Spellbound (21 page)

“Her own sense of duty,”
retorted Adam, nearly fed-up with Windhaven’s self-pity. “She would
never have left Linnet. At least not without telling me or asking
me to look after the child.”

That was true. The little
Tristan had seen Raven with her sister, she’d shown fondness and a
certain air that was more maternal rather than sisterly. Which only
made sense, as she’d raised the child.

“So, where did she go? She
left yesterday afternoon and no one’s seen her since.”

“One of the groundsmen
admitted seeing her walking towards the lake,” Adam responded. “He
said she looked ‘all sad-like’ and thought she may have been
crying. He thought it was odd and watched her for a bit, but when
she did nothing more than walk along the edge of the lake, he went
about his business. He noticed later she was gone and assumed she’d
returned to the house.”

“What was she wearing?
Surely she didn’t leave the house in nothing but that flimsy gown
she was wearing?”

“She wore her cloak. She
would have been relatively warm for an hour at least.”

Concentrating, the duke
wandered over to the window without really realizing it. He stared
out at the lake, cursing its existence in his life. As he stared,
he went suddenly pale, and his lungs refused to draw
breath.

Adam, noticing this, went
to the other man’s side, pushing him firmly into a chair. He moved
away to the cabinet containing the duke’s supply of brandy, poured
out a hefty measure, and returned to shove it into the duke’s
trembling hand.

Feeling the slightest urge
to slap Windhaven, he wondered the man if was having a fit. He was
unnaturally pale and seemed not to know what to do with the glass
he held. Adam caught the blasted thing just before the duke let it
slip from his numb fingers.

Adam’s cursing seemed to
wake Tristan from the daze he’d fallen into. Noticing the glass for
the first time, he lifted it to his lips, not caring what it
contained. He quaffed the fiery liquid, relishing its
burn.

Lifting haunted green eyes
to the man who had inexplicably become his friend, he forced his
horrified thoughts out into the open.

“The lake?” The words were
no more than a broken whisper. “Could she have…fallen…fallen
in?”

Adam, his eyes widening,
went quickly to the window, wondering what Windhaven had seen to
make him think such a thing. He stared at the thawing body of
water, seeing nothing but an endless expanse of white, momentarily
interrupted with dark spots where the dark water showed through
cracks and holes in the ice.

His own face drained of
color. He’d not considered the possibility of her falling in
before. And now, he wondered why not.

Turning quickly for the
door, he paused just long enough to drag Windhaven to his feet.
“Come, man, we must search before it’s too late.”

The duke treated him to a
funny look. “Before it’s too late?” he repeated, almost
mechanically. His expression turned distinctly pitying as he said,
“Prestwich, had she fallen in yesterday, it is about fifteen hours
too late.”

Despite the duke’s very
accurate assessment, a search was organized. Just in
case.

Tristan was actually
relieved. As much as he believed Raven had left because she
couldn’t bear to be with him, he took some solace in the fact that
something was being done.

His momentary panic over
the lake had faded to be replaced with the urgent feeling that she
was still alive. He just wished he knew where.

Two days after Raven’s
disappearance, Adam received a note from his friend, Lord Connor
Northwicke, sent via Lady Brianna.

Bri included a note
apologizing for the discrepancy between the date of the missive and
the date she sent it on. It had become misplaced among some
unimportant papers—namely society invitations.

Adam read the missive,
cursed fluently in four different languages, struck the desk he sat
at with his balled up fist, and flung the single sheet of vellum at
his host.

Tristan, having watched
this demonstration of displeasure with something akin to interest,
took up the missive, scanning its contents quickly. His pale brows
rose to reach his hairline.

“What has this to do with
anything?”

“More than you could
possibly know,” snapped Adam from where he paced before the hearth.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!”

Tristan ignored him,
staring down at the note as if for inspiration.

The door to his study was
suddenly thrown open with such force that it bounced off the wall.
Both of the room’s occupants looked towards the door, half
expecting yet another calamity to have befallen them
all.

It was Huntley, still in
residence, and by the looks of it, thoroughly disturbed.

“He’s taken her, I
know!”

Tristan rose, pouring a
glass of brandy. He carried it over to the distraught man, forcing
it into his hand.

“Here, man. Drink up, calm
down, and tell us what you are talking about.”

It was several minutes
before Lord Huntley was able to regulate his breathing, not to
mention his temper. When he could speak, he told them what he
suspected.

“Antoine, the bloody
bastard. I don’t know how father and I could have been so wrong
about him. As a child he was rather quiet and reserved but very
kind. He never would have hurt Rae, I’m sure of it.”

Tristan shared a
disbelieving look with the baronet. “Apparently, he has.” As he
uttered the words, a heavy sensation lodged in his chest,
threatening to suffocate him.

The earl, having fully
recovered his poise, looked up from his seat before the other two
men. “Antoine would never do this,” he insisted. His eyes dropped,
a frown drawing together his black brows. “And yet he
has.”

“How sure are you that he
really was Antoine?” the duke asked mysteriously, he and the
baronet watching Huntley very closely.

A brief scratching on the
door heralded the imminent appearance of Benson, distracting
everyone from the duke’s very pertinent, if rather odd, question.
He bowed, offering the duke a card on a silver salver.

Tristan took it up. A wry
smile crossed his grim features. “Well, what do you know?” He
handed it to Sir Adam.

“Show him up,” the duke
commanded.

