Already His (The Caversham Chronicles - Book Two) (42 page)

Shadows in the bushes below caught her attention. She thought it odd that a couple seeking privacy would actually go
into
the bushes as it would seriously muss the lady’s dress. Then again, she thought, if the woman
was
a lady she wouldn’t be in the bushes would she?

Elise pushed off the railing and made to return to her grandmother’s side when a hand stopped her. Marlowe helped her stand for suddenly her knees didn’t want to support her weight.

“Could you please bring me back to....”

“Yes, my lady,” he said as he wrapped a heavy mantle around her shoulders.

And remembered nothing more.

M
ichael scanned the room looking for Elise. With any luck, her grandmother would have convinced her to come tonight. He’d been working himself up to apologizing to her all day, and decided the perfect time to do it was while they waltzed. At her come-out ball, she told him it was the dance she would forever save for him alone. And tonight, while they danced it, he would also give her his heart.

She’d said something on that fateful night, before his cruel accusation, that had stuck in his heart. Until now, he’d been unable to actually voice the words, though he’d known all along he felt them. He didn’t know why he was tongue-tied over saying them, but that, too, ended tonight. He loved her. He loved Elise with an intensity that scared him. If he didn’t love her, he would not be fearful she might refuse him.

After speaking with Martin Whippleworth, he’d arranged to have the orchestra play the same piece he and Elise had waltzed to at Beverly’s ball—the one he’d taken her out to the terrace to dance. That was the night he knew he had to speak to Ren, or lose her forever to someone else.

Her tall, elegant form always stood out over the sea of average belles. Spying Lady Sewell, he watched as she scanned the room, concern marring her weathered, delicate brow. He excused himself from the party greeting him, and made his way over to the lady’s side, intending to greet her and inquire after Elise. The concern on her face began to turn to worry as she looked out toward the balcony. He watched Marlowe enter through the doors and walk to Lady Sewell’s side with two glasses of lemonade.

“Is Lady Elise dancing again?” Michael heard the grinning younger man ask as he drew closer.

“No. I believe she’s gone out to get air. Didn’t you see her?” He saw Marlowe shake his head. Lady Sewell stood, leaning heavily on her cane, then went through the doors. She looked both ways and over the rail. “I am concerned, it’s been several minutes and she hasn’t returned.”

Michael came forward. “Is something amiss, Lady Sewell?”

The light mist changed to rain again as Marlowe set the lemonades down on the balustrade and asked. “Shall I search for her, ma’am? I will take the garden, if Lord Camden will take the inside.”

Lady Sewell nodded to Marlowe who left immediately down the terraced steps into the darkened garden. “Camden, find her. Please.” There was a plea in her voice that, as close as he was to the family, he understood. Marlowe would not know the seriousness in which they took the threat to Elise. Thankfully, there were three of Cartland’s men on the premises, hopefully one saw something. With the heavy mist and light rain that had been falling off and on all night, there weren’t any others enjoying the terrace to question.

Huddleston and Beverly finished their dance and seeing the look on Lady Sewell’s face hurried over. “Where is Elise?” Beverly asked. “What has happened?”

“I don’t know,” the older woman choked out. “She was here one minute and gone the next.”

Lady Sewell began to get frantic and she, along with Lord and Lady Stone and Lady Royce, quickly moved into Lord Whippleworth’s office. Michael asked Huddleston to hurry and fetch Mr. Cartland to them, giving him the investigator’s Oxford Street address.

“I would like to do this so that there is minimal damage to my future wife’s reputation,” Michael said to those in the room. Whippleworth and Stone nodded, as did the ladies. They began to discuss who might have taken Elise when a footman arrived with word that two men were found unconscious in the garden—one just under the terrace behind bushes, and another on the far side of the house.

“Guests?” asked Michael.

The footman looked to Lord Whippleworth for permission to speak freely in front of mixed company. With a nod of Whippleworth’s head the man said, “One appears to be a guest, the other is one of the security detail sent over from Caversham House before the festivities began.”

