Page 36 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

T he dart flew through the air like an arrow, sure and true. The thunk with which it hit the board was satisfying in a fleeting way. But the moment passed and all Christoph was left with was a sense of emptiness. He twirled the remaining dart in his hand. Two bullseyes… Could he hit a third?

Lifting his head, Christoph concentrated, pulled back his arm and unleased the dart.

The thunk resonated around the library and he gave a tired smile that disappeared almost as swiftly as the thunk . Three bullseyes. He was clearly better at this than conversing with his own wife.

The Wallflower Academy? But, Daphne, you can’t.

I can do anything I want, I think you’ll find.

His eyes itched with tiredness, his head was heavy and his heart weary, but there did not seem to be much point in attempting sleep. It had been two days. Two days of silence. Two days of searching, of dead ends and panic. Two days…

‘You’re still up?’

Christoph looked up and turned around, a weak smile creasing his lips as he beheld the second most important woman in the world. ‘Laura. You should go on up to bed—you should get some rest.’

‘I could say the same about you,’ said his sister quietly as she slipped into the library, a candlestick in her hand, a robe pulled round her nightgown. ‘You look terrible.’

He wouldn’t be surprised. Christoph had not permitted the valet his father-in-law had chosen to touch his hair.

There was little point, and a bath had not been called for.

He was wearing yesterday’s clothes—what was the point in changing?

Daphne was not going to see them—and his meals had been sporadic.

Now he came to think about it, when had he last eaten?

‘You miss her.’

Christoph swallowed hard before replying. ‘Yes.’

‘Then why not go after her?’ Laura moved further into the room, placing her candlestick down on the floor and curling up in an armchair next to it. ‘You know where she is—this Wallflower Academy, you said. You could be there in an hour. Go to her.’

Go to her.

Yes, that had been his first instinct. Go to her, the woman he loved. The woman he had married to protect. The woman whose funds had provided a safe passage for his sister.

‘I have.’ When Christoph spoke, his voice was painfully cracked.

‘I went to the Wallflower Academy. She was not there—Miss Pike denied her ever arriving. I went to her friends, Sylvia, Rilla and Gwen, but they denied all knowledge of her whereabouts. I… I went to her father. I went to the Bow Street Runners. God help me, I went to the newspapers…’

Missing—his wife was missing.

The tearing anguish in his chest did not abate—it could never abate while Daphne was somewhere in the world alone, unprotected, without means of support and care. Anything could happen to her…

God, anything could happen to her.

Her absence had broken his heart, and in the intervening hours of pain nothing had mended.

He had nothing more to offer her, no explanation that she would accept.

Seeing her would only double the pain he felt and undoubtedly upset her—but he had to see her, had to ensure she was well.

And he could not find her. He, a prince, with all Daphne’s wealth, could not find the woman he loved.

‘I do not understand,’ Laura said simply. ‘You love her. She loves—’

‘She loved the idea of me,’ Christoph interrupted darkly. ‘She loved the ideal of me. When I told her how I felt, she… just…’

He could not continue. How could he? He loved her. Worse, he had told Daphne he loved her, opened himself to her, done the one thing he had promised himself he would never do and fallen in love…and she did not want him. She had walked away.

Christoph’s jaw tightened. Daphne had seen the worst of him—his lies, his plan to marry her despite not being the chosen brother—and Daphne had seen quite clearly that she could not love him.

That was his punishment. That was the retribution he had brought upon himself the moment he had chosen to lie to her about their arranged marriage.

He deserved this. He had earned this. And yet Daphne was not safe.

Striding forward to the dartboard, he pulled the three darts out and returned to where he had been standing. It was near the fireplace, the position he judged to be eight feet away from the board.

Christoph lifted a hand, holding a dart, and drew it back.

‘I know you, Christoph Augustus Heinrich Maximus Anton Philip von Auberheiser.’

‘I cannot believe you just used my full name!’ muttered Christoph. ‘I did not bring you here to castigate me.’

‘You would not have to suffer it if you did not give me cause,’ returned Laura with a wistful smile. ‘Just like always, you take things so much to heart. You always blame yourself.’

Christoph’s fingers tightened round one of the remaining darts.

‘She could be in danger, even now,’ Laura said, eyes narrowed. ‘She does not know to be on her guard—she could be kidnapped, taken to Niedernlein!’

