The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Twenty-six

Harriet froze in panic when they entered the house to discover Lord Heath Boscastle, Griffin’s cousin, waiting in the hall with another gentleman, who had once played a less pleasant role in her life. Sir Daniel Mallory had been her nemesis. At one time, he had served as a Bow Street detective. After his sister was murdered by a gang of street thugs, he had decided that he would rid the city of its dangerous elements, and Harriet’s family fit the bill. He had retired and now served as an agent to private clients. Harriet had stayed with Lord Heath and his wife during the time he had allowed his home to be used by the academy. She had seen Sir Daniel visiting the St. James’s house at odd hours.

Her last encounter with Sir Daniel, more than two years ago, was humiliating to recall. Prior to that, he had arrested her on more occasions than she could count. He had a good heart, and she’d taken advantage of it by promising repeatedly that she would stay out of trouble.

Then one night, he had been waiting for her outside a house she’d intended to burglarize with her half brothers. The useless boobies had run off as Sir Daniel dragged her cursing and crying into an elegant carriage that no detective could ever afford. “I trusted you,” she shouted, bouncing up and down until she wore herself out. In secret, her instincts had recognized his goodness from the first day he had broken up a fight in a cookshop and pretended not to notice her pinching a steak pie for her supper.

“I don’t wanna go to gaol!” she had bellowed, banging at the drawn blinds. “I’ll be mouse meat, a little scrap like me! I’ll catch some ’orrid illness, and when I die, it’s your name I’ll be cursin’ on my lips.”

He’d sworn a blue streak under his own breath. “Damn it, stop hitting the window like that. They’ll think you’re mad.”

“I will be mad if I’m put away-”

“You are not going to gaol.”

“I hate yer lousy-what?”

He exhaled loudly. “You are being taken to a private school.”

She sat back, glaring at him. “To work as a maid? And who’s stupid enough to trust me with their silver?”

“Your sponsor is a member of the Boscastle family. I don’t suppose the name is as well known in the slums as that of Grim Jack Gardner.”

She’d settled down then, her interest caught.

“Wot the devil would they want with the likes of me?”

“For reasons perhaps only the devil can understand, one member of that family has accepted it as her moral duty to offer you a chance for a decent life. I warn you, Harriet, there will never come an opportunity like this again.”

He had been right.

But what did he want with her now?

Had someone in her rotten family been caught in a felony? Honest to God. There was no rest for the wicked.

The gravity of his manner as he introduced himself to the duke and Lady Powlis heightened her mistrust. “Good evening, Miss Gardner. I am pleased to find you well.”

She felt Griffin’s hand at her shoulder, a welcome reminder that she had a staunch protector in her shade. “I think our guests and I would do better to privately discuss why they are here in the drawing room,” he said stiffly. “The ladies need not be upset.”

Lord Heath shook his head. “They should come, Griff.”

Griffin slowly removed his evening coat. “Very well.”

He offered sherry after everyone had settled in the upstairs drawing room. Only his aunt accepted. She had gone a disturbing shade of gray, and he was grateful that Harriet had taken a seat beside her on the blue silk couch.

Lord Heath did not mince words. “Your niece went missing from the academy tonight after a musical recital that only a handful of guests attended.”

Griffin slid down into his chair with a groan of relief. “Is that all? Do you know how much agony she has put us through by running away?”

“I assume Charlotte and the other schoolmistresses have searched the gardens,” Lady Powlis added, passing Harriet her empty glass for another drink. “That child will send us all to an early grave.”

“Then perhaps this is a prank,” Sir Daniel said, handing Griffin a folded letter. “This was slipped under the academy’s front door an hour or so after one of the students reported that Miss Edlyn had disappeared. I wonder, your grace, if you have received a similar message?”

Lady Powlis sighed. “With all the letters that have gone ignored, it could easily have been missed. What does she say now?”

Griffin slowly shook his head. “It isn’t from Edlyn at all. It appears to be a ransom note demanding the sum of thirty thousand pounds for her return.”

“May I see it?” Harriet asked. “I know the penmanship of every girl in the academy.” But after she read the letter over, she shook her head and felt a surge of fear. “I don’t recognize the script at all.”

