“We know she’s here,” Jem said ominously. “She sent me a letter.”
“She sent you a poem,” Frotheringale said, looking baffled. “Did she write a message inside it? The minx!”
“The poem was the message,” Jem said through gritted teeth. “She was here. If you don’t produce her, I am going to forget that I lay any claim to civilized status and?—”
“She escaped this morning!” Frotheringale blurted. “Sent the maid to say she’d taken ill. I believed it until I finally went up myself to fetch her for tea. She bolted, and the maid covered for her. Off without a character!” Frotheringale shouted into the foyer. “No one’s to put in a word for that strumpet, hear?”
“Where,” Jem said with deadly calm, “did she go?”
“The maid? Why should I care, when she double-crossed me? And here I’d promised them a bonus if they’d?—”
“Lucasta, you bacon-brained idiot!” Trevor shouted. “We didn’t pass anyone on the road that could be her. She couldn’t have walked clear back to London. It’s miles.”
“Lucasta isn’t afraid of walking,” Jem said. He prowled the circular foyer, slapping his driving gloves against his leg. “Which are the main roads that would take her back to London? She’ll be trying to return there by any means possible.”
“Why wouldn’t she take a horse?” Trevor wondered.
Jem eyed him with amazement. “Lucasta is terrified of horses. How can you not know that?”
“She most certainly doesn’t ride.” Frotheringale ran a hand through his hair again. “The scare she gave me when she fell, and the way she was limping about for days, I’m surprised she’s hale enough to walk any—” He trailed off when the faces of both men swung toward him.
“She fellhow?” Jem asked in a low, dangerous voice.
“She tried to steal a horse.” The Viscount cleared his throat. “That is to say, borrow a horse. And—it threw her.”
“She was injured?” Hot fury slammed through Jem. He couldn’t recall ever feeling this angry in his life. Lucasta had not only been stolen from him, she’d been hurt, and he hadn’t even known she was in danger. “Did you seek medical attention? How could you not at least contact her family?—”
“Speaking of family.” Frotheringale launched an accusing stare on Trevor. “You can’t marry her, you clodpate. First of all,you haven’t a feather to fly with, and second, I wrote to Aunt Cornelia and?—”
“Roads!” Jem roared. “Footpaths! Anything! Where would she have gone?”
Frotheringale blinked and stepped away from the railing as if Jem meant to vault over it and throttle him, though he was still on the floor of the foyer below. “Well. Er. There’s the road that goes through Little Chelsea up to Knightsbridge. She might have found some means of transport, a wagon or such.”
“I told you, Lucasta does not mind walking,” Jem tossed over his shoulder as he headed for the door, the capes of his greatcoat swirling about him. “It’s best neither of you come with me,” he warned as Trevor turned on his heels and Frotheringale hurried down the stair. “I can’t promise I won’t thrash the both of you.”
“We all want to know she’s safe, Rudyard,” Trevor replied.
“Payne, now, isn’t it?” Frotheringale asked, cramming a hat on his head as he followed them outside. “If you ask me, a royal pain in the?—”
“There’s not a seat in my vehicle for you,” Jem snapped at him.
“I’ll bring my own and be directly behind you,” Frotheringale huffed. “Really, Payne, you’ve being awfully proprietary about my cousin, when I’m the man she’s going to?—”
“Iam the man she is going to marry,” Jem said firmly. “No one else.”
He would see to that, he promised himself. Lucasta would marry no one but a man of her choosing. Somehow, he thought desperately, he had to persuade her that that man was him.
Rose Hollow lookedas lovely as Jem had ever seen it, despite the gray veil of clouds. Something red and ebullient bloomed in the front yard, and the vines twining over the slate bricks of the house gleamed a lush, lovely green. Golden lamplight shone from the parlor window, and as Jem neared, he heard music.
He paused on the stoop. Trevor Pevensey stopped beside him, and Frotheringale, tossing the ribbons over the loop at the gate to keep his horses from wandering off, joined them.
“Where are we?” Trevor asked.
Jem cleared his throat. He hadn’t thought this through, or he would have directed the other men elsewhere on their search. But some instinct had insisted he would find Lucasta here, and he had headed for Little Chelsea with no thought in his mind but making certain that she was in one piece. Now, he realized he was exposing both of these men—neither of whom could be called allies—to his precious secret.
“The inhabitants here are—dependents of mine,” Jem said, his voice hoarse. “I will thank you to be civil to them.”
“Your mistress’s little nest?” Frotheringale smirked. Jem answered with a scowl, then lifted the latch on the door.
