The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Twenty-nine

The strain had dampened everyone’s spirits. Lady Powlis appeared to be on the verge of an emotional crisis and had to be taken upstairs by the marchioness to await the family’s Scottish physician, who dosed her ladyship with laudanum and advised a night of unbroken rest.

Her ladyship’s collapse turned out to be a blessing in disguise. No sooner had the duke and Harriet returned to the town house than a messenger boy ran up the front steps behind them, gripping his knees to catch his breath. “Your grace?” he asked, half-bowing as Griffin looked around in surprise.

Harriet caught his arm. The boy appeared to be half her age, too young to conceal his own dismay at delivering unwelcome news. No doubt he ran fast and was agile enough to dodge the seedy characters who infested the streets at night.

“What is it?” Griffin asked, stepping in front of Harriet with the unthinking gallantry that never failed to move her.

“P’rhaps the lady ought not-”

“Go ahead,” Griffin said in resignation. “I won’t be able to keep it from her, anyway.”

The boy finally straightened, holding his cap to his heart in unspoken sorrow. “There’s a lady been found, beaten up outside the ’ood and Grapes. I’ve been directed to take you there.”

“I know where it is,” Harriet said. “Please let me go with you, your grace.”

She saw the hesitation in his eyes. But then he nodded and called out to the driver, who had been about to turn back toward the carriage house. It was a tense ride to the tavern, Harriet chewing her lip and not daring to break the duke’s silence. When at last they reached the Hood and Grapes, not tarrying in the taproom’s smoky gloom, it was only to meet Sir Daniel on the stairs. He stopped to stare as if he could not believe his eyes.

“How did you know to come here?” he asked in astonishment.

Griffin shook his head. “You sent for-was it-is it Edlyn?”

Sir Daniel blinked. “No. It was a shopkeeper’s assistant who had been sent to deliver a packet of thread. She will recover. But how on earth did you find out when I have only been here a minute or so myself?”

“Your messenger brought us here.” Griffin scrubbed his hand over his face with a relief that Harriet more than shared.

“I sent no messenger,” Sir Daniel said, his gaze searching the taproom below. His eyes lifted suspiciously to Harriet. “It would have been unconscionable to bring you here until I reviewed the incident myself.”

Harriet sighed. What might be seen as unconscionable to a gentleman of Sir Daniel’s integrity would not disturb a miscreant like Nick Rydell, who thrived on the misfortune of others. But at least it proved he was on the job, even if he only wanted the reward.

“I do hope you find the person who attacked that young girl tonight,” Griffin said heavily.

“So do I, your grace,” Sir Daniel said with a veiled look at Harriet. “It is a regrettable truth of London life that the ladies we cherish should be guarded at all times.”

“I could not agree with you more,” Griffin said, and did not bother at all to veil the meaningful stare he gave Harriet.

Harriet had not realized how deeply she cared for Lady Powlis until the following day. An undisturbed stretch of sleep had done Primrose a world of good. She was subdued, but with still enough wind in her sails to insist she accompany Harriet and Griffin back to the scene of the Mayfair breakfast party they had attended.

Harriet found it hard to maintain hope that Edlyn was playing a hoax. A disappearance going on almost two days was sufficient time to punish one’s family. The girl had to realize that her great-aunt was getting on in years. In fact, Harriet was so worried about the dear harridan’s health that she was torn between staying with her beneath the fig tree where they had sat or accompanying the duke on his investigation of the park.

“Go with him, Harriet,” Lady Powlis said, waving her off with her cane. “I sent you searching after Edlyn that day, as I recall.”

“But, madam, you don’t look at all well.”

“I wasn’t well then,” Lady Powlis snapped, proving that she was stronger than she appeared. “I’d eaten off mutton, and, believe me, there are few things worse.”

“Harriet,” Griffin called, motioning at her from the small ornamental bridge over the pond, “are you walking with me or not?”

“I didn’t walk with you that day at all,” Harriet muttered as she hastened across the lawn to join him. “As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember that you ignored me.”

“I did anything but.” He grasped her hand to guide her across the bridge. “Be careful where you step. The ground is wet here.”

She caught her skirt in one hand, frowning as his gaze lowered pointedly to her ankles. “You did not spend a single moment in my company.”

“That is different from ignoring you,” he said with a wry look.

She sighed in exasperation. “Well, if that is your memory of that day, I doubt you will recall anything to be of help.”

She walked around him, doing her best to envision what she had done after leaving Lady Powlis at the fig tree. Hang it. This was all wrong. She had not crossed the bridge. She had not come this way at all, because the bridge had been crowded with ladies watching the archery contest. Or, rather, watching the duke, she thought sourly.

She had walked around the dancers, one eye on Edlyn, the other on the contest. But then Edlyn disappeared into the rotunda. The duke had removed his frock coat to join the competition. Harriet smiled as she pictured his muscular shoulder drawn back, elbow bent against the sleeve of his fine linen shirt. When he’d hit the target dead center, Harriet had almost clapped in pride, not that he would have noticed her praise amid the audience of admiring young ladies cheering his skills and begging for another display.

The rotunda. She turned toward the domed retreat at the bottom of the garden. Edlyn had climbed the steps and vanished between the ivy-draped columns a moment or so before the duke had taken aim. Harriet had hastened to join her, intent on thwarting an impromptu tryst with some wayward rake who might be waiting for a lonely girl. But Edlyn had emerged from the other side, alone. And Harriet had noticed that she looked considerably brighter than she had in days.

The only other person in the vicinity had been a modestly attired woman in a bonnet. And if Harriet concentrated hard enough, she might be able to grasp at another detail-

“I can’t remember a blessed thing,” the duke said over her shoulder, not only startling the daylights out of her but yanking her straight back to the present time.

She gave a groan of frustration. The images in her mind dissolved like mist. She willed them back, to no avail. A lady in a bonnet that overshadowed her face was hardly enough for Sir Daniel to go on.

“It can’t be a coincidence.” She shook her head. “We both saw a woman talking to Edlyn at the party. You thought you might have seen her standing beside a woman in the park. And I am almost positive that it was this same person who met Edlyn in the rotunda.”

Griffin nodded, avoiding her gaze.

“Well, say something, please. Tell me that this is not suspicious.”

“Everything is suspicious. Primrose thinks she was deliberately poisoned that day. I don’t believe that for an instant, but then, I still cannot believe that anyone would hold Edlyn for ransom.”

Harriet frowned. “Try to think back to when you won the archery contest. The woman in the bonnet must have walked around the target at some point.”

“She might well have.”

She waited. He stared past her at the rotunda. “And?” she prompted, following the path of his gaze until he looked back rather blankly at her. “You don’t remember seeing her at all? You lowered your bow. The crowd cheered. You went to the sidelines and watched the next contestant-”

“No.” He shook his head ruefully. “I went to the sidelines and watched you. In fact, I was watching you all day long. I wanted you to see me shoot. And that is the truth of it. I have noticed no other woman since I met you, Harriet. And-” He broke off.

“Go on,” she whispered, her throat closing.

He glanced up at the sky. “Dear God. Unless I am mistaken, that was lightning I saw above the trees.”

A little thing like lightning would not have stopped Harriet from listening to the rest of his confession. She gave him her hand as they recrossed the bridge. The week had almost come to an end. He had not mentioned his promise to find her another position, and she was certainly not of a mood to remind him until the crisis they faced was solved.