Captive (16 page)

It was so unusual for her to use his name that he froze, wondering what she was going to ask for this time.

“I cannot go to the pit during the interval.”

“Why not?”

“I have to wait here to be introduced to all the gentlemen who have noticed this scandalous dress and come here for an introduction.”

Lion ground his teeth. Otherwise he was going to make a cake of himself by shouting at her. He turned to see if his sister could talk some sense into the girl—only to discover Olivia was missing … along with Braddock.

“Damn and blast!” he muttered. He could not make a scene. That would create the very scandal he was still hoping to avoid.

“It is time for us to leave, Charlotte,” he said, settling her wrap around her shoulders.

“I’m not ready to go,” she protested.

“Olivia has left with Braddock,” he hissed in her ear.

She turned so precipitously, she almost fell off her chair. “They’re gone? Where did they go?”

“I have no idea.” His imagination was providing several scenes that made his blood run cold. He had
known Braddock intended to take revenge on him through his sister. Why had he not watched them more closely?

The answer was sitting right beside him. Watching Charlotte took more energy than supervising a whole schoolroom full of children.

“Where shall we go to look for them?” Charlotte asked.

“
We
aren’t going anywhere. You’re going home. Then
I
will discover the duke’s direction.”

“I don’t trust you to go alone,” Charlotte said. “You’ll end up getting killed in a duel with Braddock.”

“If I do, it won’t happen before dawn at the least. There are still several hours during which you will have to obey me.”

“What happens to me if you’re killed?” Charlotte asked. “Will I be free to do as I wish then?”

“Remove that bloodthirsty look from your eye, baggage. If anything happens to me, you will be passed along with the furniture and the paintings to the next Earl of Denbigh, whoever he may be.”

Charlotte pursed her lips. “I think I would prefer to deal with you. At least we have reached a sort of understanding. So, if you please, I would rather you did not let the duke kill you.”

“I’ll do my best to avoid it,” he assured her.

Before they could exit the box, the act ended. At least a score of fops and dandies and coxcombs
collected outside the door, waiting for their chance to be presented to his ward.

In his determination not to have Charlotte importuned by a single one of them, Denbigh almost dismissed the messenger.

“A note, my lord,” a fashionably dressed, but none-too-clean gentleman said, thrusting a folded parchment at him.

He grabbed for it primarily to keep it from stabbing him in the eye. Then he saw his name in bold script on the outside. “Thank you,” he said.

The messenger held out his hand. “The mort said you’d have a li’l’ sumthin’ for me.”

Denbigh searched for a coin small enough to serve as a tip and dropped it into the grimy palm. The beau-nasty quickly disappeared into the crowd.

Denbigh opened the letter and felt the blood drain from his face as he read the three words written there:

His eyes skipped through the crowd searching for the messenger, but the man had already disappeared.

I have her
. What did Braddock mean? That he had Olivia under his power and control and meant to rape and kill her? Or did he merely intend to give
Denbigh notice that his missing sister was safe somewhere with her escort for the evening?

Denbigh was not comforted. An honorable man would not have disappeared. Braddock meant for him to worry. He wanted to provoke a duel.

Where had the duke taken Olivia? That was the burning question. Every moment counted. He had to find Olivia before the duke could compromise her. The sad truth was, Braddock would not even have to touch her. All he would have to do was keep her away overnight. She would be ruined.

Not that Olivia had lived in expectation of marriage, but she would not be able to hold her head up in company. She would be denied admittance to the best houses. And when he married, his choice of wife would be limited to those who would overlook the scandal.

Unfortunately, while Denbigh had been distracted, at least three fashionable fribbles had been uncouth enough to introduce themselves to Charlotte, who was merrily talking to them.

There was only one way to deal with fribbles. Or fops or coxcombs, for that matter. He gave them the cut direct.

Ignoring them as though they did not exist, he slipped an arm under Charlotte’s elbow and ushered her through the horde and out the door.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Charlotte protested as
he led her down the hall. “Jerrold seemed very nice.”

“Jerrold?”
She was calling a perfect stranger by his first name!
“Jerrold is most likely a gazetted fortune hunter,” he said in severe tones.

His carriage was waiting in a long line, and Denbigh signaled for it to be brought to the door.

“He had nice eyes,” Charlotte said.

“Who had nice eyes?”

“Jerrold, of course.”

“Devil a bit,” Denbigh snapped. “Since when does the color of a man’s eyes matter?”

“It wasn’t the color,” Charlotte said. “No man could have eyes as beautiful as yours. But he looked at me as a person, and not as a bird-witted female.”

Denbigh discounted the compliment to his eyes. He wouldn’t put it past Charlotte to have made such an outrageous observation just to distract him from the main point of the argument.

He turned to face her and said, “Are you suggesting
I
treat you like a bird-witted female?”

She nodded.

“That’s ridiculous. I—”

“You dictate every move I make. You don’t allow me to think for myself, or make any decisions on my own.”

“That’s because, in my experience, you don’t make very smart ones.”

“I rest my case.”

“What case?”

“That you think I’m a shallow-pated ninny.”

“I said no such thing!”

Too late, Denbigh realized the cork-brained girl had provoked him into shouting. A quick look revealed the amused faces of a dozen coachmen, each of whom was sure to carry every word of his curb-side argument to the ton’s most noble houses. He would have groaned aloud, if he hadn’t known that would get repeated, as well.

The instant they were ensconced in the carriage on facing seats, Charlotte said, “I hope you realize that if you insist on scaring away potential suitors, we may be stuck in each other’s pockets for years and years to come.”

