Chapter 5 #2
She crossed the threshold to the drawing room, finding her brother standing at the window within, hands clasped behind his back. He turned at her entrance, the taut lines of his countenance taking her by surprise. Everett did not appear happy to see her.
“Brother,” she greeted him, smiling as she crossed the room. “What brings you to visit this morning?”
“It is scarcely morning,” her brother greeted stiffly in return. “I was beginning to fear for your welfare, given how long it took for you to see me.”
His pointed reprimand took her aback.
Verity paused short of him, feeling heat creep up her throat. “I must apologize for keeping you waiting.”
She wasn’t about to tell her churlish brother the reason it was almost afternoon and she had only just descended from her chamber to begin the day.
It was none of his concern what she chose to do with her husband now that they were wed.
It wasn’t as if she had followed Everett about, haranguing him over the time he spent with his wife, Sybil.
“Are you well?” Everett asked, his gaze roaming over her as if he were searching for injury on her person.
“Of course I am well,” she reassured him, rather annoyed. “Kingham has been keeping me locked in the attic since yesterday, depriving me of food and water, but he allowed me to escape now that you’ve paid us a call.”
Her brother scowled. “You can save that sharp tongue for someone deserving, sister. Your husband, perhaps.”
“King isn’t the one who has acted as if my husband is mistreating me.”
“I am your brother. It is my duty to protect you.”
“It is King’s duty to protect me now,” she chided softly. “He is my husband.”
Part of her heart ached at the way Everett still refused to accept that she and King were in love and that she was now married.
She could understand why it was difficult for him.
King was his friend, and his reputation as a rakehell was well-known.
Everett had always been fiercely protective of her.
They had only ever had each other, aside from Maman.
But it was different now. Everett was happily married to Sybil, and Verity was equally happily married to King.
Everett’s jaw was rigid, a muscle ticking there from the way he had clenched it. “He had damned well better do that duty well, or he will answer to me.”
“He has done admirably thus far,” she defended her husband. “Now, have you only come to further deride King, or was there a better reason?”
Everett shook his head and then raked a hand through his hair. “Blast. I suppose I am being a bear. Forgive me. This is still all quite new. But there is a good reason I’ve been cooling my heels waiting for you for the better part of an hour. The child has run away.”
The child?
Run away?
There could be only one child he was speaking of.
Verity’s stomach clenched. “Emma?”
“Yes.” Everett’s look had gone mournful. “I’m sorry, Verity. I didn’t want to come to you with the news. I was hoping we would find her, but we haven’t managed to just yet.”
All the happiness bubbling within her went suddenly flat. Emma had run away. But she was such a small child, so young, so innocent. It seemed impossible that such a thing could have occurred.
She shook her head. “When did it happen? And how?”
“We aren’t certain as to the particulars of when or how. All we do know is that Emma was last seen in the evening when she was put to bed by her nurse for the night. This morning, she wasn’t in her bed. She took her belongings with her—a dress, a pair of shoes, and a locket.”
A locket.
Verity recalled the locket quite well. It was one of the few memories she did have of the day of the fire.
Little Emma had returned to her sleeping quarters to fetch the locket that had belonged to her dead mother.
She had been so desperate to retrieve it that she had nearly trapped herself in the burning building.
Verity had followed her there. She recalled holding her own necklace, explaining to Emma how precious it was to her.
But from there, Verity’s memories were faded and dim.
“The locket was important to Emma,” she said slowly, her mind whirling with the possibilities of what might have happened and where she might be found. “If she took it with her, that means she didn’t intend to return.”
But where would she have gone? And why?
“That is what I feared when the nursemaid reported that all the child’s belongings were gone,” Everett said grimly.
“Are you certain she isn’t simply hiding somewhere?
” Verity asked, a new hope rising. “I know she was sad that I was going away on my honeymoon, and children can be very sly and clever. Is it possible she is somewhere in the town house and you simply cannot find her? I can’t countenance Emma just leaving like that. ”
“We have searched extensively,” Everett said. “She’s not hiding in the kitchens, the stables, or anywhere else we can conceive she might have tucked herself away.”
Her heart plummeted. “You’re certain?”
