Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When sunrise came, Elias was still sitting in the library, woken out of his stupor by a maid who’d come to tend to the fireplace. She screeched when he shifted in the chair, taking off with a thousand apologies until he was left to his solitude once more.
Everything in his experience told him he’d done the right thing. That he’d protected himself from ill intent. Then why did he feel so rotten? So... shamed?
Fear, his sister had called it. Is that what it was?
He had not moved for hours and hours. May’s words would not leave his mind.
I know I am worth more than that.
He’d caught her in a deception, so how come she’d left the conversation with all the integrity he’d found himself wanting?
He’d exposed her without qualms, unwilling to give her a moment to explain.
Because she would have spun her story, would have made him believe it and entrap him into a life he did not want.
Except that he did. He wanted it so badly that his entire body rebelled against his mind with incessant longing. But, in this matter, Elias had to be his own executioner. The axe had already fallen, with no chance of survival.
Elias got up, shaking the torpor from his limbs.
Dukes did not get to sulk in corners. He had a household to lead, bridges to burn, and amends to make. He could start there, at least.
He headed to his sister’s quarters to find servants buzzing all around as they packed her belongings into trunks and coffers. He stood in the entry for quite a while before Lady Hannah emerged, no doubt alerted by her maid, and gave him a long, hard stare.
“What’s this?” he asked simply.
“I am leaving for Newcastle as soon as I am packed.”
“Hate me, if you like, but this is no reason to abandon your home.”
“This is my home no longer.”
“I sought to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the truth of Lord Spencer’s intentions, yet now that I’ve done so, you’d rather turn a blind eye—”
“I do not wish to talk about how you hired our cousin May to pursue Lord Spencer.”
“She’s not our—” Elias bit back the words.
One confession at a time. “Yes, I did hire her, and for one reason only: to ensure you would not give your hand to someone undeserving. Someone who would rendezvous with another woman under the cover of darkness at the mere lure of a fortune. So why are you intent on eloping with him?”
“For God’s sake, Elias, he was waiting in the library for me!”
“You?” Had the blackguard seduced his sister already?
“A man is allowed certain liberties toward his wife, is he not?” Wife? “Oh, do not look at me so with your big, bespectacled eyes. Are you truly so surprised you are not the only liar in this house?”
The earth might as well have turned to the sea beneath the duke’s feet. “When?”
“Lord Spencer rescued me from a dreadful fate at the hands of kidnappers during my recent trip to the Highlands. We fell in love. He would rather have asked for your permission, but I wouldn’t tell him you were my brother. Because nobody but me decides my own fate, brother.”
Elias laughed humorlessly. “I knew he was hiding something.”
“Only because I asked him to,” said Hannah with a sigh. “Despite it all, I hadn’t the heart to disappoint you. I wished for you to get to know Spencer, to love him as I do. But Father poisoned your heart so much that you can’t even tell when you’ve lost it.”
“So, this charade of a wedding… was meant for me?” So much of it made sense, and yet, the revelation brought forth a thousand more questions, each more humiliating than the last.
Something softened in his sister’s eyes as she registered the amazement on Elias’s features.
“You should have known by now: I care not for what the ton thinks of me. I am quite content to never see the lot of them ever again. So, yes, I would have done it for you. But Lord Spencer and I are already bound together in the eyes of God.”
“What if you are wrong? What if you live to regret it?” He took steps toward her, only to halt midway. Where did this lunacy, this bravery of hers, come from? Did any of it lie dormant within him still, or did it abandon Elias altogether?
“I do not know what the future holds. All I know is how he makes me feel. Whatever comes, I will not regret the moments we share and the love I give. I know I would be happier with him than without him. What more do I need to know to take a leap of faith?”
Elias braced his hands on a nearby desk.
“Lady May tried her best to convince me to place my trust in Spencer. I thought it did not make sense, but she had me reassured so completely… Only for them to embrace. What do you say to that? Can you be sure it was not planned? How can you find no fault in him?”
“He is right. There is fault within me.”
Elias did not notice Spencer enter the room.
Once more, he’d taken his place at Hannah’s side with most natural entitlement and spoke without sparing the duke as much as a glance.
