The Lost Heiress

by Roseanna M. White

  The butler’s alarm seemed genuine, and he certainly wasted no time in showing them into a parlor and going to fetch Pratt. Justin exchanged a glance with Worthing. If Pratt had her at Delmore, surely someone on his staff knew it. But if he were any judge, it wasn’t that one.

  The purse of Worthing’s mouth bespoke a similar thought.

  Silence held until Pratt strode in a moment later, a pale-faced Lady Catherine—Lady Pratt—behind him. “Whitby.” His expression turned to half a sneer when he spotted Justin. “And Stafford and Worthing. I never expected to welcome the two of you into my home.”

  “We haven’t time for youth’s rivalries just now, Pratt.” Whitby’s spine had gone straight as Stonehenge, and his face as hard. “Brook is missing.”

  The lady gripped her husband’s arm, horror on her face. Pratt frowned. “Missing how?”

  “Missing missing. She drove her maid to the train station yesterday and never returned. We found her car pushed off the road, into a copse of trees.”

  The constable stepped forward. “My men scoured the area thoroughly. We found no trace of her, precisely, but there was a set of carriage tracks leading from the area in question and heading here.”

  If Catherine pressed any closer to Pratt’s side, it would require a tool to separate them. “You must be mistaken, sir.”

  The constable blinked at her. “Mud doesn’t lie, my lady.”

  “Mud.” She blinked too, with an innocence that they surely all knew was feigned. “Oh, you know, I do believe I heard the rain, now that you mention it. Although—” here she rested her head against her husband’s shoulder—“I confess we’ve paid very little attention to the outside world. We were married on Sunday, you know.”

  When Pratt smiled down at her, Justin could almost believe, for half a second, that love existed there. But if it did, Pratt wouldn’t have been pursuing Brook so relentlessly, so recently. His expression looked more pragmatic when he looked over to the constable. “A carriage, you say? I haven’t even used one in months. I’ve a new car, and when the roads are impassable for it, I ride.”

  The constable folded his hands before him. “I noticed an old one behind the carriage house that has been out recently.”

  Something flashed in Pratt’s eyes—a flare, quickly gone. But there. “That thing … I’ve given the servants use of it—you’ll have to ask them.”

  Lifting his chin, the constable strode forward. “I’ll go and see if they’ve gathered then, shall I?”

  The lady pried herself off Pratt’s side. “I’ll accompany you, sir. I hate to think of my poor cousin being missing!”

  Pratt watched her go, his gaze lingering on her hips. “You know, I wasn’t certain how I would take to it, but I’m finding married life to be most enjoyable.”

  “Our felicitations.” Somehow Worthing managed to say it with a smile, yet in a tone that contained only irony. “But I’m afraid we’ve come to ask you to interrupt your honeymoon for a few hours. We need everyone we can muster out looking for her.”

  Pratt lifted a brow. “Apparently, if they’ve called you in from London. Can the Season continue without you, Worthing? Or did you come to Yorkshire with amorous intentions?”

  Justin had never had cause to see Worthing bristle quite so much. “I came,” he said with cold deliberation, “because my friends needed me. Will you join us or not?”

  “This was a bad idea.” Justin stepped forward, unable to stand inactive anymore. “Whitby, I’ll wait outside.”

  Justin pushed past and made for the exit.

  His host followed. “Stafford, wait.”

  He would rather get out of the house. Every moment he spent inside made him more ill at ease. So he didn’t turn. He figured Whitby and Worthing weren’t far behind, but he didn’t verify that either.

  He charged for the sunshine, for fresh air. And made it down the front steps before a hand on his arm stopped him.

  He shook it off even as he spun. Maybe Pratt thought his expression was one of concern—but it was too dark, too hate-filled. Justin’s fingers curled into his palm. “What?”

  Pratt’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll help in the search. I must make sure Kitty is well first—she has been ill every morning this week—but then I’ll join you.”

  He’d chased him down to say that? “Fine.” Justin turned again.

  “Duke!”