Minutes later the three
gentlemen were joined by one more. He was shorter than the rest and
startlingly fair, his pale blond hair worn rather longer than
fashion dictated. He sported visible laugh lines and a rather
careworn appearance around the eyes.

His face was unusually grim
but he managed a strained smile for the company, gazing with
meaning at the baronet.

Adam made the
introductions. “Gentlemen, Lord Connor Northwicke.”

Adam cut aside the usual
inane greetings to ask, “What word?”

“Ah, so you did receive my
note,” Lord Connor murmured, glancing down at his drink. “In truth,
not much. He has been noted in London among other
places.”

“Who recognized him? Surely
no one in Society?”

Connor shook his head,
stared down in his drink for a long silent moment, then quaffed it.
He wasn’t much a one for drinking, but the stresses of the past few
weeks had been hell.

“Derringer has had a small
part since his return to England from God only knows where. In
fact, he was the one who brought the news in the first place.” He
carefully set aside the glass, afraid he might do the unthinkable
and smash it—or the unbearable and drop it.

Adam saw his friend’s
rather odd behavior and guessed rightly that the whole situation
was wearing on him drastically.

“Con, leave it to us. We’ll
find him. In fact…”

Tristan stepped forward.
“What kind of identity would he prefer to take on?”

Everyone stared at him. His
face twisted in exasperation. “Would he, do you think, take on the
guise of upper, lower, or middle class? Rich or poor? Titled or a
just plain mister? Hell, would he masquerade as a
servant?”

Lord Connor shook his head.
“Never a servant,” he said decisively. “Derringer mentioned a
certain French aristocrat suddenly putting himself forward in
Society. Actually, he claims Lord Dunston as his friend.” He
shifted deep blue eyes to the Earl of Huntley. “You are Dunston’s
heir, are you not?”

“I am,” Huntley admitted
without hesitation. “And if you are speaking of Comte du Larousse,
I can say that yes, he is a friend, or was, rather.”

“Was?”

Huntley nodded toward
Tristan, suddenly overcome with anger, sadness, or a combination of
both to the extent that he couldn’t speak.

Tristan wondered if he
would do much better. Clearing his throat, he said, “We suspect du
Larousse has kidnapped Raven.”

Lord Connor’s gaze moved
slowly from Adam to Tristan to Huntley. “You suspect he has taken
Raven?” He turned to Huntley. “Do you not vouch for your
friend?”

“No, my lord, I do not,”
the earl admitted. “Not anymore. He’s changed. There’s a
ruthlessness in him I never noticed before.”

Lord Connor paled with
every word Huntley uttered. He stared past them all, into the
leaping flames in the fireplace. Presently, he spoke.

“If du Larousse is actually
my brother, heaven help Raven.”

Huntley’s expression was
faintly perplexed. “Your brother, my lord?”

“The Marquess of Beverley,”
Adam supplied. “He’s a little deranged and probably a little
angry.”

Lord Connor speared his
friend with a look. “I was under the impression he’d been taken
care of.”

Adam shrugged. “He was dead
the last time I saw him. But…”

“But…?”

“I didn’t actually check
his pulse, you know. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing; he fell
overboard.”

“You killed a
man?”

Adam met Tristan’s
astonished countenance. “I have killed more men than I can count.
And you, your grace?”

Tristan had nothing to say
to that considering he’d been in the military and killed a few men
himself.

Huntley was the one truly
shocked by what he was hearing. Never having served in the military
or been involved in anything remotely nefarious, he had yet to
experience the necessity of protecting someone, possibly at the
cost of a human life.

Tristan privately hoped the
earl never had to undergo such hell.

“So where do we go from
here, Lord Beverley?”

Even Raven was inwardly
surprised at the calmness of her tone. She was speaking to a man
the world thought was dead—and good riddance—and she actually
sounded as though she were inquiring about the weather.

He moved closer. His eyes
gleamed in the candlelight, a manic flicker appearing now and then
as he watched her, detecting her fear no matter how far down she
buried it.

He methodically peeled off
his gloves. Raven watched, mesmerized. His every movement was
calculated, like a dance.

The man had a way about
him, she had to admit. Even now, knowing what she knew about him,
he was entrancing

“Come here to me, my
angel,” he cajoled, the hidden command unmistakable.

“‘
Said the spider to the
fly,’” she quoted.

He chuckled lowly. “How I
have missed you, my darling Swan. Have you missed me?”

“Like a toothache,” she
answered with complete, if not quite sensible, honesty.

He took another step
closer. Raven determinedly held her ground although every instinct
screamed at her to flee. She would not let this man see her
fear.

For she did fear him. He
was not right in his head. He made Lord Greyden, who had very
nearly succeeded in his rape attempt, look like nothing more than a
spoiled child.

It was a wonder that she
had actually recognized him. He had changed a hundredfold since
she’d seen him last. He no longer even remotely resembled the
young, dashing marquess with the cruel streak and propensity for
savage violence against women.

He was thinner, paler, and
his eyes held a manic gleam that wasn’t there before. His French
accent when masquerading as du Larousse had been flawless. Had he
not eschewed its use now, she might not have even realized they
were one and the same.

“You do realize, of course,
that by harming the daughter of a marquess, you will be hunted down
and destroyed like the animal you are.”

It was not a
question.

And he laughed.

And Raven wondered if
perhaps the devil himself had taken on human form.

In that instant, Raven knew
there would be no escape for her. He would do what he wished;
should she attack him, he’d kill her just as an insignificant
insect.

But everything in her
rebelled at giving in.

“I know well who you are,
Lady Rachael. I’ve always known.”