His blood ran cold as he read Catherine’s suspicions.
McKay saw this. He took it from her room. He knew she suspected me. Which means he must also have suspected me. Did he take this out of loyalty to me? To keep my secret?
He took out more of the paper from the secret compartment and received his answer.
They were letters, unsigned and not addressed to anyone. They were all short. A couple of lines each. Lines which threatened to expose him. Which called him a usurper and a murderer. The handwriting matched the other poison-pen letters.
His enemy’s hand.
But not McKay’s hand. I know his hand. He did not write them. But he had them all along. They did not need to be posted… simply brought to me under the pretense of having been discovered on the doorstep.
Gideon straightened, chest heaving, fury boiling to the surface. His butler, his most trusted aide, was no ally but the author of his torment.
And worse, Catherine was with him.
Gideon crushed one of the letters in his fist. He was alone now. Alone, and Catherine in the power of the man who sought to ruin him.
CHAPTER 32
Gideon urged his horse forward, his body taut with a restless urgency. The reins cut against his palm where his grip had tightened beyond reason. Catherine was gone, spirited away from beneath his very roof while he had lain senseless. He had awakened with the bitter taste of defeat still clinging to his tongue, his head heavy, his limbs sluggish.
Not the effect of one glass of brandy. I was poisoned, and I believe I know by what and by whom. McKay is the traitor!
But with every mile he pressed on, the fog cleared, and his determination hardened into steel.
The road stretched straight and empty, the hedgerows thick with dew, the first autumn leaves stirring with the morning wind. He told himself grimly that she might be anywhere by now. They could have turned north, south, east, taken a dozen smaller lanes through the countryside. He might be riding away from her with every hoofbeat! Still, he pressed on. It was all he could do.
“If not London,” he muttered under his breath, “then another road. I’ll ride every cursed one until I find you.”
And then fate, or Catherine, threw him a lifeline.
At the edge of the ditch, half-hidden in the grass, a glimmer of silver caught his eye. He pulled sharply on the reins, heart lurching. Dismounting, he crouched and lifted the object with hands that trembled despite himself.Her brooch. The small clasp she always wore at her collar, delicate filigree in the shape of a knot of roses.
Gideon’s breath caught. She had been here. She had left him a sign! He surged back into the saddle, eyes scouring the roadside. Another half-mile on, something white fluttered against the earth, her glove.
Thank God the wind is low today. It might have been lifted and carried miles.
Another peeked from the mud a mile further on, crushed into the dirt where wagon wheels had pressed it down.
“Clever girl,” he whispered, realizing that the trail had not been left by accident.
She wants me to find her. There is hope.
Pride and desperation warred within him. She had not surrendered meekly; she had fought, leaving him a trail like a breadcrumb path through the forest.
And then, at last, a third sign.
At a crossroads with no indication on the hard earth which way the carriage might have gone, he spotted a small hairclip, its enamel catching the weak sunlight. He held it in his palm, staring at it for a long moment.
She was alive, she was resisting, and she wanted him to follow. His chest tightened with a rush of fierce love.
Whatever she desires. Whatever she asks of me. It will not be too much. I have tasted what it would be like to lose her. I did not care for that particular meal.
The road wound onward, narrowing between trees. A lane broke off to the left, half-consumed by wild undergrowth. The kind of place no one would look twice at. Yet, at the end of the shadowed track, he saw the roof of a house, almost lost among tangled ivy and neglected hedges. At first glance, it looked abandoned, the garden overrun, shutters weathered. But as he approached, he stilled. A carriage was drawn up before the door.
He dismounted silently, every nerve burning. Catherine was here. She must be here.
Gideon tethered his horse and strode forward, mounting the worn, uneven steps leading to the front door. He did not knock—he pounded his fist against the door. But it opened almost at once.
