Nathaniel frowned. Where would she be at this hour? Could she have stayed at his Mayfair townhouse? Unlikely. He had come straight here, to their home, because even though he had left her at his townhouse, he didn’t really expect her to stay there. He had been trying to get her to be more comfortable in his house, and had made some progress, but she still preferred their cozy home. He couldn’t blame her. This home was all theirs. Their little love nest, the place where they had been happy. Of all the scenarios he had imagined upon returning, not finding her here was not a possibility.
But she wasn’t here.
To be sure, he searched the entire house, looking for any clue. Any sign that she had been here recently and planned to come back soon. He found one thing. Two empty cognac goblets sat on a table in the drawing room. As if she had shared a nightcap with somebody. A knot tightened in his gut. Where the devil was she?
There were no clues as to her whereabouts. Nothing to indicate where she had gone and for how long. Her valise was missing from its place in the wardrobe, the spot where she always kept it ready for sudden departures, but that didn’t tell him much. Alice could well make do with the contents of the valise for two days or two months.
Could she have decided to stay at his Mayfair townhouse after all? The thought felt absurd. Still, he had to check.
Moments later, he hailed another hackney and made the short journey to Mayfair. He paid the fare and jumped from the carriage, bounding up the steps two at a time. The driver had barely pulled away before he was through the door using his key, without waiting for the footman. The house was dark and quiet, the servants long abed and not expecting their master.
He strode upstairs, hoping against hope to find her curled beneath the covers. But no. As he feared, she hadn’t been here either. The room bore no trace of her presence.
The butler shuffled up to the door of the bedchamber, tufts of grey hair escaping from beneath his nightcap.
“My lord. We were not expecting you tonight, or we would have waited up for you. I hope you found your rooms adequately prepared.”
“Everything is fine, Wilson. Has Lady Greystone been here this past week?”
“Not since the morning you left, my lord. She left shortly after you and has not returned.”
It was no more than what he expected, but now he was more worried than ever. If she was not at home, and not here, wherethe hell was Alice? As far as he knew, she had no relatives she could be visiting. He sincerely hoped she was not on some nocturnal mission by herself. He had expressly told her not to do anything rash. Surely Dalton wouldn’t condone it. Was it too late to call on Dalton? He must know about his wife’s whereabouts. Unless…
Perhaps there was a message. The boy who kept watch on Alice’s comings and goings sometimes sent word. He had not received a message from him in months. And no wonder, with Ardmore being out of the country and Alice working a clerical job, there was nothing to report. But if he had noticed any strange movement, like her leaving on a trip, surely he would have sent him a message, wouldn’t he? The boy liked his rewards.
“Has Master Benjamin come to call this past week, Wilson?”
“As a matter of fact, my lord, the lad was here just today. Left a message for you. His note is in your study with the rest of your correspondence.”
A chill slithered down his spine. A premonition of disaster.
His boots echoed down the hall as he stalked to his study. He rifled through the pile of correspondence, shoving aside crisply folded letters on heavy paper, until a scrap of rough paper caught his eye.
Unfolding it, he scanned the hurried scrawl:
“The gentleman returned. Your lady left with him at dawn.”
His fist crumpled the paper until his knuckles turned white.
Ardmore.
The name burned through his mind like acid.
Alice had left with Ardmore. Just days after Nathaniel had left her, after nights spent tangled in each other’s arms, after whispered words and tender touches that had felt like the first fragile steps toward rebuilding what they’d lost.
She had gone. Withhim.
Betrayal speared his chest so sharply he stumbled back against the desk, struggling for breath. The pain was staggering, suffocating. His wife. His beautiful, clever, deceitful wife—who had said she loved him—had left with another man.
Nathaniel dragged a hand over his face. How was he to recover from this? How could any man recover from learning that the woman he loved, the woman he had fought for, had run straight into the arms of her lover the moment he turned his back?
The candlelight wavered with his ragged breath. He braced his hands on the edge of the desk, head bowed, while fury and anguish waged an unholy war within him.
Had it all been a lie? The soft sighs and the screams of pleasure, the words of love murmured in the dark, the blinding passion they had shared? It couldn’t be. It felt too real. Nothing made sense. But one thing was clear; he wouldn’t rest until he got the answers he sought.
The next morning, after a sleepless night, he barged into Dalton’s office at Whitehall at the unfashionable hour of eight in the morning.
The duke was already there, as Nathaniel knew he would be. The man seemed to never sleep.