“There were three assigned to the ladies,” Michael told Whippleworth and Stone. “Since the third guard is nowhere to be found, I am praying he is following them.” He raked his hands through his hair. “How are the men? Can we speak with them?”

The footman shook his head, his expression grim. “They are unconscious.”

“Send for a physician quick,” Michael told the footman.

“Already done, my lord.”

Beverly sat next to Lady Sewell, near tears herself, yet trying to comfort the older woman. “Who could have done this?” Elise’s grandmother sobbed.

Beverly looked directly at him and said, “You know she did not willingly leave this property. If you believe nothing else of her, you must believe this.”

Her meaning was not lost on him. Elise, it seemed, had confided in her friend. He nodded his head and agreed with Beverly. He knew Elise well enough to know she’d never leave willingly. As to who her abductor was, he had only one suspect. He thought back to Lady Sewell’s expression when he’d first seen her after entering the ballroom. He recalled Marlowe entering from the terrace with two glasses of lemonade. Why enter from the terrace if the refreshments were in a room not accessed from the outdoors?

“Lady Sewell, please tell me everything you remember.”

She did. Every detail she could recall, she recounted for them—including the fact that the two glasses Marlowe carried in when he saw him after the disappearance were the second glasses of lemonade he’d fetched for Elise and himself in a matter of minutes.

Michael began to understand their plan. He looked at Whippleworth. “Can you ask a footman to bring Sir Marlowe to us for questioning.”

“Do you think Marlowe is involved?” Lady Sewell asked, her face white with fear. “Elise said she thought he was harmless.” The elderly lady held onto to Lady Royce and Lady Stone’s hands. “Think about it,
he
is here while my granddaughter is not.”

“He’s involved because he gave her both drinks—” Michael said, the attorney in him finding the flaw in Marlowe’s execution. “—And didn’t drink either one himself. His cousin Sinclair is also involved somehow—” Michael paced the length of the room mumbling to himself as he worked out a possible theory. “—Then when he left to get more lemonade, he slipped out another door and handed over a drugged Elise to Sinclair. Marlowe then returned to the ballroom, secure in the knowledge that he’ll never be suspected as he’d gone to fetch more lemonade which he could have had placed ahead of time in a location easy for him to retrieve later, making it appear as though he’d gone for more.”

“You’re right,” Beverly said. “I’m willing to bet, that he got four lemonades the first time and placed two outside to pick up on his way back in.”

“If you are correct,” Whippleworth said to him, “then Marlowe is long gone. My guess is he’s either with—or right behind—Sinclair and Lady Elise.”

The clock on the mantle chimed the hour, and Michael surmised at least forty minutes had passed. He felt he should be out searching the streets, but didn’t know where to begin. Up above them, the dancing continued because Michael, Lord Whippleworth, and Lady Sewell all agreed that to call off the event already underway would only draw attention to the fact that something was amiss. As it was, there was a little chatter and speculation as to why their party departed the room
en masse
.

Lord and Lady Stone and Lady Royce all volunteered to return to the ballroom, hoping to fend off any potential rumors. The story everyone in the office agreed to was that Lady Elise had taken ill and was now in the carriage on the way home. It was believable enough because, as most everyone already knew, Elise had been ill earlier this week. Lady Sewell’s cousins then left the office, but only after promising to visit her in the morning. Beverly would remain with Elise’s grandmother this night.

Huddleston returned with a message from Cartland. “As we were speaking a boy came running up with a message for him. It turns out one of the agents assigned here is following a heavy traveling coach that reportedly here almost an hour ago.”

“Cartland doesn’t yet know it, but his other two agents were blackjacked at their posts,” Michael told him.

Huddleston nodded. “Cartland said he would meet us at Caversham House.”

Whippleworth then assisted their leaving, showing them the way from his office across the lower terrace, then on the gravel path to the back gate where Marlowe or Sinclair likely carried Elise, and where the Caversham carriage now waited. Just the idea that this was where she had been made Michael sick with worry. A small part of him wondered if he’d ever see her smile again. The bigger part of him wondered what he’d do if he couldn’t.

