“No,” his sister whispered. “She took me here and told them to help me upstairs, then she left in the carriage again. I cried out after her to find out where and she said…she said…”
“Where did she go?”
“To confront him. She said she was going to confronthim,” Lizzie sobbed.
Hugh rocked back and fell onto on the floor in front of her. Of course that is what she would do. Amelia had such strength, and she loved his sister quite like her own flesh and blood. She’d been enraged when she discovered Lizzie had been used by some nameless bastard she’d created into a monster in her beautiful head. He’d loved her for that.
But she had no reason to fear Walters. She didn’t know what Hugh did. So she would go to him, face off with him. Give him a set down. Never realizing that it would put her on the trail of a madman who might destroy her to keep her quiet, or to hurt Hugh, or just to please himself.
He pushed to his feet. “Stay here, Elizabeth, you must stay here. Do you understand?”
“Is it my fault?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No. And I will explain everything to you, I promise you. But youmuststay here where I know you will be safe.”
He ran from the room, ignoring how she called after him, and nearly crashed headlong into Masters. The butler straightened his back. “We are all very worried, Your Grace. What can we do?”
“Get a message to the Duke of Willowby straight away,” he said. “Tell him that Amelia has gone to Walters. That is exactly what it must say, and then the address of Aaron Walters’ home here in London. It’s in my book in my desk drawer.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Masters said. “And what about Lady Elizabeth? She has been overwrought.”
“I know. In the same message, ask the Duchess of Willowby to come here and comfort her until we return.”
Masters nodded. “Where are you going, Your Grace?”
“After my wife. Get me a gun.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Amelia glared up at the little townhouse as the driver helped her from the carriage. Her hands shook and her stomach turned as she looked at that façade and knew what awaited her behind it.
Something false. Something untrue.
But then, she could say that about her husband, too. Later. Later, she would say it. Right now she had something else to deal with.
“Your Grace, I do not like leaving you without a chaperone,” the driver said.
She touched his arm gently. “I will be but a moment, I assure you. Please don’t worry yourself.”
He looked less than convinced, but what could he say? She was the Duchess of Brighthollow. His employer. Hugh’s wife. How ridiculous that felt at present, when she reflected on all that had happened.
Hugh hadknownthe connection between Walters and his sister all along. It had been why he came to her. Why he bought her father’s debts, if there had actually been debts to purchase. He’d known all of it and never told her. Kept it from her willfully and well past the point where he should have known he could trust her.
It made Aaron’s words from earlier in the day, cruel as they were, ring with more truth in her ears.He will convince you he cares for you. But he will discard you.
Was that what had happened? Hugh had taken her to hurt the man who had hurt his sister? Pretended to care because it made her more pliable? Because it made it easier? Would he walk away when he recalled that he’d only wed her to thwart Aaron’s plans?
She shook her head, pushing away the thoughts she would confront later, and rang the bell at Walters’ door. In a moment, it opened and Aaron stood there, just as he had the last time she’d come. Now she wondered if he truly had a servant at all, or if that was just another mask he wore: Gentleman.
“Your Grace,” he said, and sounded genuinely surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”
“I know what you did,” she whispered, hating how her voice broke with emotions she didn’t want to reveal. “I know.”
His lips thinned and he stepped back to usher her into the foyer. “This does not seem the kind of conversation one should have on the doorstep.”
She looked past him into the house and then back at her driver. The other man would come for her if she didn’t return quickly, and she didn’t believe Aaron would hurt her physically. No, the pain he caused was something else entirely.
She moved past him into the house. Even more of the pictures on the walls were gone than the last time she’d been here, and some of the furniture was missing, too. She shook her head as she followed him to the parlor where they’d talked before. It was evident to her now that Walters was selling off the items. They probably weren’t even his, but had come with the property he was letting.