Closing his eyes did not make the images of his terror disappear. Christoph tried to swallow, tried to breathe, but a vision of Daphne being bundled into a carriage by someone sent by his brother intruded on, persisted through, his determination.

God, he had not thought of that.

‘I will not let that happen,’ he said.

Something very large and very heavy whacked him in the face.

Christoph’s eyes snapped open. ‘Laura!’

‘Well!’ she said indignantly, holding the pair of cushions which she had just launched at him. ‘Do you know the backgrounds of all the servants in your employ? Do you truly know who they serve? How did you choose them?’

Ah. This was not going to be an easy conversation to have. ‘I… I did not.’

Laura’s eyes narrowed. ‘Please. Please, Christoph, do not tell me you were so stupid as to permit someone else to choose your servants.’

Christoph opened his mouth. Then he hesitated and ran through the myriad responses he could offer his increasingly irate sister. Then he closed it again.

Laura groaned and dropped her head into a grasped cushion. ‘Christoph!’

‘I had no wish to be rude to my father-in-law,’ he said hastily. ‘He was the one who chose.’

‘No, he was the one who told you that he selected your servants,’ said Laura fiercely, lifting her head from the cushion.

‘But you do not know who influenced him? Who actually read through the letters of application, who met with them? You really think an earl takes the time to check a man’s references? ’

Christoph’s stomach clenched uncomfortably now.

How many men did he employ—fifteen? Twenty?

How many of them did he know? None of them.

They all knew Daphne had left the house—he had told the servants she was visiting family, but that lie would not hold for long.

Which meant someone knew she was out there, in danger, vulnerable, alone.

‘Perhaps I am more like Anton than I ever thought,’ he said bleakly.

This time he was prepared for it and caught the cushion, but it did not reduce the ire in his sister’s face.

‘You are nothing like him, you idiot,’ she said brutally. ‘Because the mere fact that you are worried you are like him tells me you will never live without a conscience, as he does.’

Something unfroze in his shoulders and a trickle of relief dripped through Christoph.

Well, he could take small comfort from that, he supposed.

But it could not remove the sting that was the truth: that the very worst had happened.

He had lost Daphne. And not to death. Or not to illness, as his father had lost his beloved mother.

No, it was Christoph’s lies and deceit that had broken the trust and affection between them. His own actions had shattered the chain that bound them together. Now he would never…

‘So, now we have that settled,’ Laura continued, ‘precisely when are you going to find that wife of yours? I would start again at that Wallflower Academy. I cannot believe she would not eventually end up there. Was it not her home for a good many years?’

Christoph glanced at the clock and was astonished to see the time.

‘Six o’clock? It can’t still be six o’clock in the even—’

‘It is six o’clock in the morning,’ his sister said succinctly.

‘In…in the morning?’ he said, dazed. ‘It can’t be. You’re just going to bed.’

‘I’ve just got up, you fool,’ said Laura lightly. ‘How long do you think it’ll take before you’re presentable to the outside world?’

It took far longer than he had expected.

Christoph’s valet insisted on washing his hair, not just coiffuring it, and that seemed to take for ever.

Then his man said pointedly that his wife would prefer to see him with a fresh face, so Christoph had to succumb to the most irritatingly slow shave he had ever experienced.

Prickling at the back of his mind was the suspicion that this man was the traitor, the one who had been sent to harm Daphne and him.

It was rather a challenge to keep still when the man held a blade to his throat.

Then there was the clothing.

‘You are hoping to impress, I believe, Your Highness?’ his valet said delicately.

Christoph winced. ‘“My lord” is fine.’

‘Not if you want to impress,’ said the man with a smile.

It was dressing by negotiation. Christoph was willing to accept a complicated knot in his cravat that appeared to take twenty minutes to tie, but pulled on a waistcoat that did not match and made his valet wince in turn.

‘And now the—’

‘If you try to powder my hair, I swear to—’

‘Fine, fine, my lord,’ said his valet hastily, taking a step back before adding in an undertone as Christoph ran for the door, ‘But don’t blame me if your coiffure shifts before you arrive.’

Precisely how his hair looked, Christoph did not care. He hurtled down the corridor, across the landing and down the stairs. When he reached the front door, Laura was standing there with a greatcoat over one arm and a knowing smile.

‘You look far too smug,’ Christoph pointed out as his sister helped him into the greatcoat.