But his heart had never been divided.
“She’s taken her clothes,” Gentry said, regret plain in his voice.
Mrs Boswell was quick to contradict him. “Not all her clothes. Just the grey dresses, undergarments, and half boots.”
“Everything she came with, then?”
“She didn’t take her books.”
“You’re certain?” It was like saying she’d left her soul behind.
Perhaps she’d left them for him. A reminder of what he’d let slip through his fingers. Or worse. To torment him with morbid lines of poetry.
“She confessed to loving you,” Mrs Boswell added, rubbing salt in an already raw wound.
But the comment triggered another memory. Their blood pact. The sting of the hatpin. Her solemn vow never to profess love and leave the same night.
After everything they’d endured, she wouldn’t walk away without confronting him. Without demanding he account for his lapse in judgement.
But as doubt gnawed at him, a colder thought settled over the heat of regret.
“No.” Something fierce ignited in his chest. “She didn’t leave.” He looked up, voice hardening. “My wife was taken. By this damned fraternity.”
It was all he could do not to grip the bedpost and curse his own stupidity. Why hadn’t he insisted she come straight to his room?
The devil’s own fury rose inside him.
There was a reason he could kill a man with his bare hands.
And that reason was now.
“Summon Kincaid. I’m going out. Tell him to ready the carriage. The one bearing my crest.” He faced his friends. “Go home. Protect your wives. These people will stop at nothing to hide their identities. No one is safe.”
They didn’t stare as though he belonged in Bedlam.
Dalton spoke first. “We’ll not leave you to deal with this alone. But you’ll need to tell us what the blazes is going on.”
Gentry nodded. “Don’t make us list the times you’ve saved our necks.” He turned for the door. “I’ll send my coachman to collect our wives and take them somewhere safe—the home of the Earl and Countess of Berridge.”
“I won’t have you die on my account.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” Dalton said.
“You’ll need weapons.”
“We have them.”
With no time to spare, Gabriel dressed in black, pulled on the Hessians with the concealed blades, and marched to the servants’ dining room.
He entered the dimly lit room to find the entire household gathered around the long table, most dressed for bed. The maids still wore their white caps, the footmen their dressing gowns, all of them staring blankly, as if awaiting judgement.
They froze at the sight of him.
His head still swam faintly, the edges of the room softening before sharpening into focus. He braced a hand against the doorframe, just for a moment, then straightened to his full height.
Daisy sat near the end of the table, her eyes red and puffy. She was wringing her hands and muttering between sobs, “I never meant to upset her ladyship. I didn’t think?—”
Her voice cracked and faded when she saw him.
