Page 95 of Wedded to the Cruel Duke

“What?” Charles growled. “Lost her? How could you lose her?! She is hardly a trinket to be misplaced! And I thought I had ordered that all carriages were to be maintained in excellent condition!”

“We suspect that it has been tampered with, Your Grace,” Mosley told him gravely. “Otherwise, the wheel would not have been so easily damaged.”

Tampered with. Charles’ mind reeled. That meant that someone had somehow managed to infiltrate the servants in his employ.

But who was it? Was it someone from his father’s time? Only Ambrose and Amelia had accompanied him and Phoebe from Wentworth.

“Should we order a search, Your Grace?”

He held up his hand and shook his head. As much as he wanted to turn the whole of London upside-down in search of her, Phoebe would not appreciate what she would perceive as another display of him being overbearing and overprotective. Especially if there was a simple mix-up and she was presently spending a fine day out with her sister after all.

But what was he supposed to do? Should he send correspondence over to the Townsends? Then wait until he heard the news that she was fine?

He reached for his flask and was about to take another swig from it when a blow knocked it clear from his hands. The flask landed on the carpet with a dull thud, spilling a dark red liquid that eerily looked like watered-down blood.

“What the—!?” he gasped. He looked up to find O’Malley with a grim look on his face.

“O’Malley?” he asked. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

“I came here as soon as Her Grace sent me a message to tell me that there was something amiss,” he explained somberly. “Somebody has been tainting your draught with laudanum, Your Grace.”

Charles’ eyes widened in horror.Laudanum!

His eyes darted back to the blood-like liquid seeping into the floor. He thought of how he had been feeling the past few weeks since he arrived in London. The constant feeling of being watched, of being followed. The fear that there was someone in the shadows, waiting.Watching.

It… it had been laudanum all along?

“Who?” he asked, his voice deadly calm.

O’Malley looked at him squarely. “Your former valet, Your Grace.Ambrose Jones. A young maid caught him in the act back before you left Wentworth. Had kept it to herself out of fear of what she saw.”

Charles clenched his hands into fists.

“I do not suppose I have to tell you to detain him?” he muttered menacingly to his loyal footman.

O’Malley sneered, his ordinarily jovial features warping into those of a hunter who had just been given leave to pursue his prey. “Naturally, Your Grace.”

He nodded once and a group of men swarmed into the study, dragging with them the valet who had his wrists bound tightly in thick rope.

Ambrose Jones had been a man who was particular with his appearance—especially considering his prior role as valet, butwhen he appeared before Charles, his hair had been mussed up and there was the beginnings of a large bruise on his left cheek.

Charles sat down on his chair and looked at the scene before him with narrowed eyes.

“Mosley,” he said quietly. “Leave us.”

The butler bowed warily. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

He took the pallid coachman with him and closed the door behind them.

“O’Malley?”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Do not be rude and help our guest to a seat.”

The grin that split the footman’s face was nothing short of feral. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

He forced Ambrose Jones into a sturdy chair and bound him further with thick ropes. Even if the man had the courage to, he would never be able to escape.