The Reluctant Duchess (23 page)

“Did Lord Newport go riding with Lady Sara Emerson this afternoon?” Montgomery asked Lady Newport.

Her gaze flickered between Montgomery and Ross. Montgomery stood perfectly still with a calm expression, while Ross was barely holding himself back.

“Y-yes,” she said.

“Have they returned?”

“I have no idea. Charles does not report in to me.”

“To hell with this,” Ross said. He turned on his heel and headed to the hallway.

Lady Newport cried out and rushed after him, Montgomery right behind her. “You cannot go up there, Your Grace.” She caught up when he was halfway up the stairs to the living quarters. She tugged on the hem of his frock coat, but that didn't stop him, and she stumbled up the stairs after him.

“Where is she?” he growled.

“She's not here. I swear to you.” She was sobbing, pulling on him, practically falling down to keep up with him.

He suddenly turned around, nearly knocking her off the steps. She had to grab the handrail to keep from falling. “What aren't you telling me?”

She looked behind her at Montgomery, who was blocking her way down, then up at Ross. She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. “Follow me, if you will.”

Ross stepped to the side to let her ascend before him. He and Montgomery shared a look as Montgomery passed, too, and they followed Lady Newport the rest of the way up the steps and down the hall.

She used a key to open a door at the end of the hall. The stairs here were dark and uncarpeted. Ross and Montgomery shared another look, this one concerned. Were they being led to their death? Would they be locked up here for eternity?

Ross cursed himself for not telling anyone where they were going. Lady Grandview was aware, but it would be days before they could be found.

As if reading his thoughts, Montgomery hung back. “I'll wait here. You go up,” he said.

Ross nodded and followed Lady Newport up the dark staircase. He fully expected to be attacked or shoved into a small room and the door locked. What he encountered stole his breath and terrified him more than anything ever had.

After lighting a wall sconce, Lady Newport stepped to the side. Her hands were trembling and she was silently crying.

Ross stared at the walls, turning in circles, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. “Montgomery,” he called in a choked voice. “You'd best come up here.”

He heard Montgomery pound up the steps, enter the room, and whistle softly. “My God,” he whispered.

The room was small. At one time it was probably a servant's quarters. There was enough room for a bed, a washstand, and a bureau. The bed was still there, but the rest of the room was empty.

Except for the walls.

The walls were covered in drawings. Hundreds of drawings. Some big, some small.

And every one was of Meredith.

Ross felt sick. His stomach churned and he feared he would lose his dinner.

He looked at Montgomery, who was turning in a circle much as Ross had done, a look of disbelief on his face.

Finally, Montgomery faced Lady Newport, who was standing to the side of the door, her head bowed as tears continued to flow down her face.

“Lady Newport, did your son murder Lady Meredith Emerson?”

A sob escaped her, shaking her shoulders, and she covered her face with her hands.

Ross took a step toward her, causing her to flinch. “You knew this and you didn't say anything?”

She raised her head to look at him. “He's sick. There's something wrong with him. It served no one to lock him up.”

Ross made a sound of disgust. “He killed a woman. He
needs
to be locked up.”

“No!” She rushed to him, dropped to her knees, and clutched the front of his coat. Ross flicked her hands away and stepped back. “Please,” she sobbed. “I beg of you. We sent him away, hoping a few years on the continent would help.”

“Help what?” Ross nearly roared.

She winced but continued to look up at him.

“Where is he? What has he done with Sara?” The words nearly strangled him. Sara. Good God, Sara.

“I don't know,” she whispered. “He disappears. He won't tell me where he goes.”

“The rookery,” Montgomery said.

Sara cracked her eyes open and encountered darkness and shadows. Her head was pounding and her shoulder hurt so badly that she had to hold her arm close to her side to keep from moving it too much. Her mouth was so dry that she had to pry her tongue from the roof of it.

