“Where are you, Emily?” He’d barely murmured the words to himself when a sparkle of light winked from one of the highest windows atop the house.
He’d experienced that before. Climbing out of the carriage, when the sun had caught her.
The remaining lens of her spectacles!
Her blessed benighted spectacles!
She was peering from the window.
It twinkled again, and relief flooded through him at the same time he was spurred into action.
Foolish of them to think he’d leave so easily.
As his legs pumped, moving him from one clump of trees to another, Marcus spied a way in through the servants’ entrance.
Having taken note of the location of the window she’d peered from, Marcus made his way to the back of the house, expecting to have to break in. Ironically, not only was it unlocked, but the door had been propped open.
Smells wafted from the kitchen, and Marcus pushed the thoughts of the white powder in Quimbly’s possession out of his mind.
Quimbly had no qualms about slowly poisoning the duke. Would he have even fewer reservations when it came to killing one small lady he perceived was preventing his daughter from becoming a duchess?
Not much arsenic would be required to pass her lips…
Those sweet, soft, amazingly talented, andwickedlips.
His throat tightened, urging him inside, around a corner and, luckily enough, into an arched door and behind it a narrow corridor. Taking two steps at a time, he arrived at the top landing within thirty seconds. Four doorways lined each side of the hall he found himself in. And on the far end, an alcove.
With a locked door.
Thump. Scrape. Thump
Those were Emily noises.
He’d bet his fortune on it. “Emily?” he called out and thumped three times on the door with his fist. No answer but more… furniture being moved about?
Scraaape. Thunk. Thunk.
Marcus removed the knife from his boot and went to work on the screws securing the door’s hinges. He took small relief in that she was obviously moving about. As his fingers fumbled at the small screws, he realized with relief that she’d not succumbed to poisoning.
A film of perspiration formed on his brow. She’d not yet succumbed. She was well.
She was alive.
When he’d removed the last screw, he stepped back and leveraged the knife between the door frame and the door.
“Come on,” he ground out between his teeth. “Emily!” he shouted louder. A few minutes had passed since he last heard the furniture moving.
When the door finally slid out, he hefted it impatiently to the side. At the same time, a decisively feminine scream wrenched through the air and then thunderous crashing, breaking, and a final thump.
Marcus dashed up the steps to find Emily on the floor amidst shattered plates, a broken carafe, and liquid.
Her spectacles lay in the mess, one lens missing and the other crushed, beside her inert form.
“Emily!” He threw himself onto the floor and bent over her in an attempt to check her breathing.God, no!!
A sob threatened to tear through him.
“Marcus?” Warm breath blew into his ear with the whispered word.
