What a Lady Craves (31 page)

Cecelia leveled him with a glare before smiling at the girls. “Come along, then, I suppose we ought to keep your father happy and put these away.”

“Thank you. Might I ask how you even got them in the first place?” He’d been positive no one else knew their whereabouts.

“The girls showed me.”

“I saw where you put the box,” Francesca piped up. “We wanted her to see. And I know the trick to opening it.”

“I think it best if we put the jewelry away, and we didn’t show anyone else that trick, or even let anyone know where the box is.” He paused, searching for the best explanation a child her age might understand. “Cecelia’s all right, because she’s family, but other people might look on this box with bad intentions. Someone might decide it’s worth stealing.”

Francesca nodded and then ducked her head from beneath a rope of pearls. Wincing, Helena removed a pair of ear bobs.

Alexander left them to it and turned back to his sister. “How is it you’re keeping an eye on them this early? I came down here looking for Satya. Have you seen him?”

“No, I haven’t.” Cecelia looked him straight in the eye, but something about her reaction struck him as overdone—as if she was forcing herself to hold steady. It reminded him of yesterday when she told him there was nothing to her scandal.

“Are you certain?”

A faint wash of pink tinged her cheeks. “Completely. For that matter, I haven’t seen Henrietta, either. Isn’t she supposed to take charge of your girls?”

“During the day. Satya guards them at night.” He collected Marianne’s jewel box, snapped the lid shut, and tucked it under his arm.

“Guards? Well, aren’t you jumpy?”

“Trust me,” he grated so his daughters would not overhear. “I have good reason, and I do not wish to detail it when I must find Satya, urgently.” With any luck, the man had repaired to his morning meditations. “Do me a service, and do not let the girls out of your sight.”

Henrietta couldn’t recall a day she felt less like facing. A flurry of memories swirled through her brain, images of the previous night, each one carried on a gust of emotion. She not only saw, she felt—relived, if she were honest, over and over. And each time, she recalled something new. The brush of his lips at her throat. The flinch of his back muscles beneath her fingers as she dug her nails into his flesh. The sweep of his tongue in her mouth. The slide of silken steel beneath her hand.

The feeling of utter completion when he filled her.

Last night, he’d opened her in more than just the physical sense. He’d reached into her heart and drawn forth the feelings that had long lain dormant. He’d forced her to face their magnitude, their sheer power for having survived the past eight years with no nurturing. She could no longer hide from herself. If a woman was never finished, that was true in more than once sense.
She
was not finished with Alexander; perhaps she’d never be until she breathed her last.

She pressed her forehead to the solid oak panel of her door, but as the moments ticked by, she knew she’d have to emerge from her bedchamber, march up to the nursery, and take the girls in hand. Somewhere amid the stories and teaching of letters, she needed to find the words to tell them their father had gone.

First, she had to find the words to convince herself. Part of the reason she stood with her
fingers curled about the door handle was a wild notion of bumping into him in the corridor. Exchanging pleasantries as if nothing had transpired between them.

Good morning
 …

Oh, indeed
 …

Fine day, isn’t it?

Nowhere near as fine as last night. She’d recklessly thrown herself into his arms, but the payment in pleasure had surpassed anything she might have imagined.

Not the same.

That was what he’d said, and well she believed it. Another whirl of images gusted through her mind, remembered frissons skittered across her skin, and deep in her belly a familiar heaviness descended. If ever she’d contemplated taking a lover, the experience with Alexander had removed every last candidate in England from consideration. She could not conceive of attaining such intimacy with any other man.

Worse, now that he was gone, her body wished for more. But only of him.

No doubt, he’d risen long ago from the bed where she’d left him and stolen from the manor before even the servants stirred.

More than talking to the girls, she was dreading the next meal, when she’d have to sit and stare at his empty place while putting on a cheerful front for his mother and sister. And for the duration, the memories would play themselves out in her head. She’d relive this touch, that nip, and the deliberate brush of his fingers against her most intimate self.

No.
She stalked away from the door to her bedside table. Her copy of
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
lay open. She’d turned to the book last night after a most bittersweet goodnight kiss, in the hope of finding some wisdom from her mentor.

“Love, from its very nature, must be transitory.” She muttered the words to herself as if that would make her believe them. Whatever emotion roiled in her heart, it certainly didn’t feel ephemeral. Like an unwanted houseguest, it had taken up residence inside her, set up furniture, and ordered supplies for at least a year. And, in the end, even Mary Wollstonecraft had succumbed to love.

Yes, and if Henrietta was to dislodge these feelings now, she must confront reality, which meant plastering on a cheerful smile and beginning her day. This morning, she was late. The girls would expect her.

Chin high, she tromped to the nursery while planning her morning’s activities. She could make the girls practice writing their names so they might sign a message to their papa—
assuming she could find the means to explain his departure.

An ache formed in the center of her chest. So young, and they’d lost so much—grandfather, mother, and now their father. Francesca, the way she adored Alexander, was sure to take the separation hard. Helena, too, but in a different way. Less confident of Alexander’s affections, the girl might well close in on her hurt once more. Henrietta would have to tread carefully.

She searched her brain for the best way to broach the topic. If she could find an opening and start, the rest of the words might well come, but inspiration was as shy as a sixteen-year-old making her first foray into society.

All too soon, Henrietta reached the dim corridor at the top of the house, only to find the nursery empty—or nearly so. At her gasp, a maid paused in the middle of tucking in the sheets.

“Where are Helena and Francesca?” Henrietta demanded in a tone worthy of Lady Epperley’s most vexatious mood.