  A growl formed in his throat as he slowly pivoted back. “What?”

  Pratt had a hand extended. “I know we’ve never liked each other. But we can put it aside for this, can’t we? A truce.”

  The last thing he wanted to do was put his hand in Pratt’s. Those hands could well have hurt Brook. But he could hear the constable in his head, telling him not to tip their hand too much, too soon. With monumental effort, he uncurled his fingers and put his palm to Pratt’s. “I will find her.” Perhaps it came out more as a threat than a declaration … but if so, so be it.

  Pratt held too hard to Justin’s fingers. He had to tug to free them, and then they curled of their own will back into a fist.

  Pratt smirked. “I know you’ll not want to hear this from me, but have you considered the possibility that she left of her own volition?”

  His fingers dug into his palm. “Excuse me?”

  A lifted brow joined the smirk as Pratt shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s no secret the two of you have been at odds. What did you think she would do when you followed her here, hounding her steps? She probably ran away just to escape you.”

  Before Justin was even aware of giving his arm the command, it had pulled back, flown forward, and his fist connected with the reprobate’s nose. A satisfying crunch met his ears, and a pleasant pain scourged his knuckles.

  “Stafford!” Worthing cried, and his tone was a cross between warning, outrage, and a laugh.

  Pratt staggered back, his eyes glazed. He touched a hand to the blood dripping from his nose. Then his eyes flashed hot fury, and he lunged.

  Thirty-One

  The sound of a gun’s report brought Brook to her feet, sending the open journal to the floor. “What was that?”

  Deirdre, sitting at the desk, stood more slowly. “A shot?”

  “A shot.” And it struck her right in the heart, bringing to life the fears Maman’s words, and those she had written about Mother, had already ignited. Fire raced through her, and her legs insisted on moving. She went to the door, tried the latch. Flew to the bricked-over windows. Surely one, somewhere, was loose.

  “Likely someone hunting.”

  “No.” Her fingers bit into brick and crumbling mortar. Gripped, pushed, but they wouldn’t give. “It was a pistol, not a rifle.”

  “You can tell that?”

  Of course she could—though the sound had been distant. Still, her heart hammered, pressure seizing her head. A cloud of panic swirled around her. She slapped a hand to the brick. “Papa! Are you out there? Help!”

  “My lady, if Pratt hears you screaming—”

  “I don’t care. Papa! Justin!” They must be out there. Why else would someone be firing a pistol? They had found her. Or trace of her. They were there.

  They were there—and a shot had been fired. By whom? She flew back to the door, pounded upon it. “Help! Let me out! Someone help!” She had to get to them. She must. They were there, so near, and bullets were flying—or one, anyway. Why had there not been a second? Had they killed Pratt? Or …

  “Help!” She had to get to Papa. She had to tell him what that journal said, the truth of what sent Mother into the night. She had to. He needed, finally, those answers.

  “My lady!” Deirdre tried to pull her away from the door—Brook shrugged off her hands. They landed again, and gripped her more firmly. “Stop. Please, I beg you.”

  “Someone will hear. Someone will come and help.”

  “Someone may hear, yes.” Fear drenched Deirdre’s tone. “And when they try to come, Pratt will kill them. And then be so furious with us …”

>   No. No. She had to get out. She had to, that certainty gripped her far more strongly than Deirdre ever could. She broke free and went back to pounding and screaming. She wouldn’t give up … though her hand stung. Her throat burned. Evidence that time was passing, though it all seemed frozen to her.

  Were they still there? Did they know she was?

  The door pushed inward, suddenly and forcefully enough to knock her down. For one glorious second she hoped—then she looked up and saw Pratt towering over her. Blood soaked his shirt, stained his chin. He had a laceration on his cheek. And such bright hatred in his eyes that she recoiled, scrabbling back along the floor until she bumped into the cot. Was that the look that had been in his father’s eyes as he and John Rushworth chased down her mother?

  He whipped something at her head. She raised her arm to deflect it but gasped in pain when it hit her arm—though small, it was solid and heavy and clanged when it skidded across the floor.

