Gabriel’s cook, Mrs. Richards, nodded as she said, “At the back entrance, there was a knock almost at the same time. Melinda answered it and within a few seconds another very large man came barging into my kitchen, holding poor Melinda by the neck.”
Gabriel looked toward the trembling maid, Melinda, whose tear-streaked face was bright red as she was discussed.
“Are you all right, Melinda?” he asked.
She nodded. “He had a knife, my lord.”
“As did my captor,” Anders supplied, smiling at Mrs. Richards as the cook put a comforting arm around the maid. “They used our precarious positions to herd all the other servants, including young Jonny from the stable, into the pantry and tie us. They closed the door and that is the last we saw or heard from them.”
Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut as he pictured the hellish experience his staff must have gone through in the past two hours. And all because he had been so driven to find Claire.
“So you’ve been in here two hours, with no idea whether your captors were still here or coming back?”
“The door is very heavy, my lord,” Anders said with a sigh. “We couldn’t hear.”
“God, that must have been awful. I’m so glad no one was hurt,” Gabriel said. “And please know that you will be compensated for your ordeal and anyone who would like to take a few days or even a week off will have my absolute permission to do so.”
As the staff murmured their thanks and sentiments about how unnecessary the offer was, Edward and Evan looked at Gabriel in surprise. He shrugged. “I’m not an ogre, you know.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Jude said. “What did you and Edward find?”
“It seems once they entered the house and had the servants controlled they went straight to Gabriel’s office,” Edward said, smiling at the servants and motioning his brothers back to the hallway. They moved back to the office together and Evan let out a low whistle.
“This is where you kept all your evidence about Claire’s disappearance,” he breathed.
Gabriel nodded. “Yes. They took a great deal of items.”
“And destroyed many more,” Evan said as he began to gather up papers from the floor.
“Juliet should be here soon,” Gabriel said, looking around. “She will panic when she gets here and sees this mess.”
Edward took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “It’s after two—shouldn’t she already be here?”
Gabriel froze. “Yes. She said two. She is always punctual.”
“Oh God.”
Everyone in the room turned to Evan, still hunched over the floor.
“What is it?” Gabriel asked, suddenly unable to breathe fully. He had a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach even before Evan looked at him with horror and fear in his dark stare.
“I think Juliet was punctual,” Evan said as he straightened up, his hand closed around something. “Perhaps even early.” He opened his hand and revealed a torn piece of silken cloth.
Gabriel’s stomach turned. “Oh God. That is from one of Juliet’s gowns.”
“Are you certain?” Edward said, leaning over the shredded cloth.
“I’m certain,” Gabriel breathed, thinking of how Juliet had worn that same dress a week ago. He had thought the blue color so pretty on her. He had then removed that beautiful dress and made love to her. “Juliet was here. And since she wasn’t with the servants, they must have taken her.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Gabriel had spent much of his life believing emotions were useless. When anger or fear roared up in him, they had never made anything easier. He despised those out of control moments. Love, of course, was different. He loved his family. He loved Claire enough to search to the ends of the earth to find her. But none of his other emotions were ever particularly strong or overpowering.
But standing there, looking at the piece of Juliet’s dress in his brother’s shaking hand, emotions rushed through him. Knowing that she had been here, that she had probably been taken, those feelings threatened to crush him entirely.
Fear. This was fear. No, terror. And it was as powerful as the terror he had felt when Claire was taken years ago. His hands shook, his mind spun visions of all the worst things that could be happening to Juliet. Was she hurt? Was she being assaulted? Was she…was she dead?
Anger came fast on the heels of the fear. Rage. He wanted to find the men who had dared touch her, who had taken her, and he wanted to kill them. He wanted to burn every corner of their world until they had no place left to cower and they looked up at him in fear and felt the full power of his retribution.
And yet through the shaking fear and burning anger, there was another feeling. A feeling that only involved Juliet.
He could see her so perfectly in his mind. So beautiful as she smiled up at him from his arms. She smelled like peaches, he could almost scent it in the air around him. She tasted like berries, and the flavor all but burst on his tongue. He could hear her voice.
If she was gone, he would be destroyed. That was a fact. Not a guess, not a deduction based on logic. It was just true. As true as the powerful love that flowed through him.
He loved Juliet Gray. He loved her so deeply, so powerfully that his knees actually buckled and it was only Jude grasping his elbows that kept him upright.
“Steady now,” Jude said, supporting Gabriel’s weight. “Steady.”
“I love her,” he said, staring up at his brothers as Jude got him to a chair. “I love her. I love her.”
He couldn’t say anything else. He couldn’t feel anything else except for that glorious love that was now tempered by the cold fear and the hot anger.
“I know,” Evan said, crouching in front of him, squeezing his arms. “I know you do. We all know you do.”
“H-How?” he asked. “I didn’t know until just now.”
“You are not the only one with deductive powers,” Edward said softly. “It has been clear you were in love with Juliet for some time.”
