CHAPTER TWENTY
BLACKBOURNE HOUSE, LONDON – MID-MAY, 1814
Damon sat in his study, nursing a tumbler of brandy. He’d searched the streets for hours, questioning nearly everyone he saw, but had received no additional information. Grace had been snatched, thrown in a carriage, and bundled off somewhere west. More than that, he didn’t know.
He hurled the glass at the wall. He’d come home only on the insistence of Arthington, who’d accompanied him on his quest. Although he had known the fellow duke only a short while, Arthington was proving quite a friend. Damon trusted him. Emerlin, too. How powerful to have other men of similar age and rank in whom he could put faith. It was a strange but welcome experience.
“We will help however possible,” Emerlin had assured him. “Deveric will come to London as quickly as he can, and we will find Lady Grace.”
But would they? How? They had no clue as to her abductor or her location. And if—no, when—they did find her, in what condition would she be?
Despite the grand wealth and polish of the West End, there was a darker side to London. Women could and did disappear, though not usually a member of the aristocracy from a ball.
That was the one thing that gave him hope. This seemed too premeditated to indicate a random crime. A crime of passion was a possibility, but Grace had never mentioned any other suitors, nor had he seen anyone pursue her. He shook his head.
“Idiots,” he muttered.
She was a beautiful soul, inside and out. How did others not see it, not rush to simply be in her presence? Perhaps that was intentional on her part. Like him, she didn’t care to let people in, preferring instead to stick to her quiet routines, her close circle of intimates.
His eyes welled up with tears. He let them fall. There was no one here to see anyway, and it was a crushing despair that weighed on him, this fear that just as he had found someone with whom he could see sharing a life, whom he could even love, she’d been taken away, perhaps never to return.
Love. There was a powerful word. Did he love Grace Mattersley? They had had only a few encounters, but each had been significant, meaningful. In their conversation in the carriage that afternoon in Hyde Park, they’d not wasted their time on pleasantries and trivialities, but had dived right into substantive conversation. He loved that about her; she wasn’t about surface. She was depth. She was intelligence. She was kindness. She didn’t judge him for his ticcing movements.
Hell, yes, he loved her.
Hobbes appeared in the doorway. He must have heard the glass shatter. “Is there anything I may do for you, Your Grace?”
Damon nearly snickered at his valet’s formality. Hadn’t they moved past that? He shot Hobbes a grin so wide, so crazed, he was sure he resembled Lucifer himself.
“Bring her back to me, Hobbes. Bring her back.”
Hobbes nodded, sympathy radiating from his eyes. “Perhaps you should rest for a few hours.”
Damon shook his head vehemently. “No. I cannot sleep. I must find her. I must.” He stood and strode to the fire, which blazed with welcomed warmth, for he was frozen inside. Staring into the flames, he repeated the words over and over.
“I must find her.”
THE ROCKING MOTION of the carriage jostled Grace to consciousness. She lay on her side, trying to gain her equilibrium. A horse whinnied. The violence of the rocking indicated they were traveling at a fast rate of speed. But to where? Why?
She set her hand to her head to steady it as dizziness and nausea overtook her.
“Ah, good. You’re awake.”
Her eyes flew open. A man sat across from her, though not the same one who’d pulled her from the terrace. Grace had never seen this man before. He was a portly fellow, with a shock of thinning white-blond hair and thick, bushy eyebrows. Beneath the eyebrows lay narrow-set eyes of an indeterminate color, perhaps hazel, perhaps brown. One of his feet was propped on a small stool.
“Who are you?” She forced herself upright. To her surprise, she was not bound in any way. Then the pistol nestled on the seat next to the man caught her eye. Clearly he had ways to keep her in line. Deadly ways.
“Do you not know me?” The man’s lips pinched into a tight smile. “You know my nephew, most certainly. That despicable excuse for a human being.”
His nephew? Who? Oh— “You are Damon’s uncle.”
The man nodded. “Good to see you have a brain.”
“What are you doing? Why have you taken me? Where are we going?”
“Typical female, full of questions.” His eyes bulged, a vein in his forehead visibly throbbing.
Was he mad?
“Damon has taken what is mine. He should not be Duke. I should. So I have taken something of his.”
Grace frowned. “Me? I am not his. We are not—”
“Don’t try to fool me, missy. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve watched you from afar. It’s clear as day.” He gave a self-satisfied chuckle.
“But,” Grace began, before biting her lip.
“But what?”
“But why have you kidnapped me? What could you possibly hope to achieve?”
“He will give me what’s mine. Oh, not Thorne Hill. It is entailed and no court would allow it. Unless I kill him.”
Fillmore cackled at that, a high-pitched nervous keening. Yes, the man was not in his right mind.
He whisked out a flask from inside his jacket and took a large swig. “Oh yes, he will give me what is mine. I have creditors bearing down on me, men to whom I owe debts. I am an honorable man; I settle what I owe.”
She stifled an unexpected laugh. The man considered himself honorable? When he’d kidnapped the sister of a peer, absconding with her to who knew where? The wildness about him made it clear, however, she needed to tread carefully.
“This is about money?”
“It is about honor,” he roared, and Grace’s head pounded from the force of his voice in the cramped space. “The man has none. He is a devil. He is possessed by a demon. He. Is. Not. A. Duke.”
If anyone is possessed, ’tis you. Grace remained quiet, rubbing at the painful spots on her neck. What should her next move be? She glanced out the window, but it was still dark. She had no clue what time it was or where they were.
“We are traveling to Bath,” he announced, as if she’d asked. “My gout pains me something fierce. I need the waters.” He took another swig from his flask. “I have sent a messenger to Damon, telling him to meet me there. He will bring me the money I need, and I will let you go.”
Surely he couldn’t think that’s all that would happen? He couldn’t think Damon would simply hand over the money and that would be that?
Fillmore wiped his mouth daintily with a handkerchief he’d pulled out of his other pocket. “Do not fear, Lady Grace; you will be well tended to.”
She wanted to scream. Being well tended to did not include being rendered senseless at a ball, thrown into a carriage, and forced to go with a monster such as him. And what did he think would happen to her after this, assuming he did, indeed, let her go? Her reputation would be in ruins. She’d be shunned, all marriage prospects gone. She’d seen it happen to her sister. Amara had never fully recovered.
Not that Grace had wanted to marry, but it had been her presumed course. Truth be told, the idea had crossed her mind more and more since meeting the Duke of Malford, not nearly as repugnant as before.
But now? Damon had never spoken of marriage. Of courting, yes, for which marriage was the understood outcome should they prove suitable. It was far too soon, however—their association of too short duration. No formal promises had been made, no proposals accepted.
Would—could he want her after this? A woman whose honor was in shreds? It would taint his sisters’ opportunities. Mar his own tenuous standing in Society. Her head throbbed. It was too hard to think. Her eyelids fluttered shut.
“Yes, rest now. It is a long trip. You and I have plenty of time to get better acquainted.”
Bile rose in her throat and she fought not to cast up her accounts. She kept her eyes closed so as not to have to see the lunatic across from her, not to have to see the pistol, not to have to face the reality that this was a terrifying situation with a very uncertain outcome.
Damon. Tread carefully. The man is not in his right mind. Don’t let him hurt you, Damon. Don’t let him.
After a few more miles, she fell into a troubled sleep, her mind still groggy from her bout of unconsciousness. Her last thoughts were of Damon’s blue eyes, the fear in them mirroring her own.