Coffee. He needed coffee. Then, preferably, sleep for a few days. After that, he could perhaps manage some dry toast.
His stomach rolled again and he gritted his teeth against the wave of nausea.
“Only another few hours now,” Louisa said, entirely too cheerfully.
He shot her a dour look. “You don’t have to enjoy my suffering quite so obviously.”
“Oh but I do, Jacob. You’ve been enjoying yourself for far too long.”
“I’m merely doing what I swore I would always—”
“Enough.” She waved an impatient hand. “That story is old and you don’t believe a word of it, anyway. All that progress I saw when you were courting Annabelle . . .” She sucked in a breath. “Well, I suppose it is a good thing you’re going to ask her to marry you.”
“I never said I would,” he grumbled, though his skin heated at the words. Marry her. Annabelle would behis. Such a primal word—such a primal feeling. Better his than anyone else’s. Every piece of darkness in him rose at the thought of her marrying another man.Beingwith another man. Submitting to his caresses.
To marry her, he had to accept he would not be the end of the Barrington line. If he married her, he was setting aside a lifetime’s worth of hatred in exchange for . . .
Annabelle.
For years, he had thought he did not have a heart, but the truth of the matter had become too pressing to ignore: he had a heart.
And it belonged to Annabelle.
“Youwillask her to marry you. And then you will clean up your act and figure out what it means to be happy, because I don’t suppose you’ve ever encountered happiness once in your life.”
“History is repeating itself,” he said.
Louisa glanced at him sharply. “No it isn’t. For one, Madeline was a conniving hussy who wanted all she could get without paying the price. She was greedy, Jacob. She wanted your love and she wanted Cecil’s position and she was willing to relinquish neither.” She shrugged. “Madeline would never have gone to a boxing match to see you.”
The tightness in Jacob’s chest only increased at the memory of seeing Annabelle in that awful place—the urgent, all-consuming need to get her out. His anger she was putting herself in danger, and his anger that she was seeing the worst part of himself. But she had not run from him even after he had sent her away, she had come to his home to apologise. Tohim. Even after she had learnt of Madeline and all the mistakes he had made.
He didn’t deserve her. But by God he wanted to learn how to.
“When did she send the letter?”
“Two days ago,” Louisa said. “She intended to leave shortly after, so I expect she’s already gone.”
“And you don’t know where?”
“If I did, I would hardly be involving you in this state,” she said tartly.
His head ached. His nausea was a clawed beast climbing up his throat, and more than anything else, he couldn’t stop thinking of what might have happened to Annabelle. When Madeline made her way from Cecil’s house to his, she had never arrived.
Fear raked its way along his insides. Ignoring his pounding hangover, he gripped the seat and leaned closer. “Can this thing go any faster?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jacob arrived at the Shrewsbury estate, which bordered Havercroft, just as the sun had fully risen above the horizon. The old house had blank, hollow windows and ivy crawling up the walls, and, hopefully, would contain some coffee inside.
“Why are we here?” Jacob asked, finally putting the pieces together. “I thought Annabelle was staying at Norfolk’s estate?”
“So she was, but I thought it might be judicial to confront Henry in his own home. The houses are close enough that you will be able to go after Annabelle perfectly well from either.”
Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose. “How will I know where to find her?”
Louisa tossed him a scornful glance. “Are you incapable of making enquiries? She is a high-born lady travelling alone, or at best with a servant. Surely she should be easy enough to find.”
If she is still well.