  “You want your precious duke? That’s all you’ll ever get of him!”

  Justin? Resisting the urge to rub at what would surely become a welt, she pulled herself to her knees. There, glinting in the lamplight—gold. “No.” Shaking too hard to stand, she crawled to it. It couldn’t be—no. Justin would never, never take off his signet. He hadn’t since his grandfather’s death. It was there, always there on his right ring finger, where he could twirl it around.

  The familiar lion and cross of Stafford rose from the gold. The recessed places were dark and, when she picked it up with shaking fingers, sticky. Blood. She closed her fist around it. “What have you done?” Did the words even make it past her dry lips?

  They must have, because he laughed. “Exactly what I said I’d do. Except I didn’t have to worry with hiding the body—he attacked me. I was defending myself, and the constable was there to see it.”

  He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to her feet. “Now you’ll believe me, hmm? Your father’s next, my lady.”

  “Non!” She kicked him in the shins, slammed her ring-encasing fist into the laceration on his cheek.

  He cursed her, but his hand loosed its hold on her curls. The moment it did, she took off for the door. He hadn’t locked it behind him, hadn’t even closed it all the way. She need only reach it, get through it, and then—

  He slammed into her, slammed her into the door, slammed it closed. “Going somewhere, darling?”

  Held there, pinned between the damp wooden door and him, she smelled mold and blood. Justin’s blood? She squeezed her eyes shut tight. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t her soul know it if he were?

  But hadn’t she felt unaccountable fear at that gunshot? A sob balled up in her throat, surging upward but getting caught before it could do more than make her shudder. So much darkness. So much violence, and for what? A couple of diamonds stained red from it all? Had her arms been free, she would have reached up to rip the necklace from her throat. “You fool! You terrible, cruel fool. They’re right here, you can have them. I don’t care anymore! Just let me go to him. Maybe he’s not dead, maybe he can be saved, maybe—”

  “What is she saying?” Pratt’s words came out harsh, and he pushed her harder to the door.

  “It’s Monegasque, my lord.”

  Another sob started in her stomach and convulsed its way upward, this one making it all the way past her lips. She couldn’t even speak the right language. Couldn’t act, couldn’t escape, couldn’t help Justin—and that was assuming he wasn’t beyond help. She couldn’t give her father the truth, couldn’t keep her maid safe, couldn’t break the curse that greed had wrought.

  The necklace felt like hands around her throat. Pratt’s hands, stained with blood. So much blood. “Justin.”

  “Should have learned long ago to control that temper of his. Now talk. Where are the Fire Eyes?”

  “In my necklace.”

  He pulled her back a few inches just to slam her to the door again. “English!”

  She was trying! But when she opened her mouth again, no words emerged at all, only a cry that snatched her breath away and made her every muscle shudder. Once open, the floodgates wouldn’t be stopped. Her knees buckled, and she would have slid toward the floor if he hadn’t still been holding her there.

  Pratt made a disgusted noise, gripped her shoulders, and tossed her aside. Landing on the floor, she drew her knees to her chest and shut her eyes against the light from the lamp. It had no place here, with all the darkness. With the thunder of his anger. With the lightning of his hatred.

  She wanted Justin. To hear his voice, whispering assurances. To feel his arms about her, promising a tomorrow worth fighting for. She wanted her father, with his dry sense of humor and fathomless understanding. She wanted home.

  All she had was a bloodied ring and a tongue that wouldn’t speak English long enough to make it all stop.

  Hands soothed over her hair, so gentle that they must be Deirdre’s. “She needs time to calm down.”

  As if time could reverse the damage done. Could heal him, bring him to her door.

  “She has an hour—or Whitby’s next. It would be easy enough for him to meet with an accident while out looking for her.”

  “Non!” She forced her limbs to uncurl, forced herself up, away from Deirdre. To her knees and then her feet. “Non!”

  The door shut with a pistol’s bang. The key in the lock ground like a bullet sliding into the chamber.