“We’re certain, Verity.” His expression turned mournful. “I’m so sorry. If we’d had any notion she intended to leave like this, we would have made certain it was impossible for her to do so.”
“You couldn’t have known.” She shook her head again, a new determination coming over her. “I’m going to go looking for her.”
“Riverdale, I hope you have a good reason for intruding upon my matrimonial bliss and causing my wife to look so distressed,” King said as he crossed the threshold of the drawing room.
Her attention was instantly drawn to her husband.
He was impeccably dressed as always and freshly shaven, not a hair out of place, not a hint of lint on his coat sleeve or a wrinkle to be found.
It was a stark contrast to the husband she had left in the bathroom, his jaw stubbled with dark whiskers, his hair wet, wearing nary a stitch on his muscled body.
He had resembled a pirate, she had thought quite dreamily, and now he was once more the polished, elegant duke.
He bowed to her elegantly, but his eyes remained hard, fixated upon her brother.
Everett returned her husband’s look with a glare of polite dislike. “Kingham.”
They eyed each other in the way she imagined a pair of lions might circle each other as they prepared to fight over their territory in the wild plains.
“Why are you here?” King bit out bluntly.
“To inform Verity that her charge has run away.”
King’s brows furrowed. “Her charge?”
“He’s speaking of Emma,” Verity explained urgently. “She’s been missing for hours from my brother’s town house already. She could have gone anywhere. We need to start searching for her at once.”
“Naturally,” he agreed smoothly, coming to stand at her side in a proprietary fashion. “Only let me know what you need, my dear, and it shall be done.”
Gratitude rushed over her. She had surmised that he wasn’t as pleased with the idea of Emma coming to live with them when they returned from their honeymoon as she hoped.
She hadn’t been certain he would be as eager as she to begin the search for Emma.
But then, Verity ought to have known he would be. When had her beloved ever let her down?
Never, she was sure of it. Even in the moments she couldn’t recall, the pieces of memory that had been taken from her as sure as if a thief had stolen them, she felt to her marrow King had always been steadfastly loyal to her.
“Thank you,” she told him.
“I already have half a dozen people in the street looking for her,” Everett said grimly, turning Verity’s attention back to him. “So far, there seems to be no hint of the child anywhere.”
“I shall bring a dozen more,” King vowed, placing a reassuring hand on Verity’s arm. The scent of him, his cologne mingling with shaving soap, washed over her, equally comforting.
She longed to burrow into his arms. To rest her head on his chest and listen to the beat of his heart. The thought that Emma could be forever lost left her feeling ill.
“There’s no time to waste on petty squabbling,” Verity reminded them. “We need to make haste and find Emma.”
“Where have you already searched?” King asked her brother.
“The streets surrounding the town house.”
King nodded. “We’ll branch outward, then. I’ll send a few men and conveyances through the streets beyond. With so many of us searching, we’ll find the girl. How far can a small child have gone in a few hours?”
“Hopefully not far,” Verity answered, worry turning the breakfast she’d eaten into a sick stew inside her stomach.
But as the day waned on, it became increasingly apparent that a small child could journey much farther than any of them had supposed.
As the hours passed, King grew increasingly suspicious that the girl they so frantically searched for wasn’t responsible for the stealth and speed with which she had disappeared.
Along with Riverdale’s grooms and footmen, the men King had brought with him diligently searched the nearby streets on foot and by horseback.
Verity and King traveled in a barouche, the better to spy her.
Riverdale and his duchess were in a phaeton.
They had yet to see a hint of little Emma.
A sense of foreboding creeped over him as the barouche swayed around a turn onto a street they had already searched four times without luck.
Those who peddled in innocents were known to slink along even the most exclusive streets, completely unnoticed by the people around them.
And if she had managed to wander beyond the charmed squares filled with aristocratic town houses and into one of London’s seamier neighborhoods, he shuddered to think what would become of her.
“After this pass, we will stop and reconvene at your brother’s town house,” he told Verity, anticipating her displeasure at a halt in the search before she turned her distraught face to him.
Verity clutched his sleeve. “We cannot afford to stop, King. She’s still out there somewhere. We have to find her.”