“I will find a husband for you, Charlotte, I promise. And—I don’t believe I am saying this—he will be a man you can like. But not tonight. Tonight I have other, more important, things on my mind.”

He had thought Charlotte did not realize the seriousness of Olivia’s disappearance until she said, “Do you really think he will hurt Livy?”

Denbigh felt a stab of fear and fought it back. Surely even Braddock was not scoundrel enough to physically abuse an innocent woman. He did not answer the question, because he did not trust his voice.

“She’s probably safe at home, and we’re both
worrying for nothing,” Charlotte said to fill the silence.

Since Denbigh had to drop Charlotte in Grosvenor Square anyway, it was worth checking to see if Olivia had been delivered there by the duke.

But he very much feared she had become a victim of the duke’s revenge.

“I’m not quite sure how we ended up here,” Braddock said in answer to Olivia’s question.

Olivia attributed the strangeness of the duke’s voice to the fact it came out of the murky shadows. But it was unnerving to be sitting in the dark with someone who did not sound like anyone she knew.

“Perhaps the coachman did not understand my directions,” Braddock said. He rapped on the roof of the hackney and gave the coachman her Grosvenor Square address.

“Make up yer mind, guv’ner,” the driver called back, his voice hoarse and slurred from the effects of more than one bottle of blue ruin. “First ye tell me one thing, and then ye tell me another.”

“What does he mean?” Olivia asked.

“I asked him to drive us around a bit before he took you home,” Braddock explained smoothly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No,” Olivia said. “I don’t mind at all.” She was glad he had thought of a way to give them extra time together. In fact, she did not want the evening to end. But, of course, it must.

He took her hand again and held it in his as the hackney rumbled over the cobblestones through the night.

He said nothing, and she hadn’t the courage to begin a conversation with him. But she wondered when he would declare himself. Surely that was his intention.

She understood his problem. How could he speak to her brother to ask for her hand in marriage, when the two of them were barely speaking? She racked her mind to think of some solution to the problem, but could come up with no answer.

She was amazed at how the feel of his hand could be merely soothing now, when before it had seemed electrifying. She thought that boded well for their future together. Obviously the duke was willing to offer comfort as well as seek titillation in her touch.

She felt a little anxious when the hackney stopped once more, wondering if the drunken coachman had got it right this time, then was disappointed when she lifted the curtain and discovered
they had, indeed, reached her grandfather’s town house on Grosvenor Square.

She wondered if Braddock would try to kiss her again. She wanted him to, but she was afraid at the same time that he would consider her a light-skirt for offering him so much before he declared himself.

In the end, he did not even touch her hand after he helped her down from the carriage, but walked a step behind her as she made her way, one awkward, hitching step at a time, up the front steps and onto the porch.

“Good night, Lady Olivia,” he said solemnly.

Where was his smile? she wondered. Where were the love words she wanted to hear? Why was he standing so very far away?

When will I see you again?

She managed not to say the words aloud, but she knew they were written in her eyes and on her face. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, with her eyes lowered to the toes of her evening slippers, there was little chance he would be able to read them there.

“Good night, Your Grace,” she murmured.

“I will wait to make certain you are safely inside,” he said.

She turned to raise the knocker above the brass lion head on the door, not wanting her time with
the duke to end. But there was nothing she could do to make it last any longer.

Stiles opened the door immediately. “Welcome home, Lady Olivia.” Only the lift of an eyebrow gave away his surprise at seeing her without her brother.

Olivia turned to the duke. She wanted to raise her eyes to his, but in the stark light from the open door, she feared too much of what she was feeling would be exposed if she did.

“Thank you, Your Grace. The theater was … the evening was … I enjoyed myself,” she said lamely.

Nothing was coming out right. She fell silent, discomfited, unable to move in or out of the doorway.

He lifted her chin with the barest touch of his forefinger.

She glanced up briefly, long enough to see the stark look in his eyes before he said, “Good-bye, Lady Olivia.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Good-bye? Not good night?

She wanted to run after him and ask for an explanation. Except, for her, running was impossible. Which was just as well, because if the duke wanted nothing more to do with her after tonight, she would only have humiliated herself chasing after him.

Olivia kept her chin tucked low as she entered the house. All she could think of was escaping to her room. Before she could, her grandfather called from the drawing room, “Is that you, Denbigh?”

“It’s me, Grandpapa,” she answered. “Lion is still at the theater with Lady Charlotte.”

“Come in here, girl,” he called in his booming voice, “and tell Lizzie and me what you’re doing home so early.”

Olivia wished she were Charlotte. Charlotte would have said, “No! I’m going upstairs to relive every precious moment of the evening and think about the duke’s kisses and wonder why he didn’t declare himself and worry over why he said good-bye instead of good night.”

But Olivia was Olivia. She handed her mantle to Stiles and said, “I’m coming, Grandpapa.”

“Why did you kill Lord James?” Charlotte asked.

Denbigh’s whole body went taut at the question, which brought back all the memories of another time when he had raced to find someone he loved … and found her too late.

“You must have had a better reason than the one I’ve heard,” she continued.

“What have you heard?” he asked.

“That you didn’t like the way he tied his neck
cloth. No one kills someone else for such a frivolous reason,” she said emphatically.

“Have you not heard I was mad at the time?” Denbigh replied.

“You had time between slapping a glove in James’s face and the following dawn to come to your senses if you were foxed. And a true madman does not later become sane. You had a reason. I would like to hear it. Please.”