Page 30 of The Lady Who Said No to the Duke

Then he scrabbled the cloak apart, found her hands and tied those, finally shoving her back on the seat. ‘Stay there and stay quiet, if you know what’s best for you.’

Thea realised that she had missed her chance to tell which way they had turned out of the mews. Now she was lost as the carriage wove its way through the streets of London.

It was definitely a carriage, not a cart or a wagon, because what she was lying on was well-sprung.

Thea forced herself to think. She had been snatched from an exclusive address in fashionable London in broad daylight.

She was travelling in a gentleman’s conveyance, not a hackney carriage.

And there had been that glimpse of a woman holding the conservatory doors open, possibly—probably—Helena Linton.

What was this? It was too extreme for a spiteful prank. Tales of innocent young women snatched off the street and sold into brothels came back to make her feel sick with apprehension. Could that really happen? Would anyone dare do that to the daughter of the Earl of Wiveton?

Whatever awaited her at the end of this jolting, blind journey, she had to be prepared to act, to seize every chance of escape. Now there was nothing she could do, and she was not even sure how many people were in the carriage with her.

Thea made herself go limp, lie still, listen for any clue as to who had taken her and where she was going. There was no one to help her; nobody would even know yet that she was missing. It was down to her to save herself.

* * *

‘Good afternoon, Lady Wiveton,’ Hal said and noticed the widening of the Countess’s eyes as she saw him. ‘Is Lady Thea present this afternoon?’

‘Why, yes, certainly. I saw her with Lord Porchester, perhaps half an hour ago.’

‘Ah, I must have missed her. I will hope to encounter her later.’ He smiled and moved on, scanning the heads in the crowded space. Thea was tall enough, and her hair striking enough, for him to see her if she was standing. But there were a lot of seats, of course.

He thought he had looked everywhere in the upper room, but he began to check again. Perhaps she had gone down into one of the garden wings, although one now looked decidedly uninviting in deep shadow.

Something stirred uneasily inside him. Nerves at attempting to find the words to rebuild the friendship that had been between them, and make it strong enough for Thea to allow him to court her—or apprehension about where she was?

But surely, a young lady was perfectly safe in the home of a dowager duchess, surrounded by most of the haut ton?

He saw Porchester, deep in conversation with an older man, and strolled towards them, was recognised and exchanged a few banalities before saying, ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you, Porchester?’

The other man drifted off to join another group and Porchester was left eying Hal warily. ‘Yes?’

Hal kept his voice low. ‘Have you seen Lady Thea?’

‘Why?’ Porchester demanded.

‘Get off your high horse. I’m worried. I can’t find her. She’s not up here, the right-hand wing is full of nattering matrons and the left-hand one is becoming cold and gloomy. I was going to check it when I saw you.’

Porchester, a tall man, promptly stood on the nearest bench and scanned the upper room. ‘No sign here. I’ll look in the right-hand side, you check the left.’

They split up. Hal ran down the steps into the lower conservatory and began systematically checking, looking down and under benches in case Thea had fainted and was lying there.

He had almost reached the end when Porchester joined him. ‘No sign of her there. Surely she would not have gone out into the garden?’

‘Not in the shoes she must be wearing, no,’ Hal said as he scanned the last few feet of conservatory. Something was knotting in his gut and he made himself ignore it. There was probably a perfectly simple explanation—and if there wasn’t, then what would be needed was a cool head.

‘What’s that?’

He picked up the crumpled sheet of paper and smoothed it out, swore and handed it to Porchester. ‘She must have thought it was from me.’ The knots were back, along with a wave of something close to fear.

He ignored the other man’s raised eyebrows at the assumption that Thea would know that a note signed L was from himself and that she would follow its instructions. ‘Someone has taken her.’

The Dowager was another of his godmothers and one he could trust. Hal fought his way through the guests to her side. ‘Something serious has happened,’ he told her, low-voiced, and she promptly steered him into a side room and closed the door.

‘Worrying,’ she said when he had told her about the note. ‘Ring the bell.’

When the butler appeared she simply said, ‘Send all the staff on duty in here now. And hurry, Gibson.’

Through his anxiety Hal was aware that the Dowager would have made a good general.

Within twenty minutes she had established that Thea’s pelisse, bonnet and umbrella were still with her mother’s things, that she was not in the ladies’ retiring room and, unless she was very cunningly concealed, not in the rest of the house or garden either.