“Did she mention meeting someone at a dance or elsewhere?” Sir Daniel asked.

“Not to me,” Griffin said, his face reflective. “But I confess I am the last person she would confide in.”

Lord Heath looked up. “She was last seen wearing a dove-gray dress, off the shoulders, and a black velvet band in her hair.”

Harriet frowned. “Her headband had a moonstone in the middle of it.”

“It belonged to her mother,” Lady Powlis said quietly. “She believed it would protect her from harm.”

“For God’s sake,” Griffin said. “Do not tell me you encouraged that nonsense. She bought the headband at the fair last year from a gypsy she paid to read her fortune. The gypsy claimed it had belonged to Edlyn’s mother.”

“You are unkind,” Lady Powlis whispered.

Fierce emotions played across his face. “It is not a kindness to encourage the girl to be misled. Her mother has not come forth, nor has she been identified, in all this time. My brother refused to name her. If the woman cared, she could have contacted Edlyn during any of the past nine years.”

“Perhaps she couldn’t find us,” Lady Powlis said, her demeanor suddenly deflated.

Griffin softened his tone. “Castle Glenmorgan has stood in the same place for centuries. How could anyone, having left a little girl there, claim to have forgotten its location?”

“The mother could have been ill,” Lady Powlis said. “Or perhaps Liam had made an arrangement that… It wouldn’t be the first sin the men of this family have committed.”

She was on the verge of tears.

Sir Daniel glanced at Griffin. “Perhaps the subject of her mother is one we ought to explore.”

“What sort of person would abduct a young girl?” Lady Powlis asked in agitation, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief Harriet gave her.

Harriet put her arms around Primrose’s shoulder. “We’ll find her, I promise. Please don’t cry. I know London like my own be-well, I know places that nobody even dreams exist.”

“And where you are not to go,” Griffin said, staring hard at Sir Daniel. “What do you want us to do? Where do we start? I feel an urgency that mere discussion cannot allay.”

“There is already a search in progress, your grace. For the moment I’m going to ask you all questions that you may not immediately be able to answer. It never hurts to return to the places you took Edlyn, as if you were actors in a play. Perhaps then you will remember something unusual that she did or someone who befriended her.”

Griffin stood. It wasn’t enough for him to answer bloody questions. He needed to be part of the search. He was Edlyn’s uncle, her guardian, and though he had never told her, nor she him, they could not afford to lose each other. She had been his sullen fairy from the first time he had hoisted her on his shoulders to let her swing on the castle’s wrought-iron chandelier.

Now he realized that she had been keeping secrets, and he was startled when he saw Sir Daniel lean forward to address Harriet in a low voice that suggested familiarity. Griffin was afraid to ask what the exact nature of their association had been.

“Miss Boscastle said that Miss Edlyn might have confided her thoughts in you,” Sir Daniel said.

“I shall do my best to remember,” Harriet replied, “but there were only a few times that she seemed to speak her mind.”

Harriet wondered if she could keep her promise to the duke. Once she could have drawn out maps of London’s underworld wards and secret courts where only the hardest of criminals would venture. Few outsiders had the right of entry. Fewer still emerged alive.

There were hundreds of places to hide an abducted girl in London. And countless more for a girl who might not want to be found. Still, Harriet and Sir Daniel agreed that Edlyn had likely been taken against her will.

She frowned, suddenly realizing that Griffin and Lord Heath had not only risen but were making their way to the door. “We’re going for a ride with Drake and Devon,” the duke explained at her questioning look. “Stay with Primrose.” He looked back at the tall man who had not moved from his chair. “I trust you will be safe for now with Sir Daniel.”

Harriet wanted to go with him. The pain in his eyes reminded her of a beast who had taken a hunter’s arrow to the heart. If she tried to pull out the arrow, he might bleed to death. Or lash out at her as he struggled to survive. He would not rest until he found his niece.

It seemed as if all the men she had ever known were half made up of darkness. Her father. Her brothers. One day they would fight to protect her. The next she might well be fighting them to protect herself.

“Let us know if there is news,” she said. “Send word no matter what time it is.”