Chapter 34
“Where is she? When exactly did you see her?” Julian called out, just as thunder rumbled again. Lightning struck close behind it, followed almost immediately by more thunder, so close together it was hard to tell which had come first.
“I am certain she is at the inn, Your Grace,” Nell said. “I asked her to come back with me, but she did not wish to. She told me if the rain caught her, she would shelter at the inn and wait it out there.”
“But why would she leave at all?” Julian turned to Nathaniel, who had remained nearby, listening. Nathaniel shook his head. “I do not know. It is peculiar.”
“She told me she simply needed air,” Nell said, “because her own thoughts were running away with her.”
“There,” Nathaniel said. “That makes it considerably less peculiar. She wanted to outrun her own thoughts for a while which, if we are honest, every one of us has done at some point. The rain simply caught her by surprise.”
“It did not catch her by surprise,” Nell said quickly. “I told her it would rain soon, Your Grace, and she went out regardless.”
“That may be true.” Julian turned to the maid. “You may go.” Nell curtsied and left.
“What do you mean to do about it?” Nathaniel asked.
“I am going after her.”
“In this rain? Have you quite lost your mind?”
“I have not lost my mind, I assure you. But I must see to her. She is my wife. I love her.”
“And what of your speech earlier? That she had distracted you, that she had made you careless?”
Julian took a breath. “I did not mean it. I meant it, and I did not mean it. These past few days have been horrendous, worse even than the ones before, and I did not think anything could be worse than those. I do not know what to do. I do not know what to say. I do not know what to think. But I know that, right now, the one thing I can still control is making certain my wife is not sitting alone in an inn in the middle of a storm. Will you come with me to fetch her?”
Nathaniel rose. “Very well. But if I catch a chill and drop dead of consumption, you shall be left to look after my affairs, including Evelyn.”
“That is quite a threat.” Julian managed something close to a smile despite everything. “Although I do not believe one catches consumption from a chill. Those are entirely different ailments.”
“I did not know you had trained at the College of Physicians.”
“Let us go,” Julian said.
Together, they crossed to the carriage, soaked to the skin in the few steps it took to reach the door.
The ride was rather more harrowing than he would have liked, the horses startling badly at the lightning more than once.
When they finally reached the Fox and Hare, Julian leapt out and ran the last few steps to the door with Nathaniel close behind, cursing under his breath.
“Wait here,” Julian called back to the coachman. “Get down off the box and wait inside the carriage. I would not have you catch your own consumption out here.”
The man looked at him, clearly baffled by the instruction, while Nathaniel rolled his eyes.
Inside, the inn was packed. It seemed Clara had not been the only one to decide it would be wiser to wait out the storm than press on.
Julian made his way to the innkeeper, who was busy pulling pints for his patrons.
“I beg your pardon,” he called.
The man did not look up. Nathaniel slammed a fist on the counter. “My good man, the Duke of Lynden addresses you.”
The man’s head came up at once. “I do beg your pardon, Your Grace. How can I help you?” Julian noted, even in the middle of his panic, how different this was to Dover, where titles had bought them nothing but suspicion. Here, his title earned instant deference.
“I am looking for my wife. She would have come in earlier, likely just as the rain began.” He described her.
The man’s eyes widened. “She was here, Your Grace, but she left. With a tall gentleman. Came in just as the rain started as you say. Asked me for a quill and some writing paper.”
Julian frowned. “Writing paper. For what?”
The man shrugged. “I couldn’t say. Wait a moment.” He disappeared into a back room and returned with a torn piece of paper. “She left this on the table when she went. I picked it up before anyone else could. It’s got a bit of ale on it, Your Grace, but you should still be able to read it.”
Julian took it and read it at once. It was addressed to him.
The words landed one after another, each one its own small blow.
What was she talking about? Why did she believe he did not love her?
And then it struck him. The conversation with Nathaniel and Gideon.
She had overheard it. Or enough of it, at least, to believe he no longer wanted her.
His world tilted sideways.
