JOSIE HAD SAT in utter silence beside her husband for the entire train ride to London, an oppressive hush which persisted as they began the brief coach ride from Paddington Station to his grandmother’s townhome. Blackthorne had given her a great deal of food for thought the previous evening. It seemed the duke was not quite the villain she’d presumed him to be, but rather a dupe of his friend, the Earl of Seaton. Although, it was still a mystery why Seaton had done what he had.
Even so, she didn’t consider Blackthorne blameless. He’d made a promise to her, then delegated it to someone else, who’d proved unreliable. Furthermore, if he’d come even once to visit his nephews at Tearlach Castle, he would have discovered Seaton’s deception. She gave a small, rueful smile as she thought of the reasons Blackthorne believed she’d married him. Because he’d been kind. Because she felt obligated to him.
The primary emotion that had survived their encounter last night was relief that her husband still had no inkling of why she’d actually married him, or that she intended to take his nephews and flee to America.
She wondered why she was suddenly “fleeing” rather than merely “returning home.”
Because you’re starting to like the Dastardly Duke. You love what happens with him in bed. And you’re afraid that, if you don’t get away soon, you’ll never leave. He’s agreed to bring the boys to the Abbey when it’s repaired. You could stay in England and—
“Shut up!” Josie muttered to silence the treasonous voice in her head. She didn’t realize until Blackthorne’s head turned sharply in her direction, that she’d spoken the words aloud.
“Pardon me?”
Since her husband hadn’t said anything, the words obviously hadn’t been directed at him, but Josie nevertheless replied, “I wasn’t speaking to you.”
He glanced languidly around the otherwise empty carriage. “Then to whom were you speaking?”
She hesitated, then admitted, “I was having a conversation with myself. In my head,” she added unnecessarily.
“Ah. And doubtless did not like what you had to say.”
Josie bristled at his suggestion that he wouldn’t have liked what she had to say, either. “If you must know—” She cut herself off. “It’s no business of yours what I was thinking.”
“Your thoughts couldn’t be happy ones, if you spent the past night as sleepless as I did. Where would you have gone, if you were my sister?”
Josie was surprised at the change of subject, but she considered the idea seriously before saying, “She must have planned her escape, in order to disappear without her maid and without a soul knowing where she was going, including her twin.”
“That’s what worries me.” He added, “Along with the fact that Seaton is missing at the same time.”
“You believe your best friend has something to do with your sister’s disappearance?”
“He managed your disappearance.”
“But I never saw him again after I left London,” she pointed out. “He doesn’t seem the sort of man to kidnap a female.”
“Unless he eloped with my sister, as my grandmother suggested.”
Josie thought back to her trip to the zoo, and her suspicion that Seaton was attracted to one of Blackthorne’s sisters, who also seemed to be attracted to him. “Have you noticed Seaton paying particular attention to her?”
He shook his head. “None at all. And Seaton has more than once mentioned his aversion to the married state, which makes him an unlikely bridegroom.”
“How does your sister feel about him? Maybe she’s the one seeking to put him in a compromising situation.”
The duke’s eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn’t considered the possibility that his innocent sister could be engaged in such manipulative behavior.
The carriage stopped, and Josie saw Blackthorne shoot a worried look at the front door of his grandmother’s townhome. She laid a hand on his arm in comfort, something she’d also done the previous evening without thinking.
When Blackthorne had swept her up in his arms last night, she’d rested her head against his heavily beating heart and slid her arms trustingly around his neck. At the time, she hadn’t understood her willingness to offer comfort to a man she believed had wronged her so terribly.
Later, in the wee hours of the morning, alone in her room with her feet tucked under her, safely away from any roving mice, she’d realized that she’d offered succor to Blackthorne to repay him for the succor he’d offered her—when she’d run to him, so terrified of the mouse in her bed. His lovemaking had been another rescue of sorts, a willingness on his part to hold her close and take away the fearful memories from her past.
And then there was that incident in the stable loft. She’d known he wanted to make love to her, but she’d denied them both. She still wasn’t sure exactly why she’d run from him.
Josie blushed at the memory of the very long, very deep kiss they’d shared while lying in the hay. She looked up to find her husband’s gaze focused on her rosy face.
“I’d give a great deal to know what you’re thinking right now.”
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” she countered, avoiding his suggestion that she bare her soul.
He tapped on the side of the coach and a footman opened the door and let down the steps. The duke stepped out and reached up a hand to help her down. He pulled her close and slid her arm through his, as they headed up the stairs. Somehow she knew he needed her support again, for whatever they discovered inside, and she willingly gave it.
The butler opened the front door before they reached it and stood back to let them in, announcing, “Her Grace is in the drawing room, Your Graces.”
Josie felt herself tugged along as Blackthorne strode down the hall. A footman opened the drawing room door and closed it after they entered.
The dowager duchess evidenced none of the unflappable dignity she’d possessed when Josie had met her two weeks ago. A strand of silvery hair had come loose at her temple and her once-fierce blue eyes looked haunted. She rose, leaning heavily on her cane, and reached out a shaking hand to her grandson.
“It’s worse than I imagined,” the dowager duchess said.
“What have you heard?” Blackthorne asked, releasing Josie and hurrying across the room to take his grandmother’s hand.
Josie watched the old woman crumple into her grandson’s arms. Blackthorne held her close, his hand soothing its way down her rigid back.
“Tell me all,” he said.
“She left on the same train as Seaton,” his grandmother replied in a frail voice.
“How do you know?”
“I put a Bow Street runner to work, of course,” she said with asperity, raising her head to glare at him.
Josie saw the smile appear on Blackthorne’s face at his grandmother’s spirited reply.
“Very well, my dear,” he said. “Did the runner find out where they were bound?”
