“But I’ve seen Godric’s back. He has no scars.”
“Caning, if done well, does not break the skin but leaves only bruises and broken bones. Godric’s father was a master.”
She shuddered with sympathetic pain at Ashton’s words. She’d never been caned or even spanked. She’d been a well-behaved child, for the most part. But when she was nine she’d witnessed the caning of a neighbor boy and his screams still echoed in her nightmares. She couldn’t imagine the tall, muscled duke brutalized as a tiny boy. What had it been like for him? To have his only remaining parent strike out in despair and fury at the loss of the woman who held them together?
Emily had been fortunate to never know such abuse, and to discover that pain and torture marked Godric’s childhood was like breathing in smoke. She hated that Godric had suffered the way no child should.
“How is it possible that he is gentle, at least most of the time?” Emily asked.
“He has much of his mother in him, more compassion than cruelty. He could have become a brute like his father, but instead he became a champion for those who are abused. You’ve witnessed his tenderness first hand.”
She ignored that and tried to change the subject. “Then, why abduct me? Where was his compassion when you were all grabbing me and tackling me to the ground, drugging me with that awful laudanum! That was cruel, very cruel. Why didn’t he just confront my uncle?”
“He has no proof of your uncle’s crime except the loss of money. The way I understand it, he gave your uncle authority to access the investment account.”
“Dare I ask in what capacity these funds were given?”
Ashton gave her a devilish smile born of amusement. “It is nothing as horrible as you might have imagined. He invested money with your uncle in a silver mine that doesn’t exist.”
“Can’t he prove that then? Show that no such mine exists?”
“There is a plot of land that once was mined for silver, but it no longer is profitable. The investment papers are tied to that land. The only proof lies in the sum of money Godric paid your uncle and how it disappeared entirely.”
Emily bolted upright on her bed. The vision of her uncle’s ledgers flashed through her mind. She’d seen the figures herself, the very crime Ashton spoke of. He watched her closely now, blue eyes searching for meaning behind her reaction.“You wouldn’t happen to know more about this than we thought?”
The problem was Emily didn’t know if her knowledge would help her cause or hinder it. “I am a woman, Ashton. I’ve no head for figures or business, but I do remember my uncle mention the mine once in passing to a friend of his. I was shocked by the coincidence, that was all.”
“It has often been my experience that women make excellent men of business. Your sex can often be far more competitive when pitched into battles of markets and money schemes.” There was a strange look on hisface as he said this. A calculating gleam heightening his already vibrant blue eyes. Did he have a woman in mind, someone other than her?
Emily smiled inwardly.Lord Lennox, you have secrets too.
“Ashton, if Godric had proof of my uncle’s embezzling…would he let me go?”
Before Ashton replied, Lucien and Cedric burst into the room.
“Quick, grab Emily! We’ve got to hide her!” Cedric said, panting.
Emily took in the sight of their heaving chests. They’d been running to get here. Had something happened? If they wished to hide her, someone must have arrived at the estate and they didn’t wish for her to be seen.
I have to find whoever’s come and get help!
She scrambled off the bed and over to the other side near the window, trying to distance herself from the three advancing men.
“What’s going on, Lucien?” Ashton demanded.
“A magistrate and another man are riding down the road and will be at the door any moment. Godric thinks Parr must have told the authorities and they’ve come to take Emily back to London.”
“Finally!” Emily cried out, a little too triumphantly. There were three men plotting to hide her, after all. She threw herself under the bed, just as Cedric’s arms enclosed around the air where she’d stood moments before. Sliding on her belly, she moved further under the bed, praying she was out of reach.
Lucien’s well-polished boots stepped in front of her, and Ashton’s on the other side.
She was surrounded.
“Come on, Emily, we’ve no time for this!” Cedric growled as his hands scraped at her ankles.
Emily kicked out at him, but in doing so, came too close to Lucien’s side of the bed. He latched on, hauling her out like a kitten by the scruff of the neck. A cloud of dust billowed out, and both she and Lucien sneezed. He nearly dropped her as the sneeze wracked his body.
“Can’t you stay clean for even half a day?” Lucien pushed her down onto the bed.
