The Dissolute Duke(33)

She was glad for the key Taylen Ellesmere had given her and, locking her door against any intrusion, she tried to think of just exactly what she would do next.

Elizabeth held him as she might once have held her husband and as Tay tried to disengage her grip he saw a quick flash of a dark dress.

Had Lucinda come down the stairs behind him? Had she seen Elizabeth entwined about him and sobbing? Lord, if she had, she might imagine other things, too.

With a real effort he moved away from Lance’s widow and poured her a brandy.

‘Drink this. It will help.’

Thankfully she did swallow the draught without question and the tormented and hysterical crying stopped.

‘If I have lost her, too …’

‘You won’t have. Emily will have gone to one of her friends’ place to hide or to wait and see what you do as a result of it.’

Hope flared in dark eyes. ‘You think she might have?’

‘I do.’

The sobbing began again, quieter though now. ‘She has been difficult since her father’s death and I have not been as strong as I have needed to be.’

‘Then take a lesson and begin in London, Elizabeth. The school there is a good one and the girls will have all the care and direction they require. A new start is exactly what you all need.’

‘Could you come back to Tillings with me now and talk to her, when we have found her? She listens to you just as she used to listen to her father.’

Tay’s heart sank. He knew that it would be dark before he could return home to Alderworth. He was also worried about Lucinda, but with a carriage waiting outside and an anxious mother inside he had no time to go upstairs and explain everything to her.

Tomorrow he would take his wife out riding and show her the estate. Perhaps if she was willing he could also take her back to his bedchamber and find the same magic that they had discovered last night.

It was already morning. Lucinda had fallen asleep fully dressed under the cover of a thick blanket that lay at the bottom of her small bed after waiting nearly half the night to see whether Taylen would return.

But he had not come home. He had gone with the beautiful dark-haired woman and as the hours had tumbled one across the other she knew that he would not be back. She felt sick with the implications of what that might mean.

Had he left again, this time with the full intent never to return? My God, her brothers had been right. Exactly right. She should have heeded their word and refused to accompany him to his estate. Once a snake, always a snake. Yet he hadn’t been that at all. He had been honest and honourable. It had been her memory at fault and he was the one who had suffered.

A knock on the door had her sitting up, running the back of her hand quickly against her eyes and trying to place a smile where anguish had just been.

‘May I come in? I have your breakfast tray.’

Scrambling up, Lucinda unlocked the door and a maid came bustling in with freshly baked rolls and a pot of tea.

‘Mrs Berwick said I was to tell you that the master will be a-riding home this morning from the direction of the local village, your Grace. She said that the groom could find you a mount should you wish to venture out and meet him.’

The idea appealed. A ride might blow away the cobwebs Lucinda felt building and give her freedom to think. The added bonus was that meeting him out in the open would allow them to talk in private.

If she got one of the stable hands to show her the way she would not get lost and the weather outside looked finer than it had in weeks. When the dog came through the door she decided to take him, too, reasoning that the exercise would be good for the hound.

The horses standing in the stables were by and large older hacks, though one smaller filly caught her attention.

‘What of that one?’ she asked the stable boy. ‘The roan mare at the end?’

‘Her name is Venus. She’s a mite skittish in temperament, though, for she came with his Grace’s black as a pair and when Hades is gone she’s apt to fret.’

The perfect ride, then. If she had any chance of meeting up with the returning Duke, the odds had just got better.

‘Who usually takes her out?’

Silence told her that nobody did.

‘I can saddle up a more docile horse if you would rather, your Grace.’

‘No. This one will be fine.’ Lucinda liked the lines of Venus and she felt desperate for a good long stretch. None of the other horses here looked as if they would give her any more than a slow canter.

With anticipation she mounted and was surprised by the docile way the horse allowed her a seat. The day was blue and it had been a while since she had sat on the back of a horse in the countryside and raced across the land, feeling the wind in her hair and liberty in her veins.