“You said she left with a gentleman. Tall. What else can you tell me about him?” Nathaniel asked, leaning in.
“Not much more than that, Your Grace. Dressed like a coachman by the look of him. That’s all I saw. Would you care for a drink on the house?”
Julian shook his head as Nathaniel took him by the arm.
“She left with somebody. Do you think she sent word to her father? Or to someone in our circle?”
“She left because she thinks I do not love her.” Julian thrust the letter against Nathaniel’s chest. Nathaniel took it, read it, and rubbed his forehead.
“Well. This has only become more complicated. We must put this right. Where do you think she has gone?”
“Excuse me.” A voice came from behind them, and both men turned at once.
A woman stood there, older than the two of them, perhaps in her forties, a cloak still drawn around her shoulders, the hood pushed back.
“I could not help overhearing your conversation with the innkeeper. You are looking for your wife?”
“I am, indeed.”
“I believe she may have been taken against her will,” the woman said.
“My husband and I came into the inn earlier and saw a woman matching your description stepping into a carriage. She went willingly enough at first, but when we drew closer, we heard her pounding on the window and calling to be let out.”
“Tell me everything,” Julian said.
“My husband went to the coachman. We were concerned for her welfare. The man told us she was his master’s runaway daughter, being brought home against her wishes, and we believed him.
” The woman’s expression tightened with apparent regret.
“I am sorry, Your Grace. We did not think to question it further.”
Julian closed his eyes briefly. “Which direction did the carriage go?”
“I could not say. We went inside almost at once, and the rain was coming down so hard by then it would have been impossible to follow it more than a few yards in any case. But it was a black carriage with red handles. I remember the red quite clearly.”
“Thank you,” Julian said, and pulled Nathaniel outside with him before the woman had even finished her curtsy.
“That is Devereau’s carriage,” he said. “I remember exactly how pretentious it looked when he arrived in it for my birthday celebration. Red handles, red trim on the wheels. He has her.”
“Why would he take her?” Nathaniel asked.
“I do not know. Perhaps he believes she can help him find Arabella. Perhaps he simply wants leverage.” Julian pressed a hand against his face.
“What have I done? If I had not said what I said, if she had not overheard it, she would be at home right now, safe and not in a carriage with that man going God knows where.”
“We must find her. We must follow the carriage.”
“We do not even know in which direction it went,” Nathaniel said.
“Not in this rain. No, we return to the house. The moment the rain lets up, we summon everyone, take every carriage we have, and spread out from this point in every direction. This is a lead, Julian. It is more than we had this morning.”
“Yes,” Julian said though he was barely listening.
The sound of laughter and revelry drifted from inside the inn at his back and outside, thunder and lightning and driving rain.
He stood between the two of them and felt, with a kind of dull certainty, that he had finally managed to ruin every chance at happiness he had ever had.
“Julian.” Nathaniel took him by the shoulders.
“I will not let you dissolve into self-pity now. Your wife needs you. Once we find her, you can explain everything you need to explain. Now, let us get home. We’ll make a plan.
We’ll get some maps. We’ll work out where this carriage could have gone from here. ”
Julian nodded, and the two of them climbed back into the carriage and returned to the house.
It stood dark against the night sky as they approached with only a few lights flickering in the windows.
They climbed out and hurried inside, rain pooling at their feet in the entryway when Mrs. Parker came rushing up from the servants’ staircase below.
“Your Grace, you must come at once.”
She did not wait for a reply. She turned and disappeared back down the way she had come. Julian and Nathaniel exchanged one glance and followed at a run, the warm scent of beeswax candles in the main hall giving way to the sharper smell of tallow as they descended into the servants’ quarters.
“Quickly, Your Grace. She knocked at the door not half an hour ago, soaked through entirely. I scarcely recognized her at first, but it is her. I have made sure she is warm and given her something dry to wear.”
“Who…” Nathaniel started to ask, as they came through the door into the servants’ hall.
The words died on his lips.
Sitting by the hearth, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup, was Arabella.