Chapter 23
Ezra had to practically prop his head in his hand as he watched Iris and Hermes race around the garden. They had been doing this for the past half an hour at least, with no signs of either of them growing fatigued.
He wished he could borrow just a little bit of that energy. He felt as weary as he had ever been.
It had been a week since Letitia left him. A week of silence. A week during which he had scarcely slept a wink, as if she had taken something fundamental of his with her when she left, and he was slowly realizing he could not survive without it.
But no doubt, such maudlin thoughts were just because he was so blasted tired. Once he managed to get a good night’s sleep, it would all be fine.
He had been telling himself that for days. It did not get more convincing with time.
“Uncle Ezra!” Iris called, spinning around for no reason anyone over the age of four could understand, then rushing toward him with her loyal hound following close behind.
“Yes, sweetheart?” he asked. Iris was the only person who could bring out a genuine smile these past few days.
“I just had a splendid idea,” she said, clasping her hands under her chin. She had recently learned the word splendid, and now used it to describe everything even remotely pleasing.
He wished Letty were here. She would have been as charmed by it as he was.
“Oh, yes?” he asked politely. “What’s that?”
“Well,” Iris amended scrupulously, “it was actually Hermes’ idea. But Hermes thinks that she should go on a messenger quest.”
“A messenger quest?” he repeated, amused. Goodness, the child was an endless font of interesting ideas.
“Yes,” Iris said, nodding her dark head somberly. “Hermes wants to go on a messenger quest to see Miss Knightley and tell her that she should come have dinner with us and also a picnic.”
Ezra forced himself to smile to hide the twist in his chest at the sound of Letitia’s name.
“Dinner and also a picnic?” he asked. “That sounds as though you would have very full stomachs.”
Iris made an exaggerated show of considering this point. “Yes, we would,” she decided eventually. “So, Miss Knightley should come for two days so that we do not get stomachaches.”
He spoke with a very gentle tone. Iris had already lost so much in her young life—not that she was losing Letty. He knew the woman would never abandon the girl entirely, but he had mucked things up enough to believe she would not be around very often.
“Miss Knightley is very busy, sweetheart,” he told Iris, feeling something in his chest crack when her hopeful little face fell. Who could have guessed that there was anything in his heart left to break? “We can ask her to come visit us soon, but for now, we should not trouble her.”
Iris looked at Hermes, and Ezra could have sworn that the dog looked back at the girl, as though they were truly communicating. Yet another sign of how desperately he needed sleep, he supposed.
“No,” Iris said after a moment, looking far to certain for a girl of her age. “Hermes says that Miss Knightly wants to reach us, but she cannot. That is why Hermes needs to go on the quest.”
He adored Iris’ quick and clever mind, truly he did. But right now, she seemed determined to devastate him.
“Miss Knightley is just in another part of London, Iris,” he told the child with as much patience and level-headedness as he could manage.
Letty had taught him that much, at least. Remaining calm was half the battle when dealing with children.
“I know it might seem very far away, but she does have the post, I promise. If she needs to reach us, she can just send a letter.”
Iris sighed as though he was missing something very important, but she nodded and returned to her playing. When she was summoned by her new governess—the one who Letitia had interviewed—Iris went without complaint.
The new woman was fine. She wasn’t Letty—nobody was—but she was fine, if perpetually a little baffled that Ezra seemed interested in actually spending time with Iris.
But Iris liked her. And, eventually, Miss Knightley would be just a distant memory, the governess she had had for just a very short while.
Ezra could only be so lucky. For his part, he doubted that Letty would leave his mind for a very, very long time.
As the afternoon wore on, however, he found that it was Iris who stuck in his head—and her words about Letitia trying to reach them but not being able to. It tugged at his mind, refusing to be banished.
Ezra wasn’t a superstitious man. But there was chasing after ghosts—he winced at the reminder of Letty’s parting words—and then there was instinct.
And his instinct told him that something wasn’t right.