“She’s gone. She’s been taken,” Gabriel said. “She could be hurt, she could be—”
“Stop.” Evan shook him slightly. “Don’t finish that thought. I know this is powerful and probably a little confusing since you are not one to be taken away by emotion that often. Take a breath. You need to be focused now. You need to use your mind, not your heart. We will find Juliet. They wouldn’t have taken her if they intended to kill her.”
The logic of that statement sank in past all the swirling thoughts in Gabriel’s head, and he clung to the familiarity of reason and used it as a rope to escape the pit of his terror.
“Yes,” he said, pushing to his feet and pacing the destroyed room. “If they took her, they must have known she was important. After all, they took no servants. But how would they know?”
“They—” Edward began.
“If they followed me, they might have seen her at Mama’s home. They might have seen—”
He cut himself off and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“Seen what?” Evan asked, exchanging a look with Jude.
Gabriel turned on the other men. “Yesterday Juliet walked me to my horse when I left Mama’s. And I…I kissed her.”
Jude lifted his eyebrows. “You kissed Juliet Gray on the drive of your mother’s house?”
He nodded. “We’ve already established I’m in love with the girl.”
Edward shook his head. “Certainly, that is established now if it wasn’t before. But you are right, if someone has been following you, they might well have seen that exchange on the drive.”
“When she came here, they may have taken her in order to get to me,” Gabriel said, clenching his fists. “And they shall get what they want, by God. But they are not going to be happy about it because if they have so much as harmed a hair on Juliet’s head—”
“My lord,” Anders said as he flew into the room. He had straightened himself up, but his nose had begun to
swell from the earlier punch he’d taken. “We have just received this message, left at the back servants’ door. I believe it may be about Miss Gray.”
Gabriel snatched the paper from his butler’s hands and said, “Thank you. And for God’s sake, man, take a moment. Have some tea, you needn’t jump right back into butling.”
Anders bowed away and Gabriel unfolded the sheet carefully. “‘Come to the docks at seven tonight. Alone’,” he read out loud. “‘Don’t be late or the very pretty young lady will suffer for it.’” He crumpled the sheet in his trembling fist and barely resisted putting that same fist through the closest wall. “I will kill them.”
Jude slipped the sheet from his fingers and read it himself. “Yes, you may very well do that. But first, we need to come up with a plan. Because I can tell there will be no talking you out of following this direction. But none of us are sending you into the den of a man like Aston or his lackey Howe without being fully prepared.”
Juliet shivered as the dank cold pierced through her spencer and thin silk skirt. She might have rubbed her arms, but she was tied to a chair at present and couldn’t move at all. She stared around her. She’d been in the dark so long that her eyes had adjusted, but only enough to see faint shadows in the room around her.
She knew she was on the docks. She had been blindfolded when she was removed from the carriage by her captors, but she’d heard the splash of water, the calls of men loading and unloading ships. She’d thought to call for help, but a thick, heavy hand had been clamped around her mouth before she could.
Since then, she’d been alone, the blindfold removed in the dark, tied up where she couldn’t escape. She’d heard voices outside, discussing her. Her name had been said, though she had no idea how it was known by the devils who had taken her. Claire’s name had also been repeated. And Gabriel’s.
She shivered. She’d gleaned from those snippets of conversation that he wasn’t there. He likely hadn’t even been in residence when his home had been burglarized.
So at least for now, it seemed, he was safe.
The door creaked as it opened and Juliet flinched as a blindingly bright lantern swung in from outside, blocking her view of whoever was holding it and making her poor pupils dilate to adjust once again to the new light.
“Let me go,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t tremble.
The person with the lantern set it down on a table a few feet away and she stared up at him. He seemed impossibly tall from her seated position and almost reed-thin. He was dressed in fine clothing, though when he smiled his teeth were grotesquely yellow.
“You are very pretty,” he purred. “Prettier with the blindfold not covering half your face.”
“Let. Me. Go,” she repeated succinctly.
He laughed. “Before we are properly introduced? No, no. We must become better acquainted while we have this opportunity. You, my dear, are Juliet Gray. And I am called Howe. But I think you guessed that.”
She refused to answer and merely glared up at him. He leaned in closer, examining her like she was a horse for sale. “Aston got a pretty lady from the Woodley clan. Why shouldn’t I have the same?”
“I’m not a Woodley,” she said, turning her face as far as she could away from him. “If you believed I was, you were misinformed.”
“You might as well be, since you’re probably fucking one.” She flinched before she could control the action, and he laughed. “That blush on your fair cheeks tells me everything.”
“I’m not telling you anything,” she hissed. “If I blush it’s because you’re vulgar and make my stomach turn. I am nothing more than a healer for the family. I was brought to London as a thank you for helping Lady Woodley.”
He chuckled. “You will be fun, won’t you? Gabriel could tell me, I suppose.”
Juliet clenched her fists. He wasn’t going to believe her lies about not being connected to Gabriel on a deeper level. She still wouldn’t admit it, but the damage had been done regardless. “Where is Lord Gabriel?”