“North,” the dowager said in a stark voice. “To Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
“How is Lindsey?” Blackthorne asked. “I expected to find her here with you.”
“She hasn’t come out of her room since she discovered her twin lied to her,” the dowager said.
“Perhaps I should speak with her.”
The dowager seemed torn. “I’m not sure that would be productive. Lindsey knows nothing to the point.”
But she might need the sort of comfort an older brother could provide, Josie thought. “You should at least let your sister know you’ve come,” she said to the duke. “Maybe she’s remembered something that might help you in your search.”
“I questioned her most straitly,” the dowager said. “If Lindsey knew anything, she would already have divulged it to me.”
Josie looked Blackthorne in the eye. “If you were my brother, I would appreciate a hug and a word of support. Lindsey must be feeling guilty at not having somehow divined what her twin was planning.”
“And you know this because…?” the duke said.
“I have twin sisters of my own.”
The duke’s eyes widened, but he quickly recovered and said to the dowager, “It won’t hurt to check on Lindsey, to make sure she’s all right.”
He caught Josie’s hand on the way past and pulled her along behind him, as he headed up the stairs to the next floor. He hurried down a long hallway, until he reached a door near the end. He knocked on it and called out, “Lindsey? Are you in there?”
“Marcus?”
Josie heard the hopeful sound in Lindsey’s voice, and two feet hitting the floor and running to the door. It was pulled open and Lindsey threw herself into her brother’s arms, sobbing so pitifully that Josie thought her own heart would break.
She met Blackthorne’s troubled gaze over his sister’s head and, since he already had his arms around Lindsey, hugging her tight, mouthed the words, “Say something.”
“Everything will be all right, Lindsey. There’s no need for tears,” he said in a gruff voice.
“How do you know that?” his sister accused, raising a tearstained face to glare at him. “Lark might have been ravished. She might be lying dead in a gutter. We might never see her again!”
He took his sister firmly by the arms. “I thought you had more gumption than to fall to pieces like this. Imagine what Lark will say when she hears what a widgeon you’ve been.”
“I don’t care what Lark thinks, since I never intend to speak to her again,” Lindsey shot back. “How could she, Marcus? Why would she lie to me? She’s my other half. We’ve never kept secrets before. Why now? Why was she so desperate to get away that she kept her plans a secret from me, her very own twin?”
“I don’t know, dearest. We’ll have to ask her when she returns home.”
“Will she be coming home? Have you discovered where she is?”
“Not yet. But I promise you I’ll find her and bring her back. I’m certain there will be a good explanation for her bizarre behavior, and I have no doubt she’ll beg your pardon.”
Josie watched the duke pull a handkerchief from his pocket and dab at the tears on his sister’s cheeks.
“Go wash your face, and then join Grandmama downstairs. She could use your company.”
“I’m sorry, Marcus. If I feel this guilty, I can only imagine how badly grandmother is taking Lark’s disappearance.”
“Do you have something to be guilty about?” Blackthorne asked. “Is there something you know that you haven’t yet told Grandmama?”
Lark kept her eyes lowered as she admitted, “Lark asked me not to say anything to Grandmama about her invitation from the Courts until all the wedding guests were gone. I realize now she didn’t want Grandmama to be able to question Mrs. Court about the invitation and discover it didn’t exist.
“I believed Lark when she told me she’d agreed to meet the Courts at the station to catch the train to Berwick-upon-Tweed, because she’d never lied to me before.”
“Why do you think she lied to you this time?”
“I don’t know!” Lindsey said in an agonized voice.
“Have you ever seen Lark alone in company with Seaton?” Blackthorne asked.
Lindsey blotted at the last of the tears on her face, which was scrunched up in thought. “Seaton? No.”
“Has she ever evidenced a preference for him?”
Lindsey shook her head, looking confused. “She would have said something to me, if she had a tendre for him.”
“Would she?” Josie interjected.
Both Whartons turned on her, Blackthorne with a black brow arched in question and Lindsey with both black brows arrowed down.
“Are you suggesting—” Lindsey began.
“I’m only saying that affairs of the heart are usually conducted in private—even between twins,” Josie interrupted. “At least, that was my experience with my twin sisters, Hannah and Henrietta.”
“Your twin sisters kept secrets from each other?”
“They were closer than two peas in a pod for their entire lives—before they began their courtships. But when my sister Hannah married, she told Hetty nothing of her experiences with Mr. McMurtry. And when Hetty fell in love, she refused to share her feelings with Hannah.”
Josie realized she was stretching the truth a bit to suggest that Hannah had been courted by Mr. McMurtry. She’d found her husband by answering an advertisement in the Chicago Herald for a mail-order bride. And Hetty had been so resentful of Hannah’s interference in her love life, that she’d ignored her sister’s admonitions, and ended up causing two jealous men to kill each other over her. But Josie could honestly say that, before they’d allowed a man—or two—into their lives, her twin sisters had been as thick as thieves.
Precisely because Lindsey had been kept in the dark by her twin, Josie would have wagered every penny she had left of her inheritance that Lark’s adventure involved a romance with some gentleman. And because of how closely Lark was watched, that gentleman was most likely someone in whose company she often found herself, like Blackthorne’s best friend, the Earl of Seaton.
A maid arrived in the hallway and said to Josie, “You have a visitor, Your Grace.”
“Me?” Josie didn’t have a single friend in London and couldn’t imagine anyone calling on her, especially at the dowager duchess’s home. “Who is it?”
“He won’t give his name. The gentleman just says you should come at once.”
Blackthorne turned to his sister and said, “Dry your tears and come downstairs. We’ll see you shortly.”
Then he took Josie’s hand possessively in his and started down the hall. “I suppose we’d better see who’s come to visit you.”