More Than Charming (32 page)

He picked up the bottle once more. “She was in love with him, too.”

Catherine said nothing as he resumed his pacing.

James, accompanied by Paul and Chester, arrived at the Earl of Talbot’s townhouse, once more. James knew Catherine’s father had the right to know what was going on. And, certain that he had dealings with Waltham before Catherine’s betrothal to the man, James fervently hoped he could advise them of any other properties Waltham had in his possession. Surely the scoundrel spirited her away to a location far from town. The four gentlemen now stood in the Earl of Talbot’s parlor, the air thick with tension.

“He took her?” the earl asked, incredulous. “The devil, you say!”

James nodded. “Sir, we need to know what other properties, if any, Waltham keeps in town.”

“Properties?” the older man mused aloud. “I don’t believe the blackguard has any others here in town.”

James’s shoulders slumped. “Ah, hell,” he muttered. “He took her to Westmorland.”

James referred to the location of Waltham’s country home, quite far from London. He turned to exit, stilled by Chester’s hand on his arm. He looked at the blond man in question.

“I don’t believe he’d take her to Waltham Manor,” Chester pointed out as Paul nodded in agreement. “You could track him there too easily.”

“Yes, yes. But where then, Chester?” he asked in irritation. “Where the devil has he taken her?”

Paul opened his mouth to make a suggestion just as Elizabeth entered the parlor. The men exchanged a look, silently agreeing not to tell the girl of her sister’s disappearance.

“Where can she be?” Elizabeth wailed.

James looked at her closely, his heart pounding. “Who, Elizabeth?”

“Why Diane Plymouth,” she answered quickly. “I still haven’t heard from her.”

The earl rolled his eyes. “Elizabeth, dear. You’ve been going on about that girl for weeks now. I’m quite certain that she’ll return to town shortly.”

“No one has heard from her?” Chester asked.

James looked at him sharply, a dark thought flitting through his mind. “Elizabeth,” he said, coming to stand in front of the girl. “When did you hear from her last?”

“Lord Roberts, I haven’t heard from Diane since before Christmas,” she answered. “Not since soon after she returned from Lady Joan’s funeral. Waltham said—” She snapped her mouth shut.

“Waltham?” James asked, his eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” she said guiltily.

“What?” James asked, confused. “What about Waltham, Elizabeth?”

Catherine’s sister pulled back, apparently startled by the intensity in his gaze.

Paul stepped over to her, placing his hand on her arm. “Elizabeth,” he began in a low voice, “what of Waltham?”

Elizabeth clutched her hands in front of her, her brows drawn together. “I went to Lord Waltham’s townhouse,” she admitted in a small voice.

“You what!?” Paul shouted.

“He was the last one to see her,” she rushed out. “I thought he could tell me where she was. If something had happened to her.”

James swore an oath, causing the others to turn to him. “It was you,” he said to Elizabeth. “Ah, I’m a fool.”

“What are you talking about, Roberts?” Chester asked.

James shook his head at his own folly. “Lady Brookdale told me she saw Catherine leaving Waltham’s townhouse last Monday.” He turned back to Elizabeth. “But it was you, wasn’t it, Elizabeth?”

“Yes,” she answered in a small voice. “I had to know about Diane,” she said tearfully. “I had to know!”

James stepped in front of her, protecting her from the dark scowl on her brother’s face. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “It’s all right, Elizabeth,” he soothed. “Why don’t you go upstairs and ready for dinner?”

Elizabeth nodded vigorously and ran from the room.

“How could she be so foolish?” Paul grumbled.

“No more foolish than I’ve been,” James put in. “Priscilla told me she saw Catherine leaving Waltham’s and I believed her.”

“And what, precisely, was Priscilla doing at Waltham’s?” Chester asked.

“I don’t know,” James countered. “Perhaps she and Waltham—”

The earl’s butler came to the doorway at that moment. After a quick bow to his master, he turned swiftly to the man’s son-in-law. “Lord Kanewood for you, Lord Roberts,” he said.

“What the devil is Kane doing here?” James asked Paul.

Paul’s face mirrored his surprise. He shrugged his shoulders in answer.

“Roberts, thank God I’ve found you,” Geoffrey said as he strode into the room.

James regarded Geoffrey closely. His hair was tousled, his cravat askew.

