Page 76 of The Duke’s Godsend Bride

“Rest,” said Matthew George Bannerman, and he patted her bound hands once, as one might pat a nervous horse. “You will feel better in the morning. Then we can discuss our future.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Your Grace. She’s gone.”

Dunn stood in the study doorway with his hat crushed in both hands and road dust to the knees. He was the day man. A wiry fellow who had sent Anthony two perfectly dull reports. His chest was heaving like he had come running.

Anthony was on his feet so quickly, his chair tipped over, the ledger slid off the desk and landed open on the carpet.

“What?”

“Miss Ashcroft rode out alone at half past eight. I kept my distance, as you ordered. I lost her on the hill, but I knew the road so I kept on the same path.” Dunn swallowed. “When I came to the hollow past the old mill, I found her mare standing in the lane with the reins trailing. Nobody on her. A riding crop lay in the mud, and there was the track of a cart. I followed it as far as the main road, and then it was lost among a hundred others. I came here as fast as I could.”

For a moment Anthony did not hear anything at all. There was a high, thin ringing in his ears. He had ordered four men so that this would never happen, and he had told them to keep their distance so that she would never know. The distance had been just wide enough for someone to take her through.

Good heavens.

Later he would have time to hate himself. He set the thought aside. “Where is the mare now?”

“I tied her at the mill, Your Grace. She is unhurt.”

“Good. Sit down before you fall.” He crossed to the bell pull and rang it until the rope swung. The butler appeared in the doorway looking alarmed. “Send for Mr. Pryor and tell him to bring the survey of the whole district, every tenancy roll, and every deed he has. Have three horses saddled. Send a footman to the magistrate, now, on my best mount. He is to say that the Duke of Glenhaven requires every constable that can be put on a horse, and that a lady has been abducted on the mill road this morning. They are to follow Dunn.” He turned. “Can you guide them?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Then drink something and be ready.”

The steward arrived in six minutes, red in the face, with a roll of paper the length of his arm. Anthony swept the desk bare and they weighted the corners with an inkwell, a paperknife, and two of his grandfather’s books. The map showed Glenhaven in green and the surrounding farms in a tangle of brown. Dunn laid a blunt finger on the hollow.

“Here. The cart’s tracks went south.”

“South.” Anthony studied the lines. “How many houses lie within three miles of this spot, in that direction? Not cottages. Houses someone could hold someone in and not be overheard.”

Pryor bent over the map and began to count under his breath. “The vicarage. That is Fenwick’s farm, which is let, and these two are tenants of yours, Your Grace, and I would stake my life on both. The old dower house, shut up these six years. Mrs. Haldane’s, but she is eighty.” His finger traveled and stopped. “This one, a mile off the lower road. That was a hunting box before it was a house. It was sold two years ago to a gentleman from London who comes down seldom and keeps a small staff. Lord Brighton. Then this one –”

“Lord Brighton?” Anthony stopped him.

“Yes, Your Grace. He is a –”

“I know who he is.”

From the moment Anthony had seen him at the Camden ball, he’d had a bad feeling about the man, mostly because of how he looked at Leonora. It could not be a coincidence that he was right there in the center of it all.

It was the only lead they currently had.

“Dunn, when the constables arrived, take them to this house. “ He rolled the map with shaking hands and put it into Pryor’s arms.

Dunn looked at him. “Your Grace, you cannot go alone...”

“Constables, Dunn. As soon as possible.”

Anthony was already in the hall. He did not stop for a coat. He rode as if he were being chased. The whole way he thought about what he would do to Lord Brighton. He thought of it in some detail. It was an unpleasant sort of comfort, and he had never in his life been so glad of a single clear idea.

He left the horse tied in a copse two fields from the house and went on foot along the wall. It was a handsome, well-kept place with a gravel sweep, a screen of elms, and every curtain was drawn. He saw no one. He had thought he might have to climb in. Instead he rounded the corner of the garden wall and almost walked into a woman standing in the shadow of a chestnut tree.

She was small and gray, with a hood pulled forward over her face and one hand pressed hard over her mouth. She was watching the house with an attention so complete that she did not hear him until he was a yard away. When she turned, he saw her eyes.

He stopped as if he had struck a wall.