After all that had happened she needed to simply feel. The wonderment in such an unexpected loving still left every fibre in her body alive with promise and had her heart racing.

She had lain there when she had awoken and felt … different. A woman who understood exactly what it was that others spoke of in the hushed tones on the far side of rooms. Yet now with Taylen’s absence everything had returned to only bewilderment.

Veering left at the main gate as the stable boy had directed, she allowed Venus her head, racing across the line of fence and bush with the sun on her shoulders. The silence of the place was absolute, the birdsong long since diminished and the day shaping up into a glorious one. The dog loped at her side in an easy gait.

At the top of the incline the lands of Alderworth spread out around her as a tableau and Lucinda wished she had brought her drawing things to capture such a view. Her eyes searched out the paths coming in from all directions, but there was nothing. Perhaps Tay had stayed on longer, lying entwined in the arms of the beautiful widow, and regretting the confidence he had allowed in his marriage bed.

A brace of loud shots had her turning as a group of men burst from the trees a good five hundred yards away.

Hunters. Lucinda felt the quiver of her horse’s fright even before she bolted, whipping the reins from her hands and tearing off in the opposite direction from where they had appeared.

She could only hang on, her fingers entwined in the hair of the mane and her feet solid in the stirrups. A hundred yards and then two, the hilly terrain giving way to a long valley and trees. The branches whipped her face as she tried to stop, shouting at her horse to slow as hooves beat faster against the muddy ground. Then she was off, flying through the air with the rush of landscape beside her and down on to the slope of a gully. She might well have stopped if there had not been a disused well at the bottom, the slopes rolling into the mouth of it and over into darkness.

A good six feet down she clung to the roots of a tree and tried to force her body into the space between earth and wood. Already she felt sick, disorientated, dizzy. Pain brought her back to the moment and the last thing she remembered was the dog looking down before turning away from the gap in the sky, the sound of his panicked barking disappearing on the wind.

One of the lads came out to meet him as Taylen cantered in to the stables. He had left the village as early as he could and made excellent time back to Alderworth. Looking at his timepiece, he saw it to be twenty minutes short of twelve. Emily had been reunited with her mother after a number of hours of searching and was suitably apologetic, though with a night behind him in the local inn Tay was glad to leave and head for home.

A sort of panic had gnawed at him for hours, the idea that something was not quite right pervading all his thoughts.

‘Will you be joining her Grace out riding, your Grace?’ The young stable hand’s face was tinged with worry.

‘The Duchess has taken out one of the horses?’

‘Venus, your Grace.’ A full frown now lingered on his forehead.

‘You let her take Venus?’

‘I offered her the choice, but she was most insistent. The stray dog went with her, your Grace, and I had the impression she hoped to meet you on the way.’

Tay scanned the hills behind Alderworth and the pathways to the front.

‘What time did she leave?’

‘Two hours ago, your Grace.’

‘Saddle Exeter for me then, and see to Hades. I will be back in fifteen minutes ready to leave.’ Dismounting, he took his leather satchel and hurried inside.

Mrs Berwick was in the kitchen when he found her and up to her elbows in flour.

Tay tried to temper his worry so as not to disturb his housekeeper, but he could hear it in his voice nevertheless as he asked his question.

‘Did the Duchess tell you where she was going riding today, Mrs Berwick?’

‘Towards the village,’ the other answered quickly. ‘I gave her the directions for the pathway you would take home and she rode out to meet you.’

A whining at the door stopped him and the dog came in, panting from its exertion. Relief budded for the stable hand had said Lucinda had left with this animal, so perhaps she had already returned. The arrival of the same lad a second later put paid to such a hope.

‘Her Grace is still not back, your Grace. The dog came a few minutes ago and I thought she would follow. But nothing …’

Mrs Berwick was now wiping her hands off, a look of alarm spreading across her face. ‘The weather is changing, your Grace. I think it will rain soon.’

‘What was my wife wearing?’

‘Her riding jacket and skirt. They looked both serviceable and warm.’