The maid bobbed her head. “They weren’t here when I came in to tidy, miss. I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”

“They must be with Satya.”
Please let them be with Satya. Please.
“Have you seen him?”

“No, miss.”

“Great—” She caught herself before she let the rest of the epithet out. In any case, her heart had jumped onto the back of her tongue. Its jitters blocked anything further.

Damn, damn, and damn. Alexander barely gone, and already she’d failed him. She raced into the corridor, where she forced herself to stop and think. Could the girls have prevailed on Satya to take them to the stables and see their kittens? Lord, please let that be the case.

She tripped back down three flights of winding servants’ stairs to another narrow hallway, one that led to the back entrance. A sound made her glance over her shoulder. A dark figure, large and male, loomed in the passage. With a gasp, she whirled.

“Alexander?” Impossible. And now he was going to catch her. “I … I thought you were already gone.”

“I meant to be off long since, only I can’t find Satya.” He approached, and even his footsteps sounded so calm, so reasonable. “You wouldn’t have seen him this morning, would you?”

Damn it, she was going to have to admit her failure. “I was hoping he was with the girls.”

“No, he isn’t.”

Blast it all. “Oh, well, you see …” How could she possibly tell him?

“The girls are fine. My sister is looking after them. They said something about going to the stables to see their kittens.”

Unbidden, the breath rushed from her lungs, and she sagged against the wall. “Thank goodness. I’ve been going mad trying to find them. You have no idea.”

He reached out a hand and gripped her shoulder. She’d have been grateful for a full embrace, but she saw he was carrying a bulky object under his other arm. A familiar-looking bulk. A tingle of foreboding replaced her momentary relief.

“Has something happened?” she asked.

“Satya seems to have gone missing. I’ve looked all over this bloody house.”

Eyes wide, she stared at him, while a handful of responses vied to escape. She’d always doubted the man, even if Alexander insisted he was trustworthy. But she could hardly fling that in his face now. In any case, she didn’t get a chance to.

Footsteps sounded in the passageway, coming from the direction of the back entrance, clattering at a rapid clip.

“What the—” Alexander began. He secured the box under his arm.

Henrietta turned. Cecelia stopped short, quite alone.

“Oh.” Her face went white, and the fine lines of her mouth twisted into a grimace of pain. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said low, as if she was being careful not to shout. As if she needed to make an effort to control herself.

Alexander surged forward. “What in blazes is going on? Where are the girls?”

She swayed on her feet and grasped at the plaster to hold herself upright. “I’m sorry.” She seemed incapable of saying anything more.

Henrietta crossed to her and put an arm about her shoulders. “There, now. If we’re calm about it, we’ll piece together what happened more easily.”

“To the devil with bloody calm,” Alexander roared. “Where in
hell
are my daughters?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Cecelia whispered. “I couldn’t stop him.”

Alexander lunged toward his sister. “Couldn’t stop who?”

Henrietta extended a placating hand. “Good heavens, you’re not going to get anything out of her by running at her, shouting and swearing.”

“I tried,” Cecelia went on in a monotone. “He was too much for me.”

“God damn it,
who
?”

She looked up at him, and a tear slid down one pale cheek. “I … I don’t know. He looked Indian. He said he came in the name of Nilmani.”

Nilmani. God damn him and his ornate palace. And what did the Raja want with Alexander’s children? He’d been so bloody certain any connection to Nilmani began and ended with Marianne’s father.

He clenched his fists and ground his teeth. Anything to keep the eruption of seething rage from overflowing. If he allowed himself to lose control, he might well push Henrietta out of the way and shake some sense into his sister. He hadn’t been this horrified since he’d come home to Marianne’s lifeless body.

He settled for more shouting. “How the
hell
did he get anywhere near my daughters?”

Henrietta placed her hands on his shoulders and braced herself, but she wasn’t strong enough to displace him. “Can you stop? If we want answers, we need to calm down.”

He didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to act. Most of all, he wanted an outlet for the emotion thundering through him. “No, I cannot stop, not until I learn where they went and how long ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Cecelia choked back a sob. She might not grasp the full extent of the threat, but certainly his reaction indicated the gravity of the situation. “I thought … a constitutional. He … he took them from the path.”

“You
took
them beyond the confines of this property? You
said
you were going to the stables.” No, he couldn’t dwell on that now. He had to find them. “Where? Where did he come on you?”

“I had the girls each by a hand,” Cecelia said between sniffs, “and we were … I don’t know, halfway to the village? He jumped at us from behind a rock. I caught a glimpse of his face, and he gave me the message. He wanted you to know. But he was with another—dark-skinned, Indian like him. The other hit me.”

She pressed her fingers to her temple, brushing aside tendrils of hair to reveal an ugly bruise oozing a trickle of blood. “I must have swooned for a moment. Long enough for them to be gone when I came back to my senses. But they’d pressed this into my hand.”

She held out a square of paper. With a glare, Alexander took it and unfolded it. The script was a foreign scrawl, barely decipherable. Bengali. The symbols blurred before his eyes as his brain willed the writing to re-form into some semblance of sense. Despite years spent in the country learning enough of the local dialect to do business, he could only make out a word here
and there. “Damn it, we’re going to need Satya for this.
Satya!
”

His bellow shook the paintings on the walls, but it produced only Hirsch, who stared disapprovingly. “Did you need anything, sir?”

Alexander rounded on the butler. “Yes, and in fact, I called for him. I need Satya, immediately. Do you know where he is?”