“She ran away last March. I have searched everywhere, but without success.”
“But why on earth would Christa run away? This was her home.” His suddenly cool gray eyes regarded his uncle challengingly. “What happened?”
Lewis met his gaze with difficulty. “It’s my fault. I . . . asked her to marry me.”
“You what!” Charles’s incredulity was so profound as to constitute an insult.
Lewis flushed and said stiffly, “The idea is not all that ridiculous.”
Charles tried to look at his uncle objectively. He and Lewis had an unusual relationship, with the older man somewhere between father, big brother, and friend. Lewis was forty-four years old now, twenty years older than Christa, but hardly at his final prayers. He had always been reserved, with few friends, but he had the fitness of a man who had lived a physically active life, and he had the family looks. When he had offered for Christa, he was the Earl of Radcliffe—a prime catch on the Marriage Mart.
Speaking more mildly, Charles said, “I meant no insult, but the age difference is substantial, and since Christa always thought of you as her uncle, it is hardly surprising she refused you. But why did she run away?”
Speaking with painful slowness, Lewis said again, “The fault was mine. When she came out of mourning last March, I explained that she had no fortune, then made the offer to her.” The last words came with great difficulty. “The way I made it . . . was a kind of coercion.”
He looked pleadingly at his nephew. “You know that I would never have harmed her, Charles. Youmustbelieve that! I would have dowered her had she wished to marry. Since she had no other preference, I thought she might be comfortable as the Countess of Radcliffe. Her lack of fortune would not matter and I could have best protected her that way.” His last words were almost inaudible. “And in time, I hoped she might come to care for me.”
Charles repressed the strong desire to pick up something and smash it. He could see his uncle’s painful vulnerability, could understand how a middle-aged man would fall in love with Christa’s bright charm. But . . . !
He stood and paced wolfishly across the room while he swore with vivid bilingual fluency, then turned to glare at his uncle, anger blazing from him. “So you lied about her fortune and bullied her to marry you.” His voice grated as he continued, “You know how dangerous the world is for a girl alone! If she has been missing for a year, she could be anywhere! A prisoner in a brothel, or dead in some London stew.”
There was a long, long pause before Charles ground out with painful emphasis, “If anything has happened to her, may God forgive you, because I never shall.”
Lewis looked at him bleakly. “You can’t possibly blame me any more than I blame myself.”
Dead silence reigned, until he added, “I thought she might refuse me, but I never dreamed that a gently bred girl would pack up and disappear so quickly.”
With unconscious arrogance Charles snapped, “You should have known that no sister of mine would stand still for that kind of Turkish treatment. What have you done to find her?”
Lewis sighed. “The usual things. Interrogated the servants, spoken to all her émigré friends in London, visited all the registry offices I could find. Her maid said she intended to seek a position as a governess.”
It belatedly occurred to Lewis that he had missed an important point in his nephew’s earlier speech. “Why did you accuse me of lying about her fortune? Your will made no provisions for her, and all the d’Estelle property is in France. As I said, I would have provided for her as your sister, but in her own right she hadn’t a penny to bless herself with.”
Charles’s eyebrows rose. “That’s coming it a bit too strong, Lewis. You must have known that my stepfather would not fail to provide for his family. Christa is not the heiress she will be if the French king is ever restored, but with the money Philippe transferred over here, she still has ten thousand a year, which is a substantial fortune in anyone’s eyes.”
“But . . . I checked all the accounts!” Lewis said with bewilderment. “There were no monies from France.”
“The account is with the London office of Philippe’s bankers—Mont d’Or et Fils.” In the face of Lewis’s surprise, Charles continued, “My stepfather charged me as trustee for my mother and sister. There was no reason to change bankers, and much of the money was put into the funds. To avoid confusion, it never went through a Radleigh bank account.”
With tight-lipped exasperation Lewis asked, “Why the devil did you never tell me? Did you consider me unworthy of your trust?”
“You know that’s not true! You handled my affairs for all the years of my minority, and I have never had reason to doubt you. There is no man in the world that I would sooner trust with my fortune.” Charles stopped, then added bitterly, “Though obviously it was a mistake to trust you with my sister.”
Lewis’s face flamed but he made no attempt to refute the statement.
Charles drew a steadying breath, then went on in a more moderate tone, “Now that I think of it, Philippe made the transfer shortly after you went to Jamaica. You were gone for almost a year, and by the time you returned, the whole business was old news. I must have thought I’d written to you about it.”
His jaws tight, the earl faced the consequences of his oversight. “If she had been in possession of her fortune, she might have set up her own household, but she never would have just run away with no more than her pin money in her pocket.”
Lewis sighed. “The results would have been different, but it doesn’t lessen my responsibility.”
Charles stood, the weariness of strain and travel showing in his face. “I’m going to bed now. I’ll be getting an early start back to London.”
His uncle stood also. “I’m going with you.” At Charles’s raised eyebrow he said grimly, “I was the one that drove Marie-Christine away. Now I must face her mother.”
* * *
It was late afternoon when Lewis and Charles arrived at Radcliffe House. Charles went along to greet his mother and briefly tell her what had happened to Christa. Lewis was conscious of the veiled curiosity of the servants, who watched to see how he was reacting to his change of station. He shrugged mentally; his conscience was clear on the point, and there were very few people’s opinions that he valued.