None of the staff recalled seeing her after Lewis, the under-footman, had delivered the note and that had been given to him by a gentleman he had hardly glimpsed and didn’t know. A thin, dark man and quite young, was all he could recall.

Gibson had begun been sending the staff back into the conservatory after their allocated search had been completed when one footman came in to report that Lady Wiveton was asking if anyone had seen her daughter.

‘Ask her to join me if you please, Gibson,’ the Dowager said. ‘This has now become serious,’ she added to Hal as the door closed behind the butler.

‘I agree. Porchester, we should check the mews. It seems certain that she had been removed from the house.’

The Dowager’s head groom was located easily.

Yes, he had seen a strange carriage draw up beside the gate into the garden, but had assumed it belonged to one of the guests who had perhaps been taken ill.

He’d had no instructions from Her Grace to interfere, so left it alone, being busy with one of the horses that had gone lame the day before.

There had been a driver on the box and a groom up behind and he thought that perhaps one or two men had gone in through the gate.

No, he couldn’t describe the driver, nor the carriage, other than it was an ordinary travelling coach, black with no crest on the door, but the team did make an impression.

‘Not well matched, that I’ll say. Very untidy it looked,’ he said with professional disdain. ‘One bay, two blacks and a chestnut with a white face and three white socks.’

Hal and the Earl returned to the house to find Lady Wiveton pacing about the drawing room in great distress and insisting that her husband be sent for at once. The Dowager was seeing off the last of the departing guests, none of whom had realised anything was amiss, Hal hoped.

A few minutes later she swept in. ‘Wiveton has been summoned. Have you discovered anything?’ she demanded of the two men.

‘A description of the unknown carriage that left your mews at about the time Lady Thea was missed and, more usefully, information about the horses, which are distinctive. I suggest we send out grooms and footmen armed with coin to question crossing sweepers in the streets around to see if any of them saw that team and which way it was heading. The fact that it is a coach and four suggests that he is heading out of London.’

‘But who could have taken her?’ Lady Wiveton demanded. ‘Or has she eloped?’

‘Not unless the note we found luring her to the conservatory wing was an elaborate hoax on her part,’ Hal said, which caused the Countess to sink down on a sofa and close her eyes.

‘Oh, my heavens. Which is worse?’

Worse? All that mattered if Thea had eloped was that she might face social disgrace, and that could be managed.

But if she had been taken… He made himself stop being practical and absorb that fully for the first time.

She might be hurt, and she would be terrified, even though, knowing Thea, she would fight not to show it.

And who had taken her? And why? When he got his hands on them—and he would—he was going to make them wish they had never been born. He would—

Gibson’s entrance jerked him back to the present. Act, then worry.

‘Your Grace, excuse the interruption, but under the strange circumstances, I wonder if this is related.’

‘If what is related?’ the Dowager snapped.

‘There is a young man, a Mr Dudley. He is enquiring for Mr Randolph Linton. When I told him the gentleman was not here, he told me that he had been informed at Linton House that he was attending this At Home with his sister. He became somewhat agitated when I informed him that Lady Helena had been present, and has now left, but that Mr Linton had not called. It may, of course, be nothing—’

‘I think it may,’ Hal said. ‘At least one member of that family has no cause to love Lady Thea. With your permission, Duchess, I will talk to him.’ He hardly waited for her nod before he was out of the door.

Mr Dudley was a stocky young man and Hal decided that he was a gentleman from respectable County stock.

‘I am Leamington,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Tell me how I can help.’

‘A duke?’ The young man’s eyebrows lifted, but his handshake was firm and confident and there was no hint of deference in his voice when he said, ‘Is Randolph Linton a friend of yours?’

‘Far from it. Come in here and explain all about it.’ He steered the younger man into one of the small reception rooms and closed the door. ‘You have my utmost discretion.’

‘The swine attempted to ruin my sister,’ Dudley said between clenched teeth.

‘I was in Ireland. When I returned home to the Deanery—my father is a rural dean in Yorkshire—and I heard what had happened, I wrote to Linton, told him to expect a visit from me today to demand satisfaction. If the swine is trying to hide from me, then I’ll hunt him down like the rat he is. And force him to meet me.’

‘I rather think that he had taken action to tie your hands and revenge himself on another lady at the same time,’ Hal said grimly. ‘If you are prepared to share your story with a small group of people for whose discretion I can vouch, we may secure your satisfaction and save that lady.’