Chapter Twenty-five
The horse trotted toward the now familiar elegant facade. Arthur tied it up outside and ascended the steps. The groom would likely notice it soon, but now he wanted to greet his wife.
He entered the building, and called, “Madeline. Sweetheart?”
The place was silent, and Arthur smiled.
Of course she wouldn’t be inside. The day was beautiful.
Footsteps rushed toward him, and he sighed blissfully. “You’re here.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Arthur recognized the voice of Madeline’s lady’s maid, though now it seemed imbued with rather more hesitancy than that to which he was accustomed. The blissful sensation dissipated, and he swung around.
He was accustomed to seeing the lady’s maid move around confidently. She was young and had already attained the position of lady’s maid to a marchioness. She tended to wear her hair in elaborate, ever changing coiffures as if practicing for Madeline. This evening her coiffure still seemed complex, but strands of her hair were loose, as if she’d raked her hand through them.
Arthur assessed her. Perhaps she’d spent the afternoon frolicking in the fields and was taken aback at seeing her master.
Unfortunately the servant also bit her lower lip, and her eyes seemed rounded.
Arthur’s earlier contentment transformed to worry. “Has my wife taken ill?”
“No.” She frowned. “I mean…I don’t know.”
Her hands tangled her white apron. “She’s gone, sir.”
“Gone?” Fear swept through him, moving with more speed than the most well engineered curricle.
“I’ve been ever so worried,” she added.
“When did she leave?”
“Must have been just after breakfast. She went for a stroll in the garden and—never returned.”
“Good God.”
The day was still pleasant, but the sun was already setting. He’d been excited to pull Madeline outside to marvel at the tangerine and rose clouds that had set the sky ablaze.
That inclination felt naive now.
She’d left.
He swallowed hard. “Did she take a bag?”
Had she planned to go?
“I didn’t notice anything missing, my lord.”
“Please search.”
Arthur despised the pity in the maid’s gaze. He felt like they were conspiring together, that only she knew that his wife had abandoned him.
He thought about following her. Thought about rushing to Madeline’s room, seeing Madeline’s attire and jewels and art, and reassuring himself that she must be there.
He wavered. He could search the gardens. Look under every bush and tree. Damnation. She couldn’t have hurt herself somehow, could she?
He ratcheted his mind. There weren’t hidden ledges or thundering waterfalls on the estate, were there? Vicious lakes with slippery stones or bridges that collapsed when anyone attempted to stride over them?
Or had someone gotten inside? There was a gatehouse, but with only one guard, it was hardly a paragon of fortification.
Arthur didn’t think it needed to be.
He strode toward the door.
Letters flickered against the surface of the glimmering silver platter on which they were placed.
He sighed, recognizing the hand of Admiral Fitzroy’s secretary. He didn’t want to hear from him. He didn’t care if the man intended to send him to Europe or the Caribbean, North Africa or North America. He didn’t even care if the man desired him in politics.
He picked up the letter. Likely he should toss it in the fire. Unfortunately he would have to call a servant to light one, so tearing it in a multitude of pieces would have to suffice.
He tore open the letter. Madeline’s name caught his attention, and he unfolded the letter and smoothed the creases from the paper.
“I regret to inform you that your wife has been discovered to be behind the theft of the Costantini jewels. We have arrested her—”
His throat dried.
It was nonsense.
Comte Beaulieu was not some advocate for the law. Or at least not any form of the law that applied to justice and improving things.
He likely had her locked up in some hovel.
No way would he stay silent. Madeline was his wife, no matter who they brought telling him he could have an annulment. Perhaps he didn’t have bloody sheets to flaunt like some paunchy medieval knight suspected of impotence, but Madeline was his. Perhaps there would be a child in nine months to prove it. But he didn’t want to wait to find out. He didn’t want any excuses to not be with her.
I love her.
Had he never told her that?
The thought rose in his mind, as strong as any cyclone, as fear inducing as any French fleet pointing cannons at his ship.
Guilt lingered in his body, merging with the faint sickness caught in his throat and settling in his stomach.
Likely she was scared. Likely she was terrified. And he’d done absolutely nothing to alleviate any pain she might be feeling.
Good God. Prayers had always been things he’d thought best to leave to ministers, but he wanted to sink to his knees and bow his head and beg—
But there was no time. “I’m leaving,” he called to the maid and he rushed out the door.
Arthur swung onto his horse and urged it into a gallop. Admiral Fitzroy didn’t have a house in the area, something Arthur had been distinctly happy about when he’d chosen the property.
The horse trampled over blossoms that had fallen from the chestnut trees. Vague ponderings of roasting the chestnuts over the fire at Christmas seemed at once naive and a hopelessly precious dream to cling to.
Finally the horse’s legs carried them from the estate, onto the lane, and—
Arthur pulled the horse to a stop. It snorted, perhaps annoyed at the sudden halt to its exercise.
If only he were certain in which direction to guide the gelding.
The Dolphin.
It was the only coaching inn in the district with decent accommodation, something which the admiral had a definite fondness for.
Arthur directed the horse toward it. Soon his horse was once again galloping over the lane, stomping its hooves, and skillfully avoiding the odd puddle.
Pink and purple slabs of color shimmered over the once cerulean sky. Lately sunset sightings had been causing him uncharacteristically sentimental musings, causing strange swellings in his chest area, but now the sunset just reminded him that time was dwindling.
Arthur leaned forward on his horse. He attempted to concentrate on the rhythmic thud of the horse’s hooves and the sudden jolts whenever the lane inclined unexpectedly. That had always succeeded in keeping his mind focused in the past, whenever he was assigned to venture into enemy territory. But now all he could think of, all he wanted to think of, was Madeline.
A wagon appeared in the lane before him, and he guided the horse to swerve onto the field and to join the road after.
A farmer shouted angry things at him.
It didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was Madeline.
She was the absolutely dearest person in the world to him. He’d loved her when he’d first come to London. She’d been the most elegant, most exquisite debutante in the entire capital.
That hadn’t mattered.
Arthur hadn’t even been a marquess. He’d marveled at her ability to have mastered etiquette, but it had been his conversations with her as they danced through the balls that he remembered.
She’d been witty and vibrant, intimidated by the glitter and gleam of London. She’d been observant, noticing everything of interest. Some of the bluestockings prided themselves on their disinterest in London, but she’d been interested and intelligent, a truth made clear by the fact she’d become a renowned art scholar, even if she’d used her husband’s name.
No.
He didn’t want to see that vibrant, charming spirit crushed.
Lord. I should have told her.
He’d been too proud. He hadn’t wanted to remember how she’d asked him, through her uncle, to stop seeing her.
He hadn’t wanted to admit to himself how he felt. And now—now it was perhaps too late.
Finally he saw the inn appear before him. He scrambled off the horse, threw the reins to a surprised looking groom and asked him to tie the horse up, and then dashed inside.