X.
What had she just read?
Dimly, she realized her hands were shaking, and Victoria leaned in, her expression concerned. “Ellie, are you all right?”
“No—” she shoved the letter to Victoria, “—read this, please.”
She stood and began to pace, biting her lips while wondering if she could trust this person.
“Oh, good lord,” Victoria dropped the letter. “Ellie, what are you going to do about this? Do you believe this person?”
Pausing, she shook her head. “I—I do not know. But it seems that this person knows more about my life and relationship with Dorian than I do.”
“What do you mean?” Harriet asked.
Exhausted, Ellie took her seat and told them everything that had happened since the day in the church, minutes before she was to wed Carrington, and how Dorian had secreted her away.
She told them about hiding in St John’s Wood, right under the nose of her relatives, before they were married at St James. She told them about the omissions in Dorian’s story, the rift with Benedict and Carrington, and how he had ended up in the slums to survive.
“I do not know the full extent of what he had to do to regain his fortune, but I know the club was the keystone of it,” she said. “His main objective is to find his uncle, who betrayed him, and bring him to justice.”
“And how were you going to help him do that?” Harriet asked.
She sighed and leaned forward, “I was supposed to be his companion to balls and functions, and suchlike. He wanted to have the perception of propriety and be more ducal, I suppose.”
“There were many balls where the people involved had clues that would lead him to his uncle,” Ellie admitted. “But we soon narrowed it down to only Lord Carrington, who might have the key. We got distracted though, the grand plans we had to unearth the secret meandered left and right.”
Harriet shuffled closer. “Why?”
She took in a deep breath. “Because I started to fall in love with him.”
Her confession clearly stunned both of her friends. Rubbing the back of her neck, Ellie continued, “I know, it is sacrilegious to fall in love with a man you have only married as part of an arrangement… but I did anyway.”
Reaching for the letter, Harriet looked over it. “Don’t… don’t you think it is more sensible to ask Dorian about all this, than go to this… this blackguard?”
“I would ask,” Ellie said, her mind made up. “But I doubt I would get anywhere with him. Victoria, does Benedict have a pistol? If he does, I need to borrow it. And a carriage, if you don’t mind.”
Dousing the lamp near the bed, Dorian shucked the robe and went to close the window. Now that he finally had a few moments alone, away from the goings-on in his life, to gather himself, Ellie’s confession came back to him and hit him with the force of a tide.
It felt fantastical knowing that she loved him, and if he were true to himself, along the way, he’d fallen in love with her as well.
“Funny how things work out this way,” he sighed. “On the very verge of where I might lose her.”
As he pulled the blanket down, a knock came on his door. Rolling his neck, Dorian went to the door and opened it. “Yes?”
The footman bowed. “I apologize for the late disturbance, Your Grace, but a note came addressed to you. The bearer said it was urgent.”
Plucking the card up, Dorian opened it. The one line written in blood red ink made his blood run cold. “Your wife has been taken from you.”
Even as despair swamped him, agonizing fear reared its head. Who was behind this? Benedict—no. Her relatives? They wouldn’t dare. The answer blared in his face,Sterling.
“Ready my carriage,” Dorian ordered the footman, while lurching to get redressed. With his trousers, shirt, and boots on, he forwent a waistcoat and jacket, instead making for his coat. He paused to get one of his pistols and slid a knife into the sheath of his boot.
Dropping spare bullets into his pockets, he sprinted from the room and ran through the dark night to the carriage waiting for him.
“The Dewy Teahouse!” Dorian bellowed to the carriage driver. “Covent Garden.Now.”
If Sterling dares to harm even a single hair on her head, I will tear him from limb to limb.