“Coming for you, I’m sure. He’s meant to be here in…” He pulled a fob from his jacket and made a show out of flipping it open. “…ten minutes, by my pocket watch.”
Juliet released her breath. Oh God, Gabriel, coming here. For her? Risking his life for her?
But no. He was really risking his life for Claire. She knew that. Maybe this man did too. Maybe reminding him of that fact could help her cause.
“You know that Gabriel is Claire’s twin. They are close, they always have been. You must know that Claire will hate Aston if you harm her most beloved brother,” she said, and prayed that was true. It had to be true.
Howe laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “Claire already hates Aston.” He frowned. “It’s becoming a problem, really. A distraction.”
Her lips parted. The part of her that had been helping Gabriel over the weeks stored that fact. The part of her that loved him hoped she would see him again in order to share it.
“That has nothing to do with Gabriel,” she said. “Or me.”
“But it does,” Howe sneered. “Even when the rest of the family moved on, your Gabriel couldn’t leave it alone. He couldn’t stop looking for Claire, inserting himself into situations where he most definitely didn’t belong. He’s become a nuisance now, because he’s looking into my business. Aston’s business. He must be stopped. And you are how he’s going to be stopped.”
She tugged against the binds and glared up at him, wishing she could be more menacing. Wishing she was not tied so she could fly at him. “You leave him alone.”
“I think not,” Howe said as he caught up the lantern and backed from the room. “And once he’s taken care of, I don’t think I’ll be leaving you alone either.”
He began to swing the door shut again, locking her back into darkness, and she screamed as he did it. Screamed until her throat hurt. But the only sound that answered was Howe’s laugher as it faded away from her. And toward the man she loved.
The man who was now in terrible danger.
Fog from the frigid Thames swirled up around Gabriel’s legs and he pulled his great coat tighter around him to block some of the cold. In his pocket, he felt the weight of a pistol, loaded and ready if it were needed.
He hoped it wouldn’t be, but in the ominous quiet, he wasn’t certain. There could just be Howe and his two partners here—or there could be twenty villains lurking in the swirling fog.
“Are you alone?”
Gabriel tensed at the sound of Howe’s voice in the dark. “Yes,” he lied.
Of course he wasn’t alone. His brothers and Jude were hidden around. They had been very careful to mask their movement now that they knew they were all likely being followed. Still, he had to hope that Howe wasn’t aware of the lie.
It could come to no good for anyone, especially Juliet.
“Where is Juliet?”
Howe chuckled and stepped from the mist. “Patience, my lord. I understand how much you must want her back. She is very beautiful and so…talented.”
Gabriel gritted his teeth. He would not rise to Howe’s bait, nor allow his disgusting implications to stir the fear for her safety. The best he could do was control himself, just as he had for years.
His silence seemed to please Howe as much as any harsh words he might have said. The bastard’s yellow smile grew wider. “You and I need to have a talk before we barter for the pleasing Miss Gray.”
“Then talk,” Gabriel said with a forced yawn. “You are boring me.”
“I have a message from Aston,” Howe said.
That snapped Gabriel’s gaze up. “Do you now? And why won’t that coward deliver it personally?”
“Maybe he’s having too much fun with your sister, I don’t know.”
Again, Gabriel clenched his fists and tried to maintain calm. “What is the message?”
“Keep stirring things up and everyone suffers,” Howe said with a smile. “I would add t
hat you should take a hint from your family, my lord. Everyone else seems to have moved on. Married, made a life, forgotten Claire entirely.”
“I assure you, no one has forgotten my sister.”
“Well, you should because she will never return to you,” Howe insisted. “And the more you dig, the more you try to uncover about my employer’s business, the more you hurt your sister. And the more you force us to make plans to stop you. Today it is Miss Gray who pays. Tomorrow, who knows? Your other sister Audrey could be taken and sold to the highest bidder. Your mother? She is alone and could easily be harmed. Or maybe one of your brothers might meet with a terrible accident.”
Gabriel lunged now, grabbing Howe’s lapels. He felt the other man’s pistol pressing hard into his gut, but he didn’t care. He shook Howe as hard as he could.
“Threaten my family and I will end you as slowly and as painfully as my mind can imagine. And you don’t want to test the limits of that mind, Mr. Howe.”
“Let us compare how we test, my lord,” Howe said, and motioned his head as if signaling an unseen partner.
Gabriel heard Juliet before he saw her. She was fighting with whoever had her, her little grunts and cries piercing him like knives to his heart. And then, from the fog, she staggered.
Her dress was torn and dirty and her spencer was far too flimsy for the frigid cold of the night, but she was not bruised or battered as she tried to regain her balance. It was difficult for her thanks to the fact that her hands were bound behind her.
She saw him in the weak lamplight and she let out a cry that spoke volumes. “Gabriel!”
She made a move to go to him, but a huge man, one of the thugs Howe had with him the first time Gabriel met him, reached out from the fog and grabbed her hair, yanking her back as she let out a pained scream.
“Stop!” Gabriel cried out, releasing Howe and moving toward Juliet and her tormentor.
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