With the weak light coming in through some cracks, she could discern that she was in a small room made of rough boards. The bed she was lying on was not really a bed but a straw mattress that smelled of mildew.

Her throat hurt. Her body hurt. Her shoulder screamed in pain. Despite all of that, she scrambled up, pushing her feet into the rotting straw to lean against the wall. She was breathing fast, her heart pounding as memories returned of riding with Lord Newport, of walking through Covent Garden, then a desperate flight from him.

That was where her memory ended.

Somehow she came to be here.

She pushed herself up until she was standing on shaking legs. She had to lean against the wall with her good shoulder, but she made her way to the door, where she pressed her ear to it. There was silence on the other side, although she could hear carriages in the distance and the far-off bells of a church. It chimed ten times. Ten o'clock in the evening. How long had she been gone? Seven hours? Eight? Surely someone was looking for her by now.

Ross? Did Ross know she was missing? Had her mother even thought to contact him? Probably not.

Sara tried to push away her terror in order to think straight. Tentatively, she pushed on the door, afraid someone was on the other side, either guarding her or waiting for her. It didn't budge.

The smells of rotting vegetation and human waste reminded her of the rookery. Had Lord Newport taken her to the rookery?

The door swung open, causing Sara to stumble back and bump her injured shoulder. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out, but stars danced in front of her eyes and she had to breathe deeply to keep from losing consciousness.

Lord Newport ducked in and stood to his full height, which was a good foot taller than Sara. “You're awake,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I must apologize for the accommodations. Not up to your standards, I know, but it was all I could manage at the moment. No need to worry, we won't be here long.”

“Where is here?” she asked in a choked voice.

“Somewhere you've never been.”

“Mrs. Kettles's?”

His head jerked in surprise. “How do you know Mrs. Kettles?”

Sara ignored his question. She could not be afraid now, for fear would be her downfall. “What's your name?”

He looked at her in pity. “Lady Sara, I merely gave you something to help you fall asleep. Surely you've not forgotten me.”

She shook her head. “Your full name. What is your full name?”

“I don't know what that has to do—”

“Tell me,” she said between clenched teeth.

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Charles Lighthall.”

“Charlie,” she whispered.

Suddenly, he looked guarded.

“You are Charlie.”

“I don't—”

“Did you kill Meredith?”

He straightened his shoulders and looked down his nose at her. “Rossmoyne didn't deserve her.”

Sara drew in a ragged, stunned breath. Even though she'd suspected as much, hearing the truth was shocking. She was facing Meredith's killer, and she knew her fate would not be any better than Meredith's.

“Before she met Rossmoyne, I was courting her,” he said.

“You?” Sara had no recollection of Meredith ever being courted by Lord Newport.

“Yes, me. I was about to ask for her hand in marriage when
he
arrived. She forgot all about me after that. Barely acknowledged my presence.” His face twisted into an ugly expression of hatred and sorrow that heightened Sara's terror. He was delusional. She was certain that Meredith had never been courted by Lord Newport. More than likely, he'd taken her kindness for something else.

“She didn't see me,” he was saying in a strangled voice. “I was nothing to her. Because of
him
.”

“I'm certain that is not true.” She licked dry lips, hoping to stall him. For what, she didn't know. Ross wasn't aware that she was missing. Who knew what her mother was thinking about her absence. James was no longer around to watch her movements. And Jenny…Good Lord, where was Jenny?

Abruptly, Newport pulled a knife from his coat. It was a long dangerous-looking dagger that he waved in the air, causing her to jerk back or be cut. “Don't placate me, Lady Sara. I know the way of it. I tried to make her see me, but she only laughed at me.
They
laughed at me.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“Rossmoyne didn't deserve her. She was special.”

“Y-yes,” Sara choked out, finally agreeing with something he'd said. “She was special.”

“God wanted her.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “She is with God now,” she whispered.

Lord Newport rolled his shoulders. “Because I delivered her to Him.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“And now I have to deliver you to Him.”