Minutes later their carriage pulled up in front of Caversham House and Michael noticed Cartland standing near the lamplight in the fog. He held his horse’s reins in one hand, and a glowing cheroot in the other. Their groom came forward and opened the door to the coach and lowered the steps. Once inside, he turned over the stunned Lady Sewell and Beverly to the competent care of the housekeeper and maids, while Cartland and Huddleston followed Michael into the duke’s office. He took a sheet of vellum, a pen and ink bottle from the drawer, and as he began to write his note to Ren, he said, “Cartland, I hope one of your men saw something.”

I
n an enclosed, unmarked carriage headed west from London, David Sinclair smiled to himself in the dim, candle-lit conveyance. He peeled the black wool cloak’s hood from his guest, revealing her short mouse-brown hair. Then he lifted the mask off her face and saw she still slept. Good. Drinking both glasses should keep her unconscious until tomorrow.

Laying her across the seat opposite him, he knelt on the floor and leaned down to nuzzle her neck, inhaling her scent. He wanted desperately to suck on her delicate flesh and leave the first of the many marks she would receive over the next few weeks from him and his cohorts. The lady would pay for the sins of her brother.

After the beating he took the other day from Caversham’s lackeys in the alley behind his club, Sinclair arrived at the idea of stealing away this beauty for their little party next week. He’d show Caversham. The bastard thought his sister too good for the likes of him and his friends. He’ll show His-hoity-toity-Grace who his trollop sister wants in her bed—and it isn’t going to be that barrister friend of his.

He ran his tongue over the delicate flesh of her collarbone, it was like the finest silk and tasted of flowers. When he reached the area under her ear he began to suck, and the bitch moaned. But when she called out for that bastard Camden, he reached back his hand and slapped her. His signet ring broke the skin on her cheek and a few drops of blood began to mar her milky white complexion. Her eyes fluttered once but still she slept, evidence of the power of the sleeping draught.

Even through closed eyes her tears fell, sliding into the hair at her temples. That angered him further and a familiar stirring began in his groin as the anticipation and excitement of the weeks ahead rose within him. He couldn’t wait to brand her, fuck her, then watch her get fucked by his friends. As much as he wanted her now, later when she was awake and struggling would be much, much more enjoyable.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

N
iles, the Caversham House butler, entered with a footman bearing a tray with a pot and several cups. The footman placed the tray on his grace’s beverage sideboard then was gone from the room. The butler poured coffee for the three gentlemen. Michael handed the sealed note to Niles with the instruction that it was to go at once to Haldenwood and delivered directly into His Grace’s hand. Once Niles closed the door to the office, Michael prompted the investigator again.

Cartland closed his eyes as he sipped the warm liquid. Michael did the same, feeling the restorative effects almost instantly. “Yes, my lord, I have had a man leave word that he is following a rented traveling coach leaving London on the Oxfordshire road. Once they are out of the city they will have a difficult time of it, especially with the rain we’ve been having. You well know that road gets more difficult to travel the farther you get from town. And after a day like today....” The man trailed off, both he and Huddleston nodding.

Michael went to the door and ordered a footman to have a horse saddled. Michael saw Huddleston stand, ready to argue, and changed the order. “Make that two.” Turning back to Cartland, he said, “tell us more.”

The investigator continued. “That’s really all I know, my lord. My man sent word through one of our contacts, a lamplighter he passed as he left town. The coach was stuck in traffic, and the investigator saw a contact. But don’t worry, my man will continue to leave clues for us until we catch up with him.”

“How does your man know the woman in the coach is Elise?” Michael asked. He fought the icy void wanting to take over his soul. He cleared his throat and continued. “How do we know that if we all leave for Oxfordshire, Sinclair isn’t really moving north to Gretna Green with an unconscious and unwilling bride-to-be?”