Chapter 4 Theo
Theo
Whilst in the process of consuming a hearty breakfast, Theodore, Lady Juliet’s oldest brother and recently also the new Duke of Capendale, was brought the news of her disappearance by his butler, Walker.
This gentleman had been informed by Mrs. Briggs the housekeeper, who’d had it from Lady Juliet’s frightened maid, Betty, who seemed to think she would be blamed for the loss of her mistress.
The two senior staff had gone upstairs to check this was true where they’d discovered that not only was Lady Juliet missing, but so were a large number of her belongings and a sizeable portmanteau.
This necessitated a prompt informing of His Grace the Duke that his sister was gone.
“Gone?” Theo echoed. He was a man for whom becoming duke and shouldering all the corresponding responsibilities while he was still under forty had come as an unwelcome surprise.
He’d imagined his father would go on well into his seventies instead of expiring in his study from a congestion of the heart aged only sixty-seven. “Gone where?”
Walker clasped his hands before him, possibly to prevent them from shaking. “We suspect her ladyship has run away, Your Grace.”
Theo set down his napkin and pushed his half-eaten breakfast away as realization began to dawn.
Hadn’t he nipped in the bud that eminently unsuitable friendship with the hated Stapleton’s heir?
It had to be him. She was too young to have been out in society as yet.
That the feud his father had maintained with the young man in question’s father was nothing to do with the boy mattered not a jot.
If his father had decreed that whole family persona non grata, then who was he to object?
He ground his teeth. That must be where she’d gone. She wouldn’t have run away by herself, that was certain. A man must be behind it, and, as far as he knew, she’d had no chance to form a fondness for any other gentleman.
He snorted. Gentleman? Was that the correct term for a bounder who ran off with the daughter and sister of a duke? A girl with a huge inheritance. She was only just eighteen, for God’s sake. The man was indeed an out and out bounder.
Jumping up from the table, he rounded on the quite reasonably nervous Walker. “Is not the house locked at night? How did my sister get out?”
Walker trembled before his master’s ire. “I check all the locks myself before I retire to bed, Your Grace, every night. But the keys are left in the doors in case of an emergency such as a fire. They are secure from outside, but not from inside. This was as your late father instructed.”
Theo clenched his fists. Of course, none of them had expected someone to effect an escape that way. “Which door was unlocked this morning?”
“The small door beside the library, Your Grace. Out onto the terrace.”
“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” Theo would have stamped his foot in frustration, as he’d been known to do as a boy when thwarted, but managed to prevent himself.
“She’s gone to that puppy, Stapleton. You mark my words.
” The hope that this was as far as she’d gone arose.
Further afield would be much worse. “I’ll go round there straight away.
Have Barker saddle my horse. And send a messenger to the vicarage to let my brother know what’s happened.
” Not that the Reverend Richard de Vere was likely to be able to help, as today was Sunday and he would be taken up with his infernal church services.
No, he, Theo, would have to do this on his own, as usual.
Walker, thankful to escape, hurried to do his master’s bidding.
Five minutes later, Theo was on the vast front drive mounting Captain, the large blood horse he liked to ride for hunting. He turned the animal’s head westwards and applied his heels. Captain responded willingly, leaping forwards into a canter and kicking the gravel up behind him.
A grim expression on his darkly handsome face, Theo headed Captain in the direction of Semington House, late the home of his father’s sworn enemy, young Rupert’s deceased father.