“What is it, Kane?” Paul asked him. “I thought you would remain in the country for at least a fortnight.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “I returned to town as fast as I could, Leed.” He turned again to James. “I went to your house, Roberts, and your butler told me you came here.”

“Thank the Lord for Giles’s big ears,” James said.

“What is it, man?” Chester asked. “You look as if you have the devil chasing you.”

“A devil, indeed,” Geoffrey said ominously. “Diane Plymouth has been found.”

“Found?” Paul repeated. “What do you mean, ‘found?’ When?”

“Weeks ago, I’m afraid,” he answered. “Apparently, Lord Henry was too upset to let anyone see her.”

“Upset?” James’s stomach clenched. “Why was he upset?”

Geoffrey’s lip curled in distaste. “His daughter had been raped, Roberts,” he said. “Raped and beaten.”

“My God!” James said. “Is she all right?”

Geoffrey shrugged. “As well as can be expected,” he said. “Rebecca and my mother are looking after her. The girl was uncommunicative. Nearly catatonic. She wouldn’t say who hurt her. She would only say it was a gentleman.”

James shook his head in denial, backing away from his friends. Please, God. Don’t let it have been Waltham.

“Rebecca was finally able to get the truth out of her, bless her kind heart,” Geoffrey went on. “Diane named her attacker just this morning.”

“Who was it?” James asked haltingly.

Geoffrey took a deep breath and expelled it. “Waltham.”

“No,” James murmured. “No. God, no!” He sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands.

“What is it?” Geoffrey asked.

Paul quickly told him about Catherine’s disappearance, of Waltham’s abduction.

“And there’s no sign of them?” Geoffrey asked.

Chester shook his head.

James recovered himself and stood, his hands in fists. “If that bastard harms so much as one hair on Catherine’s head, I’ll kill him with my bare hands,” he ground out.

“Roberts,” Chester said suddenly. “You started to say something earlier. Something about Lady Brookdale?”

“What?” James asked, blinking rapidly. “Yes. Priscilla informed me that she saw Catherine at Waltham’s house. Perhaps she herself is involved with that reprobate.”

Paul straightened. “Well, gentlemen,” he said. “Perhaps we should pay a call on the bitch.”

The gentlemen filed out of the room.

The Earl of Talbot halted James’s progress with a hand on his shoulder, an anguished look in his eyes. “You’ll find her, son. I know you will.”

James nodded, his throat tight. Saying nothing in return, he joined his friends, bound for Lady Brookdale’s home.

*     *     *

Waltham paced the small waterfront room, the nearly empty whiskey bottle clutched in his hand. Catherine followed him with her eyes. Long minutes had passed since his attack there in the room, and she was ever wary of another one. He’d had a tray brought up from downstairs for her dinner, but the only food palatable upon it was a few crusts of bread. Catherine chewed the stale bread slowly as she kept her eyes on her captor.

“She was mine,” Waltham grumbled. “It was all set.”

Catherine knew he spoke of Beatrice, once more. She shrank back against the bed rail and tried to keep still. It didn’t matter really, for Waltham’s mind wasn’t in the little room. She guessed he was firmly in the past. In the time when Beatrice had been his.

“We were cousins, she and I,” he went on. “Second cousins. Our families approved of the match, a feat in and of itself, considering her fortune far exceeded my own. She was so beautiful, was my Beatrice.” He turned to Catherine then. “And she loved me, Catherine. Me!”

He took another pull on the bottle, then slammed it back on the scarred table. Raking his long fingers through his hair, he tried to collect his thoughts.

“We went to London, a mistake to be sure,” he went on. “But she wanted a Season, and I could refuse her nothing. More fool me, for she took to society and it to her. Men began to call upon her. Men with more than matrimony on their minds, I was certain. I will say my little dove wasn’t enamored of any of her gentlemen callers. Oh, no. She’d set her cap on a different gentleman altogether.” He cast a baleful glance in Catherine’s direction. “Can you wager a guess as to who it was that stole my Beatrice’s heart?”

Catherine shook her head, mute.

“No?” He sneered. “Why, Beatrice found herself enamored of the ever-charming, ever-dashing Viscount Roberts! He was so handsome, she’d tell me. And he danced divinely, she’d gush. How I wanted to strangle him for dallying with her feelings.”

“No, Thomas,” Catherine cut in. “You’re wrong. James would never—”

“Keep silent!” Waltham shouted. “I’m telling this story. You will sit there and hold your tongue!”

