“Your wife is alive. If you would like to keep it that way, meet me in two hours. Come alone. Bring the Paragon Diamond. If you involve anyone else, she will suffer.”
Immediately, cold fury crawled up within him. Norwood had known exactly where to strike.
The worst of it was, though, Asher had no idea where the diamond was. He had no information, nor any inkling of how to find it.
“What is it?” his sister asked, but he shook his head. He couldn’t involve her — nor anyone. It would only be putting more people he loved in danger.
“I have something to deal with,” he said, striding out of the room toward his office, where he shut the door and began pacing in the near-dark.
He could not go to the authorities. That would take far too long, and there was a chance that Norwood would harm Evelyn if he realized what he had done. He also couldn’t comply, for he didn’t actually have the diamond or any idea where it was. Asher considered his options with ruthless clarity.
All he could do was to go anyway. Lie that he had it or lead Norwood to the jewel. And outthink him.
Which he didn’t have to do alone. He would have Evelyn, the most brilliant person he had ever met.
Together, they would find their way out of this.
He didn’t have another choice.
What he did realize, as he strode with purpose out of the study and up the stairs to his bedroom, was that this was no longer about scandal or politics.
For if he lost her now, there would be nothing left worth preserving.
Despair and determination were fighting a desperate battle in his chest as the realization hit him as though he had jumped into a pool of icy water.
He loved her.
He loved this woman, who had committed to not let her find a way into his heart.
But she had anyway, with her intellect, her spirit, her fierce intention to solve every puzzle that came her way — including him and their marriage.
She had been trying, had been there for him, had learned about his family, had made peace with his mother, had triedto solve his problems to make his life easier, had shown him in every way she could that she cared, that she wanted this marriage to be real in every way.
Meanwhile, he had done everything possible to push her away.
And now it might be too late.
He picked up a book off his side table and hurled it across the room until it hit the wall with a loud bang that satisfied him deep in his soul, even if it fixed nothing.
He pocketed the pen blade his father had left him, knowing he wasn’t likely well enough armed, but he had a few things Norwood didn’t possess – timing. Cunning. And resolve.
He would get his wife back — by any means necessary.
28
When Evelyn came to, her head was pounding, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and go back to sleep.
But she knew that could be catastrophic.
All came rushing back to her — Asher and their discovery, his last words to her, watching him ride away, and then Norwood capturing her in the back garden.
She berated herself for a moment at having allowed it to happen, at not having seen it coming, before focusing on what was to come rather than on the past. She couldn’t change her capture. But she could escape. Best to focus on that.
The last thing she remembered was the man who had caught her when she had lost consciousness. Somehow, they must have drugged her tea with laudanum. How long had it been since then? Did Asher realize she was gone?
She tried to move, but her arms were stuck, her hands bound behind her back, the rope biting into her wrists. She blinked, looking around her, seeing only a few shapes in the darkness. The narrow, airless room was suffocating her, the stone walls damp with age, stacked with broken crates and linens that hadlikely long ago been eaten by moths after the household had abandoned them. A single, high window admitted the only light, which shone a weak ribbon through the room, revealing thick dust and the sense that no one had set foot in here for years.
Her only question was whether this was a piece of Norwood’s property on his estate, or if he had found somewhere else to take her.