“I should have realized who she was sooner. Had I done so, this whole situation could have been avoided. The last thing I wish is to part you from your brother.”
“How were you to know? It was I who was meant to meet you in the darkness, and Cousin May came in wearing the perfume that I loaned her.”
“She’s no cousin of ours. Just a socialite who makes the affairs of others her business,” Elias interrupted absentmindedly, his mind snagging onto the only conclusion that mattered.
If Spencer was speaking truthfully, then May had not summoned Elias to the room to make a fool of him.
That fact toppled his chain of rational conclusions like dominoes.
Elias’s throat tightened. He was wrong to judge her.
And she… what was she doing in that room?
What had she tried to tell him when he so viciously crucified her?
“I came here for you... to tell you...”
“While she is no cousin of yours, she most certainly is no socialite. She confessed to being a maid,” said Lord Spencer.
Nonsense. His friend’s recommendation was well-vetted.
“A maid? Surely not.” His sister’s words neatly reflected Elias’s denial.
“Why would she entrust you with such a revelation?”
Lord Spencer scratched his brow. “I gathered it was because she thought I was you.”
“Was there anything else, dearest?” Hannah sought her husband’s steadying hand.
He shook his head. “You’d have to ask her for more.”
Something in Elias gave in, his hopes soaring despite himself. Yes, he’d straighten this out, once and for all.
“I am afraid he can’t,” said Hannah, “as Lady May has already gone from this house.”
Elias found May’s rooms precisely as they were on the day he’d welcomed her.
All the clothes were stacked neatly in the wardrobes, the bed made and unslept in, all belongings organized and in their place, except for their mistress.
They were all the things he’d bought her, Elias realized with a start.
She’d left them all behind, from the precious jewels to the nightgowns that were meant to mark her standing in this house.
Those were gifts, damn it, yet she abandoned them without qualms! If she wished to frustrate him, she was succeeding immensely. Of course, Elias had accused her of greed, insulted her sense of propriety and honor, only to find out she’d been blameless, but still—
A servant was passing the room, and Elias summoned her with a wave of his hand. “Know you anything of your mistress’s departure?”
The girl in front of him lowered her eyes, clearly intimidated by Elias’s brusque tone. He did not have time to be patient, not when the blasted woman he had to see had run off, leaving him not even a surname to pursue.
“No, milord, only that she’d left on foot in the night.”
On foot! In the night! The words slashed him like a saber. She couldn’t get away fast enough. Elias’s mind whirled with the possibilities, each one worse than the last.
“Wearing what?” By heaven, she would make him lose what was left of his sanity. “All of her clothes are still here.”
“She…”
“Speak, damn it.”
“She asked for a spare maid outfit, milord.”
Indeed, May was blameless, in all but one lie.
A maid. How was this possible? How could he not have known?
What a damn fool he was, a thousand times over.
Elias dismissed the shaking maid and spun around the room, looking for any trace, however small, left by the very woman he couldn’t evict from his heart.
There was nothing to mark her departure but a bundle of the very clothes she’d worn to their meeting yesterday, resting on a chest of drawers.
A stitch frayed on the side seam, perhaps betraying the haste in which she’d torn down the clothing to take her leave.
Elias lifted the clothes up to his face, inhaling the aroma.
It was as his sister said: the loaned lavender perfume emanated from the dress, but deeper beneath it rested the smell of orange blossom and vanilla that he’d come to adore so much.
His fingers tangled in the muslin, and the dress unfurled.
With it, a single torn piece of paper drifted to the carpet.
Elias retrieved it, bringing it to the window for examination. It seemed to be a note of some sort, the kind that shopkeepers used. Only the bottom quarter survived. He pushed back the glasses, struggling to make out the cursive sprawling across a hand-drawn table.
Ripped mid-sentence, the remains read …of tourmaline before a string of numbers that amounted to an extortionate price.
Something stirred in Elias’s memory. May had spoken of a tourmaline necklace once before, had she not?
His eyes strained to make out the surviving signature at the bottom. She’d left him a clue, after all.
“May Anne Carr,” he breathed her name like the holy prayer it was. “Wherever you are, whoever you serve, you are mine to find.”