Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
By the time Gabriel returned to the inn, his temper had cooled, but unease had taken its place.
The common room was quiet save for the clatter of crockery and the low murmur of conversation.
He had expected to find Eliza there, perhaps taking tea or reading by the window. But she was nowhere in sight.
He checked the parlor first, then the dining room. Both stood empty. When he asked the innkeeper’s wife if Lady Blackburn had returned, she shook her head in mild surprise. “No, my lord. She hasn’t been seen since she left earlier today with you.”
What had been a frisson of unease bloomed into a cascade of worry.
Gabriel thanked her curtly and left before she could press him further. He strode into the street, his pulse hammering. It was not like Eliza to wander without word. She was cautious to a fault. If she had not returned, something was wrong.
The dressmaker’s shop lay at the far end of the square, its window draped with silks and ribbons. The bell above the door chimed as he entered, startling the seamstress where she bent over her work.
“My lord!” she exclaimed, hastily rising. “What an honor—”
“Was Lady Blackburn here earlier?”
“Yes, my lord. She left not half an hour ago—perhaps a bit more. I walked her to the door myself.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
The woman frowned in thought. “It wasn’t expressly stated but my assumption was she intended to return to the inn and wait for you. She seemed distracted, though. Worried, perhaps.”
Gabriel’s heart lurched. “Thank you,” he said tightly, and turned on his heel.
Back in the street, he paused to scan the narrow lane that wound between the dressmaker’s and the inn.
But there was no sign of her. So he kept walking, kept looking.
The air was growing heavier, the first flakes of snow beginning to flit about as the sky deepened to steel gray.
He began to walk, slowly at first, then faster, his eyes searching the ground for any sign of her passage.
Halfway between the two buildings, something caught his eye—a glint of color against the cobblestones. He crouched, his breath catching as he reached for it.
A single red rose.
It was fresh, its petals unbruised, though the stem bore ragged break, as though it had been torn free in haste.
For a moment, he could not move. The flower lay across his palm, small and perfect—and utterly wrong.
Roses did not grow here, not in the heart of the village.
There was only one place where he had ever seen that particular shade of red, deep as wine and rich as blood: the wild rosebush that climbed the stone wall beside the Ashcombe cottage.
That late blooming rose bush climbed one wall of the cottage, defying rain, wind and even snow.
A chill ran through him.
“Eliza,” he whispered.
He straightened, shoving the rose into his coat pocket as he turned back toward the inn. Bursting through the door, he called for the head groom. “Gather every man we have,” he ordered. “Eliza is missing. Spread out through the village—ask if anyone saw her pass this way.”
The grooms scattered, their boots echoing against the cobbles. Gabriel strode toward the stables to ready his horse when one of the men came running up the road, breathless.
“My lord!” the groom called. “I saw Mr. Dabney not fifteen minutes past—headed toward the old Ashcombe road. Thought it odd, him going that way when it’d be much quicker to take the Western Road.”
Gabriel’s blood turned cold.
“Dabney,” he said under his breath. The man’s face came to him at once—smiling, eager, his gaze far too admiring when it lingered upon Eliza at church. A possessive gleam that had made Gabriel’s stomach turn even then.
“Fetch the horses!” he snapped. “Now!”
Within moments, he was in the saddle, spurring his mount hard down the rutted track that led from the village toward the forest. Even as the snow and sleet began to fall in earnest, the hard pellets stinging his skin, he kept the pace.
The wind tore at his coat as the countryside blurred past. Each hoofbeat thudded in his chest like a drum, his mind filled with images he could not bear—Eliza frightened, struggling, alone.
The sky had darkened by the time he reached the bend in the road that overlooked the valley. Ahead, a carriage moved at a sedate pace, its polished wheels glinting in the weak light. Gabriel recognized it instantly as Dabney’s, the matched grays pulling it with lazy indifference.
He drew rein sharply, forcing his horse to a stop. Something was wrong. The carriage moved too calmly, too deliberately. Dabney himself sat within, glancing out the window with no sign of haste or guilt.
Gabriel’s gut twisted.
He urged his horse forward until he was level with the driver, who looked up in alarm. “My lord!” the man stammered. “Mr. Dabney’s orders were to return home directly—”
“Where is your master?”
“Inside, my lord.”
Gabriel swung down and wrenched open the carriage door. Dabney blinked up at him, startled.
“Blackburn!” he exclaimed. “Good heavens—what the devil are you doing?”
Gabriel’s voice was low and dangerous. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Dabney looked genuinely baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Lady Blackburn,” Gabriel snapped. “You were seen heading toward the Ashcombe road. Where is she?”
Dabney gaped at him. “Good God, man, I haven’t seen Miss Ash— your wife, Lady Blackburn, since Sunday service! I was on my way home—what business have I with her?”
For one searing instant, Gabriel’s temper flared hot enough to burn through reason. Then the truth struck him like a blow.
Dabney was telling the truth.
If Dabney’s appearance in the area was no more than coincidence, then someone else had Eliza—someone who’s motives and intentions were entirely beyond his ken.
He staggered back from the carriage, every muscle taut with dread.
The rose. The distraction. The timing. And all he could think of was Helena’s talk of the curse, of the unhappiness, tragedy and grief that had marked every generation since.
And he’d allowed himself to be deceived, to look only at the most obvious answer when really the truth was something far less apparent.
Who could have taken her?
Without another word, he swung into the saddle and wheeled his horse toward the forest road. The rose had been real enough. And there was only one place to find it.
“I’m coming for you,” he vowed. “Hold fast, Eliza.”
The wind swallowed her name, carrying it into the trees.
And somewhere ahead—lost to him, alone in the gathering dusk—Eliza did not answer.