“Lady Rayne?”
Blackness overtook her. The concerned trio of voices were muted by the sudden roar of oblivion. She pitched forward into the darkness.
*
His wife hadleft him.
Alessandro could scarcely believe it even now, two days after the discovery, as he rapped on the London door of Hamilton House. Of course, Catriona had not been in residence at Riverford House, where he had expected her to retreat. When he had reached his townhome and found it empty save the servants he had left behind, a blinding sense of despair had hit him for the first time.
She could run so far, so fast, he could never find her.
And he had only himself to blame.
The door opened to reveal the stern butler he had faced on many occasions. “Lord Rayne,” he greeted.
“Is Lady Rayne within?” he asked, daring to hope.
The butler frowned. “No, my lord. She is not.”
“What of Montrose?” he tried next.
The butler’s stony expression did not alter. “I am afraid His Grace is not currently at home.”
He would be willing to bet Marchmont that Montrose was passed out in a stupor somewhere. The hour was unfashionably early.
“Please convey to His Grace this is a matter of grave import concerning his sister, Lady Rayne,” he told the domestic, not about to be dismissed.
Time was too important. Each moment that passed was another without Catriona, and each moment took her farther and farther from him.
The butler inclined his head. “Do come in, my lord.”
Gratefully, Rayne stepped into the entry hall of Hamilton House, watched over by the stern visages of a half dozen marble busts. All of whom seemed to cast judgment upon him, and he could not blame them. He had been a fool, and he knew it.
“Thank you, sir,” he told the domestic. “I cannot stress the import of an audience with His Grace enough.”
“Of course, my lord,” the butler intoned before bowing and taking his leave.
Alessandro paced, reminded of the last time he had felt so helpless. When he had been losing Maria. But unlike then, he had a fighting chance to keep from losing the woman he loved.
Sí. Loved.
He ran a hand over his jaw as he paced. On the day he had learned Catriona was carrying his child, he had been so overwhelmed by the discovery, he had walked. Walked and walked until he reached the village. The time and distance had led him to some realizations he’d been previously unable to face.
Somewhere between the day he had first happened upon her in the Hamilton House library and the moment he had kissed her lips in the Temple of Artemis, Catriona had stolen his heart. How he had failed to see it until he had walked two miles—the last half mile or so in a driving rain—he could not say.
Stupidity?
Pride?
Fear?
Likely, a combination of all three.
Whatever the cause, he could see everything now, and with a clarity he had never before possessed. Everything had changed because of her. Ironically, it had been the words of the oft-drunken Duke of Montrose which had returned to him in his lowest point, as he had been soaked to the skin, attempting to dry himself at the inn.
Montrose had accused him of spending his life running.
And he had not been wrong.