A week wasn’t very long, really, not in the grand scheme of things, but would Letty really go an entire week without asking about Iris, especially when she knew the little girl had only recently gotten used to her new circumstances?
Or was he just convincing himself that trouble was nearby so he would have an excuse to reach out?
He could not make up his mind, so he sought out someone who knew far better than he did.
“Sarah,” he asked, startling the maid from where she stood, humming quietly to herself as she dusted shelves in the library. “Have you heard from Le—from Miss Knightley recently?”
At the sound of her name, Sarah had turned with a pleasant smile on her face; at his query, that smile dropped away, replaced with a worried look that seemed well-worn upon her face.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head in a short, terse movement.
“I have not—not since that night that, ah, she went to the theater?” Sarah’s voice tilted up at the end of this, like she wasn’t certain she was meant to know of that outing.
Ezra waved away the concern; Sarah and Letty were like sisters. He had assumed that the maid knew.
“That’s not usual, is it?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, Your Grace. It is just... When she lived out in the country—maybe. She was far enough away then, and the letter went amiss, of course. But with her here in London…” Sarah nibbled at her lip.
It was already red and cracked, as if she had been doing this for days.
“I don’t like it. I planned to go over there on my half day off, but that’s not until Sunday. ”
“No,” Ezra said hastily. He was getting a worse and worse feeling about this, and the last thing he needed was for Sarah to end up finding trouble, too. “No, I will go.”
The relief on Sarah’s face was palpable.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said with feeling. “And—if it isn’t too much to ask, that is—if you see her, would you mind letting me know?”
“Of course,” he promised. “I will let you know at once.”
He hoped that he would return to the young woman with good news soon. Oh, Letitia would no doubt give him an earful for his intrusion, since she had all but told him never to darken her doorstep again. But that would be fine, because it would put these fears—his and Sarah’s both—to rest.
When he arrived at the rooms he had found for her, however, she was not there. He waited until it was fully dark. Still, she did not return.
He returned home, leaving his footman to watch the door as long as it took. He made certain that his butler set up a rotation of men to watch the door, not at all caring if they wondered why the Duke of Rutley was setting guards upon his former governess.
They didn’t ask, and he did not offer any information. Instead, he clung to the last shreds of his calm as he informed them that he was to be interrupted at any time, day or night, when Miss Knightley was known to be safely home.
It was only when he was alone in his bedchamber—the last place he had seen her—that he let his panic overwhelm him.
Letty was missing. His Letty—his own heart. She was gone.
He sank to the floor, unable to even make it to a chair.
This was worse than when he had woken to flames overtaking the world. It was worse than when his parents had died. It was worse than realizing that he was somehow, impossibly in charge of a small child.
For a few endless minutes, he sat there, trying to just catch his breath, to soothe his frantic pulse. Then, he forced himself to his feet. Letty needed him. He could not afford to fall to pieces.
He jotted a note to Hugh and Persephone, letting them know what had transpired.
He didn’t think that Letty would have gone to them for help, but they were the only other people in London that she knew, as far as he could tell.
If she had gone somewhere unexpectedly, maybe she had left word.
If not, Hugh’s connections to the underground meant that all kinds of information filtered his way.
Ezra would not leave any stone unturned.
“You are to put this directly in the hand of the Duke of Nighthall,” he instructed the footman sternly. “I don’t care that it’s late. I don’t care if he is asleep. Do whatever it takes to get that note to him as soon as possible.”
“Of course, my lord,” the servant said seriously. But of course, his staff would do whatever they could to help. Letitia had won them all over, too.
It was a combination of exhaustion and sheer force of will that made Ezra fall asleep. He needed the rest because he could not afford to be anything less than his best for Letitia. He still woke before dawn, only to find there was no news.
She had not come home.
When a letter arrived in the second round of post, just as Ezra was lecturing himself on the wisdom of eating breakfast so he could keep up his strength, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
But it wasn’t from Hugh.
It was from Xander.
Dear Ezra, his eldest cousin had written.