The Haunting of a Duke(86)

She was going to die. The truth of it sank in with sickening clarity. Larissa had no idea where she was. Rhys and the other gentleman were investigating the tunnels because she'd insisted that the answers were there. No one knew that she'd come to the south wing except Melisande. No one would be coming to her aid. In the end, it would be too late.

Rhys stood shoulder to shoulder with Michael, as Spencer smashed the lock on the ancient trunk. They'd discovered the small chamber far into the maze of tunnels under the south wing. They'd also discovered that this tunnel led into the woods, near the site of Melisande's murder. When the lock clattered to the floor, Spencer opened the trunk and pulled out the bundled fabric. He shook it out and Rhys stared in growing horror at the lavender dress streaked with brown. He had no doubt that the brown stains were his sister's blood.

Michael's voice was low, filled with shock when he spoke. “Melisande was killed by a woman?"

Realization and growing horror crept through him. “By a woman in mourning. It was Eleanor. Eleanor was still in mourning for Uncle Reginald that summer."

"Why? What possible reason could she have had? And the manner in which she was killed—it's impossible!"

It unfolded clearly before Rhys in his mind's eye. With the information that Michael had given him, he understood why she had done it. “She was protecting Alistair. She might have killed Melisande but it was to hide the fact that her son had brutally raped a child, his own cousin. We have to go back. Emme and Larissa are alone in the house with only Eleanor and Mother."

"It's quicker to exit onto the south lawn than to weave our way back through the tunnels,” Michael said, hot fear coiling in his belly.

Spencer bundled the dress up, stuffed it into the satchel he'd brought and followed the others out. As he stepped into the sunlight, movement in the distance caught his eye. He saw Larissa running across the lawn with what looked to be a pistol in her hand. “What the devil?"

"He's taken her!” she screamed, still running toward them.

She stumbled and Spencer rushed forward to help her. She shoved the gun case into his hands. “He's taken Emme!"

"Taken her where?” Rhys demanded.

He didn't bother to ask how Larissa knew this. He'd come to understand that Larissa had her own gifts that were just as incomprehensible to him as Emme's.

Michael uttered a foul curse. “I know where he's taken her."

Suddenly, Rhys did as well. He took off at a run, headed for the clearing where it had all begun. Michael followed but veered off the path to circle behind. Spencer and a weakened Larissa followed behind him. When he reached the clearing his blood ran cold. Alistair was there, and he held Emme in front of him, using her as a shield. The ribbon around her throat bit into the tender flesh of her neck and he could see that she was struggling for air. Alistair also held a pistol, the barrel pressed against her cheek.

"Alistair, let her go. Let her go, now and you can walk away. The other things don't matter,” Rhys said, and it was true.

He would give up pursuing justice for Melisande; he would give up everything for Emme. Standing there, knowing how desperately close he was to losing her, he knew that there was nothing he wouldn't do to save her.

"Very gracious of you cousin, but I don't think that I will,” he sneered. “Always so magnanimous, just like our dear brother was. Jeremy was always looking down his nose at me, just as you are. Your title doesn't make you that superior. By all rights, it should have been mine! Or didn't you know that? That your illustrious father was fucking my mother under the noses of their duped spouses? Oh, I can see that you didn't."

He paused and gestured with the pistol for Spencer to halt, which he did. Then the shining barrel once again pointed at Emme. Alistair continued, the vitriol and rage spewing out of him like poison. “I am the eldest son and yet I've had to watch as my title went first to your whelp of a brother and then to you."

While Alistair's rage and jealousy weren't surprising, his revelations, if they could be believed, were shocking.

Rhys recalled the cravat pin. To A, with love, From E. It had not been from Elise to Alistair, it had been from Eleanor to his father, Alexander. He'd known of course that his father had been faithless but that he'd indulged in an affair with Eleanor was hard to imagine.

Alistair jabbed the barrel of the pistol tight to Emme's cheek, the metal digging into her flesh. Fear, unlike anything he'd ever known, claimed him.

"I'd give you the title if I could. For the love of God, Alistair, just let her go! It doesn't have to be this way,” he urged, uncaring of the desperation in his voice.

Alistair's expression was a twisted mockery of a smile. “Is your touching display of concern for your lovely wife or for the bastard growing in her belly?"