Crack!
He flinched, cursing again. “Go!” he called to her as he mounted his gelding bare-backed.
Feet moving as though of their own accord, Maria ran to her frightened mare, and leapt. Her inelegant sprawl upon the beast’s back was both painful and unwise, but she hadn’t a choice. She shifted her position until she’d hooked her leg over the pommel and was situated sidesaddle. Then, they broke into a gallop.
She did not wait to see if the duke followed; she simply rode. Her pulse thrummed in her ears, her stomach whirled, and her cheeks burned from the cold, but she kept going.
Grosvenor Square came into view, and Maria veered toward the duke’s home. A footman came out and accepted the reins from her mount, and only after she’d lowered to the ground did she look back to see the duke.
With a grimace, he dismounted and led the way inside.
Warmth enveloped her as they entered the building.
“Hot water in my study, if you will,” Jasper grunted at the butler.
“Of course, Your Grace,” the butler bowed. “I—oh!Your Grace! You are bleeding!”
“Yes, it seems I was grazed by a bullet.”
The butler gestured frantically for the footmen, demanding a doctor be summoned.
The duke ushered Maria into his study while the servants fluttered nervously, and while the cleaning and bandaging of his wound were important, she had sought him out for a reason.
“I received another letter about Juliana,” she said without preamble.
His gaze turned sharp. “And?”
“It was from an innkeeper’s wife located just outside of Leicester. She said that Juliana and a tall, fair-haired man had rented a room—”
“Together?”
Maria nodded. “She informed me that there had been gunfire, and her husband had no choice but to force them to leave.”
The duke cursed under his breath and stalked to the hearth and back. “That is a more recent account than I’ve had.”
“You’ve heard from them?” Maria’s eyebrows lifted, and her chin rubbed aggravatingly against the ribbon of her bonnet. With a huff of frustration, she untied it and tossed it to a nearby chair.
His gaze scanned her face before he sighed in resignation. “I had a letter from my estate. The details in the letter were ambiguous, but Juliana and a man named Mr. Notley had been in the stables when it was set ablaze. They were able to relocate all of the horses and the fire was extinguished, but they’d left swiftly thereafter.”
“They left?”
“They’re on their way here, apparently.” He gestured at himself with his uninjured arm. “I couldn’t sleep for worrying over her safety. According to the date, they ought to already be in London proper. I went for a ride to clear my head of worry. It didn’t bloody well work.”
“And it seems that someone wished it to be your last ride.”
* * *
“This cannot be the correct address,”Leo grumbled, his eyes narrowing suspiciously on Juliana.
Her stomach flopped over as she nodded in the affirmative. “It is the direction that I gave the driver.”
She reached for the door’s handle, but his gentle fingertips on her wrist stopped her forward momentum. Gooseflesh spread over her skin and a shiver threatened. Lord, what the man’s touch did to her.
The journey had been a struggle. She ached all over, and their silence before today had been strained and discomfiting. But in the carriage, they’d seemed to come to an unspoken accord. And goodness, but she’d missed him.
He notched his chin out the window to the nondescript house. It was attached to its neighbours and faced the grand entrance to the Royal Opera House. “This is Bow Street, Juliana. I have little doubt that your brother—theduke—lives in Mayfair. Mayhap even Grosvenor Square.”
He was absolutely correct, of course. But she could not relent.
