She woke from deep, dreamless slumber to Clay’s voice. There was something wrong, she realized as her eyes flew open. He was fully dressed, standing over her bed with a grim expression.
Fear gripped her. “What is it, Clay? What’s happened?”
“The governess has taken Edward,” he said.
Ara felt as if her stomach had been tossed from a cliff. She wanted to retch. She wanted to scream. Terror clawed at her throat, all the horror she had been holding at bay since the attempt on her life at Burghly House—nay, ever since Freddie’s vicious murder—returning to her a thousandfold.
How could this be?
“Why?” she managed past lips and a tongue that had gone dry with shock.
Clay’s gaze met hers, and what she saw within those dark depths shook her to her soul. “Leo has received word from one of his sources that there is a female Fenian in our midst. I believe it is Miss Palliser.”
Dear God.“She cannot be one of them,” she said, shaking her head in denial. “She is a woman. And she is polite. Beautiful, actually. Soft-spoken. She seems so kind…”
Ara pressed a hand to her lips, stifling the flow of words. She was rambling. Making little sense. None of the things she had mentioned had any bearing on Miss Palliser’s true nature, and she knew it.
What if the woman was a Fenian sympathizer who had taken Edward to do him harm? Evil could lurk behind a pleasant smile and a calm demeanor. It could hide behind false kindness and humility, behind compliments and good manners. Evil could be female as well as male, could it not? That was the thing about it—evil had no face, no indication, no warning or outward sign, until it was too late to stop it.
Until it was a runaway locomotive barreling down tracks.
Destroying everything in its path.
Clay caught her to him. She clutched his arms, struggling to gain her breath. She had never considered herself a weak woman, before, but the events of the last few months had made her feel small and trifling and insignificant. They had made her realize how powerless she was.
But not her son.
She could not accept that the Fenians would take an innocent boy. Why would they wish to hurt him? How could they? And a woman? Miss Palliser? Why would the new governess wish her beloved boy harm? It made no sense. Or it made horrible, awful sense. The sort of sense she could not comprehend.
“Say something, Clay,” she begged in a hoarse whisper, searching his beloved face for some small sign of comfort. Anything.
“I will find him, Ara.” His jaw clenched. “I swear to you I will find him, and I will bring him safely home to you. Leo and I are riding out now.”
“I will come with you,” she said. “Let me dress, and I—”
“No, Ara,” he said gently. “There isn’t time to waste. I must go now.”
Tears blurred her vision. He was right. She did not want to be an impediment. “Go, Clay. Bring our son home.”
He kissed her once, swift and hard, and then he strode from the chamber, leaving Ara alone in the bed that had been filled with such love and joy just the day before. Her son was out there, somewhere in the world without her. Shaking, she stood and began to hastily dress herself. Of one thing, she was utterly certain. She could not bear to stay behind and wait.
They cannot havegotten far, Clay reassured himself as he raced hell for leather down the road alongside Leo. Leeds and the rest of the men had split up, determined to cover every square mile of the land surrounding Harlton Hall. Meanwhile, he and his brother had decided the best course of action for them to take was to head for the rail station. If Miss Palliser was indeed a Fenian sympathizer who had infiltrated his home with the goal of abducting Edward and either ransoming him or far worse, she would not remain in Oxfordshire. She would be fleeing to another city, and with all haste.
The key was to find them first. If Miss Palliser spirited him away in a train car, their ability to disappear would be infinite. But Clay would not think that now, not as he spurred his mount down the road at breakneck pace, desperation and fear a sick soup swirling inside him.
The head groomsman had reported settling them into a gig early that morning, Miss Palliser volunteering to drive. The governess had announced they were off on a learning expedition. The lad had been cheerful and smiling, eager for his lesson. So bloody trusting. Such a good-hearted lad. The notion of Edward being led away to danger by someone he had trusted infuriated him. He deserved better, by God.
The lad had already suffered enough in his young life, and Clay had only just begun to know him. He could not bear to lose him now. He would do everything within his power—every bloody thing—to ensure his son’s safety.
They raced around a bend in the road, and his heart slammed into his throat when he spied the gig pulled off to the side of the country lane, empty, the horse pulling it browsing in some grass. Apparently anticipating they would be followed, Miss Palliser had chosen to disappear into the dense undergrowth of the woods bookending the road.
As he rode, he scoured the surrounding land for any trace of the governess or the lad. And that was when he spotted a flash of movement in the distance. Keeping his eyes pinned to the spot, he called to Leo, gesturing in the direction he had spied it.
He and his brother reined their horses and dismounted, tying them off to nearby trees. “I saw movement,” he told Leo hoarsely. “It could have been them.”
Leo nodded, his expression tense and grim. He extracted his pistol from his coat. “You head in from the road, and I will run ahead and attempt to double back. If it is them, I can approach from behind, perhaps get in a shot at her.”
His brother’s words made a wave of nausea roil through him, but he forced it back, nodding. He had to be strong. To gather his wits. He had to fight for the lad. To put an end to this madness once and for all.
