“Yes,” Griffin said, turning his face. “Just on the right in the hallway is an entrance where I take deliveries.”
She nodded and turned her attention back to Josiah. “We could leave through there. You don’t want to do anything in the shop at any rate, do you?”
“No!” Griffin said. “Please don’t.”
Josiah worried his lip. “Fine. I’ll go around and have my carriage brought to the back entrance.”
He shoved Charlotte into a chair with enough force that her teeth clanged together, and then reached into his pocket and retrieved a pistol. She watched, horrified, as he turned it over to Griffin.
“Point it at her head,” he instructed. “And if she tries to run, put a bullet in it.”
Griffin took the weapon, his hands shaking, and leveled it on Charlotte as Josiah rushed out of the room. When they were alone, Charlotte focused entirely on Griffin.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said softly.
He shifted and she winced, for he was shaking so hard she feared he would shoot her accidentally. “When he’s duke…he’s made promises,” he said.
“Do you really think he’s going to be duke?” she asked, shooting a glance at the door as she wondered at how much time they had left. “He’s driven by revenge and greed, Mr. Griffin. He’s wild and has no good plan.”
Griffin seemed to consider that. “But I’m already in it, my lady.”
“He might kill me,” she said. “And it will all come out. You can be a villain in the piece and fall with this man. Or you could be a hero. It’s not too late to help.”
He stared at the door for a beat, two beats, and she held her breath.
“How?” he said softly, and her heart leapt as she began to offer him a way out.
Chapter Nineteen
Ewan burst through the door of Griffin’s Emporium, Matthew and Baldwin at his heels, and scanned the shop for Charlotte. She was nowhere to be found, but the Duchess of Sheffield was there, standing at the front of the shop, arguing with the owner.
“You make no sense, Mr. Griffin,” she said, fisting her hands at her sides. “I have been waiting for three-quarters of an hour!”
Ewan charged forward, pushing aside displays as he did so. Griffin’s eyes went wide and he staggered back flat against the shelves behind the counter. The duchess turned, and she jolted at the sight of her son, Matthew and Ewan.
“What is going on?” she asked.
Ewan ignored her, tearing the notebook from his pocked. On it he wrote,“Where is Charlotte?”
He threw the pad at Griffin, who stammered as he read it. “Your Grace, Your Grace…”
“Where is my sister?” Baldwin repeated, his voice shaking the shop.
“That is what I’ve been asking!” the duchess said. “They left me almost forty-five minutes ago, to check on a gift. Then this man returned without Charlotte. He’s been trying to tell me she left from the back to do other errands, which is patently ridiculous.”
Griffin lifted his hands, now surrounded by three dukes whose rage was very obvious. “I—he made me, Your Grace. He forced me.”
Ewan nearly buckled. He’d had hope that his mother was wrong about Josiah’s wild rage. That when he rode into town he’d find Charlotte and her mother peacefully shopping. That she would be confused when he strode up to her and embraced her, when he vowed never to ever let her go again.
But now it was clear from Griffin’s face that all his worst nightmares were real.
“Josiah took her,” Matthew said, likely the calmest of the three.
“Josiah? Ewan’s brother?” the duchess cried. “Tookher—what are you talking about?”
Baldwin took her arm, guiding her away gently to explain what was happening to her. As he did so, Matthew leaned in to Griffin. “You tell us the truth.Now.”
Behind them, the Duchess of Sheffield let out a horrified cry that was like an animal being injured. Ewan flinched as she collapsed, sobbing against her son. “Not my daughter! You mustn’t let him do something to Charlotte!”