Sara shook with fear as goose bumps raced across her skin. He was so calm, so matter-of-fact, speaking of Meredith's death like that.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You don't have to do this, Charles.”

“God says so.”

“I don't believe this is what God wants from you.”

“Are you saying I am a liar?”

“No! No, not at all.”

“I had to do it.”

“Because God said so?”

“Because I could not have her, and Rossmoyne didn't deserve her.” His gaze locked on her. “Rossmoyne does not deserve you, either.”

“Why did you send me the letters, Charles? Did you want me to come to London to find you?”

He stilled and blinked, as if he had to think about that. “I just wanted you to know. Someone needed to know why Meredith had to be with God.”

“You wanted me to know that you killed Meredith?”

“I heard them talking that night.”

Her head was swimming, trying to keep up with his scattered train of thought. “The night she was killed?”

“Yes. I heard them talking. All of them. Meredith and her friends. They wanted to go to Vauxhall Gardens. Rossmoyne didn't want to go. They argued. I watched and listened.”

She shivered, thinking of Newport hiding in the shadows, listening to Meredith's conversations.

“He left, and she promised her friends that she would meet them later that night.”

So that was why Meredith had left the house. She hadn't been lured out. She'd been meeting her friends. That was just like Meredith, never thinking that anything bad could happen to her.

“You met her before she could meet up with her friends,” Sara said.

Why had no one told Montgomery that they were all meeting later that night? They hadn't wanted their reputations tarnished with Meredith's death or the fact that they were all sneaking out of their homes to go somewhere forbidden. They'd all been on the marriage mart that year, and their lives would have changed irrevocably if they had admitted as much.

Sara felt a spurt of anger at them for failing Meredith even in her death. If someone had come forward and admitted that they were all meeting for a rendezvous, then maybe Montgomery would have caught Newport sooner.

“I met her just as she sneaked around your house.” He smiled as if pleased that she understood. For so long Sara had wanted to know what happened that night, and now that she did, she still felt empty inside. Knowing didn't bring closure. It simply brought anger and more grief.

“I knew I had to do it then. I'd been waiting for the perfect moment.” He looked at her again. “It had to be done.” He reached for her, but she shied from him. His expression hardened. “Don't make this harder than it needs to be, Lady Sara. Meredith did that and it became messy.”

She choked on a sob and scurried to the other side of the room, as far from him as she could get, but it wasn't far enough. The room was too small and he was blocking the only exit.

“It's inevitable,” he said in a calm, detached way that spiked her terror. He strolled toward her as if he had all the time in the world.

Was this what Meredith felt? Cornered? Caught? Had she been this afraid?

He lunged for Sara and gripped her injured arm. She cried out as he wrenched her toward him.

“I wanted to give you the same death as Lady Meredith, but I fear I cannot get you to Hyde Park without someone seeing us.”

“No,” she whispered. She didn't want to die in the rookery. She didn't want to die at all. She had too much to do, too much life ahead of her. She wanted to build the school for orphaned children. She wanted to see Ross one last time. She wanted the opportunity to tell Ross that she loved him and that she was sorry she had pushed him away.

A sob tore through her as Newport dragged her toward him by her injured arm. She stumbled, her hair falling in her eyes and sticking to her cheeks, which were wet with tears. “I'm sorry,” she said over and over, but she wasn't apologizing to Newport. She was apologizing to Ross, for hurting him, for turning him away, for not believing in herself or him enough to give them a chance.

Sara screamed and tried to twist from his grasp, gasping at the intense pain in her shoulder that weakened her body and left her fingers numb.

The knife cut through the air, slicing through her skirts. Fabric ripped, but she managed to stumble away and the knife missed her leg.

Newport stumbled forward with his momentum, nearly falling on top of her. Sara scrambled away, tripped on her skirts, and fell. She crawled away from him, using her good arm while her bad arm hung limp at her side.