  She fell onto the door again, pounding. Screaming. Even she didn’t know now what words she shouted, whether they were plea or command or denial. She didn’t know what she meant to do when he reentered. She should have thought. Should have found something to use as a weapon. Should have …

  When the door pushed back, he had his gun in his hand and fury in his eyes. “Shut up!”

  Never. Bellowing at the top of her lungs, she threw herself at him. If he shot her, she’d at least draw some blood first. Her nails bit his cheek, raked down.

  A sickening thud echoed in her ears … in her skull. All other sound faded. The world went fuzzy and seemed to freeze, then shift. Slowly, as if she were viewing it all through morning fog, the room went sideways and the floor embraced her. Then the lamp went out.

  “Wake up, my lady. Please.” Deirdre had said the words so often, they had begun to sound nonsensical. The burning of the lamp was the only measure she had of passing time. She had filled it while Pratt cursed and lifted the baroness onto the cot, the only thing she could think to do to look unconcerned, when she’d wanted to rush over and try to rouse her.

  She’d refilled it again since. That meant that at least sixteen hours had passed. More, now. A day must be done, a new one beginning. And still the baroness hadn’t stirred. Hadn’t wakened.

  He’d come back once, when the lamp was still half full. The tempest on his face when he saw the lady was still unconscious … To her utter surprise, he hadn’t taken it out on Deirdre. He had, instead, left her with a key to this door, though that would only give her access to the hall. She had tried every door along it, tried the key in every lock, but the only one that would open was the one she’d seen before.

  He’d left food there, and water. She’d tried dribbling some onto her ladyship’s lips, but that earned her no response either. She’d thought to try reading to her, but the journal was all they had, and it was in French. There had been a letter tucked into the last page though. That had been in English, and she’d read it aloud … then almost wished she hadn’t.

  It had been from them, the elder Pratt and Rushworth. To the late Lady Whitby. Claiming they’d killed her husband, saying that the body found in York the night before—a newspaper clipping was included, about a body so badly mutilated as to be unidentifiable—was him. Warning that if she didn’t hand over the Fire Eyes, the baby would be next.

  Deirdre’s fingers went knotted as the words swam before her again. How horrified must the lady have been? A young mother getting such news, convinced, it s
eemed, by the horror. No wonder she had fled, thinking it the only way to save her babe.

  The floor was cold and hard under Deirdre’s knees, and the lamp did little to make the shadows flee. “Lord God.” She had prayed more these hours than at any time in her life—other than when it was Da who had lain unresponsive on a lumpy mattress. She picked up His Grace’s ring from where it had skidded under the cot and put it in the baroness’s hand, curled her fingers around it. “Lord above, I beg you. Restore her. Deliver her. Give her back to her father and …”

  She’d nearly said “His Grace.” But that wasn’t possible now, was it? She pressed her lips together. Pratt had said there would be no questions about killing him, that the constable had witnessed it. But no one could kill a duke without consequences, for sure and certain. Even if Pratt saw no prison term for it, there would be questions. He had to know that. It had to be what had put him in such a rage.

  And what if he were taken away to answer for it? What would become of them then, with neither water nor food?

  “Wake up, my lady. Come now.” Deirdre rested her head against the side of the tick. Had she slept at all this night? If so, not for more than a minute here or there. “I’ve the key to the door. Not the outer one, only this one, but it’s something. Wake up, and we can make a plan together. Lie in wait in the room by the outer door. You’ll think of something, fearless as you are. But sure and you have to wake up first.”

  Not a whimper. Not a flinch.

  Deirdre closed her eyes—jolted when her head slipped, and sure and that made her eyes fly to the lamp. Was the oil lower? She couldn’t remember, now, what level it had been at. But enough remained that she could get up, walk to the end of the hall and see if new water awaited, or breakfast. Perhaps the aroma of food would stir her ladyship.

  Deirdre’s joints creaked when she arose, her muscles screamed. And as she walked, her feet dragged. It took all her focus to get the key into the lock and turn it. She shuffled her way down the hall.