Page 74 of Along Came a Rogue

“I thought so, too.” He frowned into his glass. “But the only one who knew about the baby was Yardley, and Emily trusts the woman with her life. She even offered to help Emily run away to Glasgow.”

“You think Reynard Crenshaw is responsible, then?”

He looked hard at Thomas. “Yes.”

But Thomas frowned at that. “Reynard has nothing against the baby. He’s already stated that he won’t challenge the inheritance if she has a son.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “He didn’t even know she was with child until she arrived in London.”

Grey felt the familiar frustration rising inside him again. They were back at the beginning, with no answers and with Emily still in danger. He shoved himself to his feet and began to pace, unable any longer to sit still and do nothing. “Then who?”

Thomas shook his head silently as his eyes followed Grey back and forth across the room in his pacing.

“I’ll find him and stop him, whoever he is. I’ve got Hedley investigating the phaeton driver, and I’m still hoping to hear something from my contacts in Yorkshire.” But even as he said that, a frustrated powerlessness gripped him. He’d spent the past hour with Hedley questioning witnesses about the phaeton, and all the conflicting information came to nothing. So had all the leads from Yorkshire. “In the meantime, my men will keep guarding her. If she’s right, then the attempts against her should cease with the birth. If it’s a girl, they’ll stop completely.”

“If it’s a boy,” Thomas agreed gravely, “he inherits at birth. It would be too obvious, then, if someone attempted to murder him in order to inherit.”

“And if it is someone after revenge for any of Crenshaw’s debts”—Grey forced a casual shrug, doing his best to hide the fury he felt toward her dead husband—“then the inheritance will pay off whatever he owes, and there will be no reason to come after either of them anymore.” God help the bastard if he did, because Grey would kill him before he let Emily or her baby be harmed. “I don’t want her alone for a moment until the baby arrives.”

Although if the damned stubborn woman had agreed to marry him by now, she wouldn’t be alone.

“I’ll make certain Yardley’s with her,” Thomas assured him.

Yardley, when it should have been him. The sting of fresh rejection coursed through him. “I’m going to check in with Hedley, do some more investigating,” he informed Thomas as he moved toward the door. “Tell her I stopped by and that I’ll be back.” He shot Thomas a determined look. “And this time, she won’t be able to avoid me.”

“You know, a lesser man would have given up by now.”

“Emily doesn’t deserve a lesser man.” Grey turned on his heel and stalked out the door.

* * *

“In my opinion,” Dr. Brandon told Emily as he patted her hand, “you have some nasty bruises along your backside, my dear, but nothing more.”

Emily gave a relieved sigh. She’d been terrified for her baby when she regained consciousness in the carriage as Kate rushed her back to Chatham House, the accident now little more than a blurry memory. And a throbbing bruise on her bottom.

Beside her on the bed, Kate Westover squeezed her arm reassuringly around Emily’s shoulders. “No other injuries?”

“None that I see.” Bushy gray brows lifted at Emily. “I think your backside took the brunt of the fall.”

She grimaced painfully and rubbed at her hip. “I know so.”

“And the baby?” a deep voice interjected from across the room.

Emily looked up at Thomas. He leaned back against the wall beside the open door, arms folded across his chest, his head lowered. Despite the lingering pain in his side, he’d carried her up the stairs from the carriage and gently laid her on the bed, leaving only when Kate shooed him out so that Dr. Brandon could examine her. And now he’d returned to his post, as immovable as a mountain.

Emily’s throat tightened at the expression etched onto his face—one of worry and fear. His eyes fixed on the doctor. “Was the baby injured?”

“Not at all that I can assess,” Dr. Brandon assured them as he closed his bag and lifted it from the bed. “But you should watch her closely for a few days.”

“Yes, thank you, Dr. Brandon.” Kate slid from the bed with a grateful smile and placed her hand on the physician’s arm. “I’ll walk you down.”

Thomas nodded to the doctor as Kate escorted him from the room and closed the door behind them, keeping his gaze focused unmoving on his sister as she lay propped up against the pillows on the bed. “Are you truly all right, Emily?”

Where there should have been warmth inside her at his concern, there was only unease. The little hairs on her arms stood on end, and she could feel a tension spring up between them as thick as water. Something had changed during the few minutes he’d been gone.

“Yes.” She forced a nod.

He paused for a moment before informing her solemnly, “Grey stopped by.”

“Oh?” She bit her lip in trepidation. “What did he want?”