Gabe walked the boy up the stairs to his office. He knew Michael followed, and very likely Dimity, as she wasn’t one to stand back. Well, she hadn’t been. But that ridiculously polite facade she’d put on since she and the duchess arrived had made him want to shake her.
Stopping a few steps from his office, he looked at his brother.
“Michael, please take Henry to my office.”
“Come.” Michael’s tone was clipped.
“He is not at fault, brother,” Gabe said as he passed. “You know that as much as I.”
His brother gave a curt nod but said nothing further. Gabe did not have long to wait before Dimity appeared.
“Please take the duchess home, Dimity.”
“No. Henry is a special boy, Lord Raine. I wish to stay with him.”
He had nothing to smile about, but he was. Someone wanted him dead, his cousin had arrived on his doorstep—ill or exhausted, the doctor would diagnose which—with his daughter, who now slept beside him after one of the maids changed her.
The life he’d woken to was vastly different from the one he would retire to this evening. Although hadn’t he thought he was all at sea at the breakfast table? How wrong he’d been. His life had suddenly turned on its head.
“I don’t understand why would Henry try to poison you?” Dimity’s scowl was fierce. “If it was poison in that bottle.”
At least this was real emotion she was showing him. No longer the icy polite facade she presented him earlier.
“It was poison.” He would not lie to her, about this at least. “But this is not your problem, Dimity. It is something I must deal with. Something that will not go away until I do.” He moved closer to her, so close that all he had to do was raise a hand and he could touch her cheek. It was soft and silken.
“Don’t touch me.” She stepped back, and his hand fell to his side. “What do you mean, it is something you must deal with?”
“I have said more than I should. Go now, and take the duchess home. Please.”
“Does someone want to harm you, my lord?”
He wanted to smooth the frown lines away.
“Get him!”
The words came as Henry slipped between Gabe and Dimity and ran down the hallway. Gabe followed, taking the stairs down two at a time.
They reached the kitchens, and Henry sprinted through, ignoring the squawking from Mrs. Wood and the young lady peeling vegetables. Seconds later he’d disappeared out the door with Gabe on his heels.
The boy was quick, but Gabe’s strides were longer. They reached the end of his road, and he was closing on him, when he ducked to the right, then left. He followed, but soon there were more streets and alleys. Minutes later, Henry had disappeared.
“This way!” Gabe was spinning on his heel, looking about him trying to find the boy, when Dimity ran by clutching her skirts.
“Stop!” he roared. Of course she ignored him. He followed as she disappeared into what appeared to be a building. When he arrived, Gabe noticed it was a very narrow lane.
“Dimity!” Gabe roared with a faint hope she may stop. She didn’t. He caught her as they neared the end. Wrapping a hand around her wrist, he hauled her to a stop.
“I know where he lives,” she rasped, breathless. “Hurry.”
Gabe hesitated as he admired her flushed face and heaving breasts.
“Give me the address.”
She gave him a pitying look. “You’d never find it, my lord.”
“Why?” he gritted out.
“Because you’re an earl and have no call to frequent such places.”
