“I know you tried your best,” I said stiffly, attempting to hide the wild beating of my heart, and the shaking of my hands. “Did he say how he would be taking her home?”
Eugenie gestured forlornly toward the door. “I heard a truck rumble to life. It was probably his.”
It made sense. I knew very little of Tom, but I knew his business was in farming, and it was likely he drove a truck. If he was driving her home, then I would have a good chance of catching up to them – that is, if the storm didn’tcontinue gaining momentum.
“Good. Now, I need you to help us all out, all right? I need you to greet the guests as they come in and distract them while I take Louisa back to hospital,” I said, holding Eugenie by the shoulders.
She shrugged my hands away, glaring at me distrustfully.
“Like hell am I doing that. Let them all see her!”
“Eugenie, you want me to get Grace out of that violent lout’s hands, correct?” I spoke to her through gritted teeth. She nodded, but reluctantly. “Good. Then I need you to handle things here. The longer I wait, the further ahead they’ll get.”
She groaned, pacing a few steps with a deep frown. Finally, she relented.
“I’ll handle your stupid party,” she said, just as the front door opened and the first crowd bundled in, dripping rain onto the tiled floor. “Just get her back.”
I wasted no more time. I hurried to the office for my wallet and a coat, and ran outside into the downpour, where they were guiding Louisa across the gravel towards their van. I fought the madly furious urge to go straight after Grace, and took the time to ensure Louisa was calm and safe. I kissed her forehead and whispered promises in her ear, that I would return, that I would visit her just as soon as I could. My heart ached unbearably to see her in this condition, despite the years, decades, that she’d been this way.
“She’s gone, hasn’t she?” Margaret shouted above the rain. The infirmary staff were buckling in, shutting the van doors. “He’s taken her.”
“Stay here and oversee the party. I’ll get her back if I have to run him off the road,” I said. “And if it takes me all the way to the Dales then so be it, but I’m bringing her back with me.”
“Mind yourself, Nick,” she said, a baleful tone in her voice.
I knew what that tone inferred...I’d been a savage child, fuelled by anger, distrusting of everyone around me. Margaret was the only living person who knew that about me.
Sometimes that anger had shown itself in violence, but only toward other men. I had once sent a college friend who had teased me about my heritage into a short coma, resulting in deep shame for my parents, and a guilty plea for me in the dock. I was given a community punishment and a suspended prison sentence, largely owing to my background, and the influence of my adoptive parents and their peers.
It was a gilded cage.
Had I never unleashed my rage on that friend, I would have no criminal record, and I could have left Crowthorne house to do anything, be anyone. Someone my real mother could have been proud of as she looked down from heaven. Instead, my criminal status chained me to this house, sealing my destiny to work with the dead, running the family business. Alexander had so many devilish plans for his brother’s enslavement, working under his command.
But then I’d met Louisa, and found the slightest glimmer of hope that life may not be so dreadful after all. I gave her everything I could, determined to make her happy, to make her feel safe. All the things I craved for myself and never achieved. We entered marital bliss, andlived a life I had only dreamed of.
That is, until the first of the fires broke out. Until I discovered she was more than I could handle.
I glanced uneasily at Louisa in the van, tears prickling my eyes. Wishing, even now, that I could save her. Wishing that we still had time, even if the woman I loved was long gone. Even if my heart now belonged to Grace.
“Make sure Louisa is comfortable,” I said, making no promises.
Lightning flooded the sky in luminous silver and flooded the gravel courtyard with light. I hurried to the Rolls Royce, determined to catch them up, to show Grace I wanted her, needed her. That no matter where she went, I would follow her, to a dark, cold death if I had to. She was coming back home to Crowthorne House with me, and she was going to live as my wife until we could sign on the dotted line and make it official.
I needed her. I needed her to need me.
Thunder rumbled faithfully above me as I pulled out of the courtyard and drove into the night.
Chapter Seventeen
Grace
Tom drove silently into the storm, making quick progress on the motorway as the cars thinned out. Most people, it appeared, were too afraid to drive in such weather. Coarsened Tom wasn’t afraid, his hand tight on the wheel of his truck. He was used to this grim existence.
And, I supposed, so was I. Crowthorne House and all its mysteries had only distracted me from that fact, lulling me to sleep inside its luxury, a pearl inside an oyster. It seemed, in the scorching light of reality, that I was destined for the Dales after all. That, one way or another, Heather House was calling me home.
I glanced at him and noticed the tight muscles in his arms, his thighs, even bulging through his jeans. His whole body looked hard and built for aggression, his expression a permanent glower. When had that little boy I used to know become this powerful machine before me, ordering me back home to the Dales like escaped livestock?
Rain battered the windscreen, the wipers just holding up against the onslaught. Tom looked determined to press on, even knowing that the journey would be arduous, andwould take hours yet.
