“Sacked.”
“What?” Good lord, he could barely wrap his head around anything this man was saying. He needed to speak to the one person who always and forever knew how to manage things. “Never mind. Where is Lady Emmaline?” He didn’t wait for an answer nor even an invitation. He sidestepped Mr. Gaudreau,entered the house, and quickly looked about. He noted a new dent in the wall and a side table pushed out of place. He also realized the house seemed deadly quiet.
That was not good.
He headed straight to the back parlor with Mr. Gaudreau mincing along behind him. What he saw shocked him on a night full of shocks.
Emmaline stood in the middle of the room as if she were heading to her favorite spot for reading, but she wasn’t moving. She had wrapped her arms around her belly and was staring into the fire. He’d known her for much of his life, and in that time, he’d seen her in many moods. This was a new one.
She wasn’t listening, didn’t appear to be thinking, and possibly wasn’t even breathing. It was as though the very essence of Emmaline wasn’t even there.
“I brought the tea…” Mr. Gaudreau said. “But—”
“Thank you. I’ll handle it from here.”
“That’d be good, sir.” He paused a moment. “I’ll direct the maids to get the duke’s chamber ready. There’s one that stayed behind who isn’t hurt.”
Chris’s head snapped around. “Hurt? You’ve got injured?”
“Nothing too serious. We’ve sent for Mr. Torres.”
The surgeon. “Broken bones, then?”
“Sprains, I think.”
That was something. He turned his attention back to Emmaline. She didn’t appear physically injured, but she certainly wasn’t herself. “Thank you, Mr. Gaudreau,” he said. Then he waited a moment while the cook withdrew before he entered the room.
“Emma? It’s Chris.”
Damn it. He wasn’t exactly sure how to approach her. Certainly, he’d dreamed nightly about their last encounter. Dreamed, fantasized, and tormented himself with it, but in allthat time, he hadn’t figured out how best to approach her in the aftermath. He shouldn’t be the one to be here with her, but there was no one else. And he, at least, could take whatever she fury she threw at his feet. He deserved it.
But she didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to recognize his presence.
“Emma?”
“I heard you.”
Oh good. She was cognizant, but she wasn’t looking at him.
“Things seem to be a bit upset here. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Why are you here?”
“Max sent me. Your father was planning something regarding Miss Wong. I was supposed to stop it.”
“You’re too late.”
Yes, he’d gathered that. “We only just found out.”
“You’re never here when I want you.”
He winced. There were too many layers to that statement for him to address it directly. “Tell me what happened.”
“Men came. Chiverton let them in. They took Yihui away and wouldn’t say where.” She shuddered. “I tried to stop them.”
He reached out a hand to touch her but stopped short. He didn’t have the right to comfort her. “Did they hurt you?”
“They hurt her. She screamed. They banged her foot. Why would they do that? Why would they—” She squeezed her eyes tight.
