He didn’t have time for fetching maids. Piper’s excuses of shock influencing her reaction to seeing the duke aside, imagining what Rutledge or his son must have done to her to warrant that blank, unseeing terror in her eyes kicked him in the gut. He itched to thrash the duke within an inch of his life for that alone. And he would. As soon as she was secure.
That caveat prompted him to do the housekeeper’s bidding.
He found Piper’s maid in the kitchen and told her to fetch Agatha, as he wouldn’t recognize the other maid. He returned to the hall and knocked on the door, only to be told to wait. Time and impatience did nothing to slacken his furious need to avenge her.
Seconds turned to minutes before the maids Mrs. Davies requested appeared, accompanied by Hilde. Agatha was a tall, gangly lass in a blue-and white-striped maid’s uniform, her brown hair mostly covered by a floppy mop cap. All three vanished through the door, barring him yet again. A moment later the door reopened, and Connor understood the plan.
He didn’t like it one bit.
“Ye plan to march her right down the bloody hall?”
“As you planned to do the same?” Mrs. Davies countered. “At least she’ll not draw attention this way.”
With reluctance, Connor conceded her point. Piper wore the exact uniform as Edith and Agatha, her hair tucked up under a white cap. Her unusual height might have been cause for comment, but with Agatha by her side and shoulders slouched, Piper was camouflaged to some extent. Both women carried a high stack of linens in their arms.
Mrs. Davies snapped her fingers and strode down the hall with the two women in her wake. When Connor made to follow, she forestalled him with a hand.
“Gentlemen do not attend maids in this house, Mr. MacKintosh. If you want to allay suspicion, take your normal route.”
He couldn’t argue that. Contrarily, the thought of watching Piper walk away unprotected set his nerves clanging as they never had in his life. Reaching out, he stroked his knuckles down her soft, pale cheek. She trembled, still shaken.
“Nae one will harm ye, lass. I swear it.”
She nodded, the action repeated more crisply by the housekeeper. “We have always ensured her safety, my lord.”
“Aye. Then dinnae fail her now.”
The trio disappeared up the servants’ stairs while Hilde held his arm, as if knowing he would throw caution to the wind to follow. “You have a care for my precious girl,” the cook said in a quiet tone.
It wasn’t a question. Connor responded with a curt nod anyway.
“I am glad to know she has your protection. I fear she will need it,” Hilde admitted. “Now more than ever. We’ve been warned to expect a dozen of the duke’s men by nightfall. If he finds her…”
“Do ye ken what happened?”
Hilde shook her head. “She has never spoken of it fully. That in itself says more than words, doesn’t it?”
Aye, it did.
Chapter 22
I had initially hoped to find Harry here at Dinton Grange to offer me shelter and comfort, then prayed he would appear to keep me safe. Now Albert tells me that Harry has finally returned to London and has paid a visit to Scotland Yard. To hire someone to find me when he hasn’t looked himself? To return me to the duke? I don’t know, nor do I dare place my faith in him any longer.
~ from the diary of Piper Brudenall, April 1893
The percussive fall of footsteps in the corridor paused Piper’s nervous pacing mid-step. They progressed and amplified for an unbearable span of time while dread numbed her. Hiding in the manor had been far easier when she’d kept to the hidden staircase and only had to traverse a short span of open space between the marquis’s chamber and her own.
In more than two years, the precariousness of her position had never left her so rattled. Anyone could be approaching now. Every fiber of her being quivered, including those in control of her heart. It hadn’t managed a steady rhythm since she’d left Connor below.
Rather, since the moment she’d walked into the stable. When that yawning abyss of memories had opened before her and drew her back to a time and place she’d done her best to forget.
She’d failed in that. As she’d failed to evade the duke. He’d come for her as promised. There would be no escaping it all now.
It was Harry’s fault. All of it.
“Lass? Piper?”
Piper blinked, realizing she stood unmoving in the middle of the room. Before her, Connor’s mossy green gaze was caring, steady.
