Chapter 13 #4
Eli glanced over his shoulder in time to see his wife whisk her torn underthings behind her back. “Oh,” she gasped breathlessly. “Pardon the intrusion, my lord, we’d heard something was missing and—erm—thought to help search for it.”
“Indeed?” Blackwell lifted the dark brow over his one good eye. “Well, that’s terribly kind of you, Mrs. Wolfe. My wife also has a penchant for pulling me into a hidden corner for a thorough searching.”
Eli coughed, his cheeks heating even through the shared look of approving masculine commiseration.
“Speaking of searching,” Blackwell continued.
“There has been a theft…though the owner of the item has decided not to divulge what exactly was taken. The story is it was pilfered by a woman, and so the ladies are gathering in the great hall to be searched before they are allowed to leave. In case the story is false, the men will be searched in the kitchens and expelled through the servant’s entrance.
We’ve decided to call off the auction for now. ”
Dark suspicion threaded through Eli’s guts, and he turned slowly, afraid to find guilt splashed all over his wife’s face.
What he found, was something so brilliant and terrible, he couldn’t decide if it was pain, fear, or anger.
“I’ll, erm, leave you two to compose yourselves,” Blackwell said as the light disappeared behind the closed door.
Eli waited for the footsteps to recede before asking, “Rosaline, was it you?” He needed to know in order to protect her from the consequences and get her away from here as quickly as possible.
“Yes,” she hissed in the voice women sometimes used that made it impossible to tell between truth and sarcasm. “Yes, Eli. I am an insatiable thief, after all. But out of everything I’ve taken, I regret this most of all.”
With that, she dashed around him and burst through the door, but not before shoving her undergarments into his hands.
Stunned, Eli watched her march down the hall with her head held high, even as so many of her tresses had been loosened by his rough grip and cascaded down her back.
Still half-drained of sense after such an ecstatic interlude, followed by the intensity of her recollection, he gaped down at the garments in his hands, blinking with bewilderment. He went into that closet a martyr, and emerged the villain… What now? How did he fix this?
As if by magic, Blackwell appeared with something that looked like a doctor’s satchel. He opened it, offering the empty space to him. “It appears that in your hasty—were we calling it a search?—you’ve relieved your poor wife of her entire…rigging.”
Eli glanced between it and the lethal blackguard next to him. He’d stripped her of garters, clasps, ribbons, and everything, tore them right off her tender flesh. No wonder the wad of delicate clothing was heavier than expected.
“If you place them in here, you may retrieve the satchel from the butler’s office after you’ve been cleared to leave,” Dorian offered, shaking the satchel as if to prompt him to hurry.
“Thank you, kindly.” Eli gracelessly stuffed it all inside the bag and snapped it closed, not liking his wife’s underthings exposed to another man’s eyes.
Er…eye, on account of him only having the one.
“Think nothing of it, Mr. Wolfe. Now this way, if you please.”
Eli spent the wait milling over the words his wife had hurled at him.
Grinding them down to examine their contents, to examine it for a vein of truth in the grit of the emotion.
He barely felt the search, spreading his arms and legs in a Vitruvian stance while a stoic man patted him in places no other man had dared venture.
“Easy there, bucko,” he warned. “None of your counterparts better dare to touch my wife like that, or you’ll be sucking on the barrel of my pistol.”
“Not to worry,” drawled the older Scottish gentleman with kind blue eyes. “The lasses will be searched by a woman.”
“All right, then,” Eli nodded, wishing he felt better. That he didn’t fear what they might find.
By the time he was cleared, it was all Eli could do not to sprint from Northwalk Hall in search of Rosaline.
“Mr. Wolfe!” the butler called, puffing after him. “Mr. Wolfe! You’ve forgotten your satchel.”
Whirling, Eli took the bag and thanked the butler. “Do you know if the ladies are finished?”
“The ones who are should be waiting in the drive.” The butler pointed around to the front where a mess of carriages awaited the mass exodus. “I’ve been told to inform you that Mrs. Wolfe was among the first searched, and was seen hiring a hansom to conduct her away.”
Cursing, he sprinted for his carriage.
Her eyes had been so raw, her expression so wounded and bleak. A part of him worried she might do herself a mischief.
A picture of her standing on the ledge of Hespera House caused him to push his driver aside and snatch the reins from him.
Whipping the coach into a bracing run over the cobbles, he chanted her name much in the same way he’d done on the night he’d pulled Caleb’s dead body from the rubble.
He wasn’t a praying man, but this time he sent a plea to every deity he’d ever heard of, even the devil himself, promising his very soul if only he could make it to her in time.