Catherine froze and did as he ordered.

He gave a satisfied nod and resumed his tale. “This was four years ago, you see, and I wasn’t the established gentleman you see before you. I didn’t have Joan’s money as yet and, while the ladies found me pleasing, I didn’t have much to recommend myself. Nevertheless,” he sighed, warming once more to his tale, “our betrothal was to be announced before the Season was concluded. Beatrice, however, had other intentions, which would be made known to me very soon after. She intended to wed Roberts, she told me. He was the only man she wanted. The only man she’d have as a husband or a lover.”

Waltham’s coolly handsome face wore an ugly sneer as the memory rankled. “Thinking to change her mind, I took her for a ride in my father’s carriage. Much like our pleasant ride of this afternoon, Catherine,” he interjected.

Catherine’s stomach clenched as she imagined the horrid story to follow. “Thomas, you don’t have to tell me anymore,” she said shakily, knowing she’d barely be able to withstand the tale.

“Oh, you will hear all of it, my love,” he jeered. “You will see what your husband’s charm had wrought.”

Waltham returned to the window, staring out into the darkness as the ugly truth spilled from his lips. “I asked her to marry me,” he said in a low voice. “I begged her to put aside any ideas she had of marrying that rogue. She laughed at me, Catherine. She told me that she’d never be mine.” He turned back to Catherine, a glint in his eye. “So I took her. I took her there in the carriage. Oh, she fought me at first, for she was a young lady of virtue. But once my fists convinced her of what my words couldn’t, she was mine.” He closed his eyes, lost in the memory. “God, she was so sweet.”

Catherine ran to the chamber pot, barely making it before bringing up the bit of bread she’d only just consumed.

Waltham laughed softly at her distress. “Did I offend your delicate nature, my love?” he taunted. “No matter. You’ll hear the rest of it.”

She wiped her mouth and stood on shaking legs. Sinking back down onto the lumpy mattress, she closed her eyes and sighed. “Thomas, I don’t know what any of this has to do with James.”

“It has everything to do with that bastard!” Waltham raged. “If he hadn’t stolen her heart, I wouldn’t have had to force myself on my delicate angel.”

She couldn’t argue with such perverse logic. She held her tongue once more as he finished his dark tale.

“It was too much for her,” he said at last, his voice a low croak. “She fell into a stupor, showing no reaction to anything or anyone except for myself. Whenever I entered her chamber, she screamed and screamed. She got hold of a knife somehow . . . The servants were all questioned afterward as to how one made its way into her chamber.” He looked at Catherine, once more. “She took her own life, Catherine. She’s gone from me and it’s all the fault of that charming rogue you married!”

Catherine sobbed quietly, her heart clenching for what the poor girl must have endured.

“He’ll learn. Damn him to hell,” he muttered, once more brandishing his own knife. “Roberts will learn what it feels like to lose someone he loves!”

She shook her head then, the shadow of a smile curving her lips as she stared up at him. “You’re wrong, Thomas,” she said softly. “James doesn’t love me—you said so yourself, remember?” She wanted to keep him talking.

Waltham snorted. “
Foolish girl
. I lied! He loves you, Catherine,” he spat. “I’ve seen him with you. You can’t tell me he doesn’t love you. He worships the ground you walk on, for God’s sake!”

Saying no more, he set his knife beside his bottle and drank what little was left inside.

Catherine sat there, stunned as the truth settled on her. How could she not have seen it before? She
had
been a foolish girl allowing herself to be easily swayed by the spiteful words of others. She should have had more faith. In herself and in her husband. Her dear, wonderful James. Suddenly a vision came to her, an image from a long-ago dream. It was him. James was her dream lover, the wonderful man promising to protect her and cherish her forever.
Oh, please find me, James!

They arrived at Lady Brookdale’s townhouse and James raced up the steps to the front door. The woman’s butler showed them into the parlor, where they were left waiting. After ten minutes had passed, minutes that felt like hours to James, Priscilla breezed into the room. She blinked to see the four gentlemen standing there in her parlor.

Turning to her favorite, she smiled coyly. “Lord Roberts. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

“Where is he, Priscilla?” James asked without preamble.

Priscilla lost her smile as his eyes bore into hers. She looked from one gentleman to another. She swallowed with an audible gulp. “I don’t know who you’re—”