understand, I will assist them. In any way I can.”

  The viscount looked at Emmaline. “If your carriage is available, Your Grace, I’ll
see you to Henrietta Place.”

  Emmaline nodded, but the duke stopped them cold, exploding with an indignant sound of outrage and denial. “And who, sir, do you believe that you are?”

  The duke’s hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and his neck seemed to extend, red and bulging, from his cravat. His eyes bored into Rainsleigh’s.

  Oh, no. Emmaline looked at the viscount, holding her breath.

  Mr. Courtland opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. He too looked at his brother.

  Stoker and Joseph shuffled back.

  Lord Falcondale stood shoulder to shoulder with Rainsleigh, slowly shaking his head.

  To his credit, the viscount did not swell up or shout. He stared levelly at the smaller man. After a long moment, he used a gloved hand to tip his hat from his head. He stepped easily around his brother.

  “Who am I?” he repeated calmly. “I’m Beauregard Courtland, Viscount Rainsleigh. Who the bloody hell are you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Beau’s heart pounded like the toll of a bell. Emmaline’s carriage waited, steps away, and he forced himself to take long, measured strides instead of a blind sprint.

  I’ve said it. I’ve survived it.

  I’ve said it, and the world did not end.

  He’d tossed out his full name and the title like a weapon, as ineffective as it felt. Now it seemed stuck in his gut, rapidly bleeding him to death. He was freezing; he’d been freezing all night, but now he was also sweating.

  He glanced back at Emmaline, but she was whispering last-minute orders to the butler. Her problems were far greater, of course. What was his bloody torment over the title when compared to a missing boy?

  He held his breath for two beats and then exhaled heavily. He’d said the name only once, after all. Likely, it hardly registered. His brother had heard. And Falcondale. But they were allies.

  Of course, he’d wanted the duke to hear his title, easily the first time he’d ever wanted this. But it was a means to an end. Put off the duke. Protect Emma. Earn himself a place in the search.