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“To hell with my reputation. I should like to know why you think yourself so above me when you have done unspeakable things to my wife.”

“All I did was take her necklace,” he slurred, removing a necklace from his pocket and waving it haphazardly. “She had such a pretty neck, too. I believe I might have been the first man to ever touch it, you know, but we all miss what we don’t take, and oh, I am glad to have taken it.”

Colin was quite certain that he broke the man’s nose.

Had he not then seen the two most important ladies in his life tied to a bed, he might have taken pity on the second footman, but he did not, and so the other had to go too. Once he wasfinished with them, he was quite sure that they would not awaken for a good while.

“Diana?” he called. “Is that you?”

“Your Grace!” Samantha called back. “We are here, come quickly!”

He wasted no time in rushing to their aid, even as he spoke.

“Untie her first,” Samantha instructed. “She has been in this state for longer than I have.”

Colin set Diana free, and she collapsed into his arms, clinging to him.

“Colin,” she sighed into his neck, “I cannot believe you are here.”

“Of course I am,” he replied gently. “But I ought to free Samantha now.”

“It is quite alright.” She smiled next to them. “You know, it becomes rather comfortable once you become used to it.”

But Diana released him, and he freed Samantha, and the two ladies fell into each other. Colin lifted each one onto a bed and ensured that they were lying correctly before going down to the elderly lady. Upon his return to the room, having sent for help, Diana was once more beside her sister.

“It was foolish of me to separate the two of you, I suppose.” He chuckled.

“She seems to be asleep,” Diana whispered before turning over to him. “How did you find us?”

“It was purely coincidental. I would like to say I used some sort of intelligent deduction, but I simply began riding until I knew the horse had to stop. Perhaps that was their mistake in the first place?”

“Do you suppose they planned all of this?”

“They couldn’t have planned for your sister to run away, but they certainly took advantage of it. Oh, God, Diana, I am so sorry. Had I known I had employed two men as evil as that?—”

“You couldn’t have known,” Diana assured him. “Had the idea even crossed your mind, you would have rid us of them long ago. I know that.”

He simply nodded in response.

“What I did not know,” she continued, “was whether or not you would come to us. I would not have blamed you if you did not.”

“Why would I not have? I found the letter, and as soon as I read it, I knew that I had to come and find you, if anything else to say that I?—”

He paused.

“That you what?”

He wanted to tell her, but she had been through quite enough that evening without him adding any more difficulty. It was not the right time, and he knew that.

“That I would prefer it if you were at home, where you belong,” he said instead. “The village needs their Duchess, after all. I need my Duchess.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

Colin wondered, hoped even, if her reaction meant that she had wanted him to say something else.

“How do you suppose she is?” he asked gently, gesturing towards Samantha.

“She blames herself entirely,” Diana sighed. “And it is not exactly as though I can assure her otherwise. She was foolish for running away, but she couldn’t have known what would happen. After all, she had to bribe them to take her away in the first place. Four hundred pounds, can you believe that?”