Chapter 27
The first sight of Wolverton should have steadied him.
Instead the house rose beyond the trees with every window reflecting the late afternoon light too brightly, the familiar gray stone appearing almost indifferent to the fact that Eric had ridden the last miles hard enough to leave two exhausted horses behind him.
By the time he crossed the final stretch of drive on the third mount of the day, his coat was streaked with road dust, his hands burned beneath his gloves, and the gelding beneath him blew hard through flared nostrils.
No one waited on the steps. No groom came running until Eric was already hauling the horse to a stop.
There was usually some trace of life now: Elise calling from an open window, a maid hurrying through the hall because the duchess had decided something ought to be moved, laughter carrying inexplicably from rooms that had gone unused for years.
Today the front doors stood open, servants moved too quickly beyond them, and every face that turned toward Eric possessed the same strained uncertainty.
Something has happened.
The thought came before the groom could take the reins.
You knew it would. You knew the moment Harrington said Atlas never sent for you.
Eric swung down, nearly stumbling when his legs met the ground after so many hours in the saddle. He ignored the groom’s startled hand.
Adelaide is here.
She had to be.
She is furious that you left. She has spent the day deciding precisely how to tell you so. You will walk inside, she will raise one eyebrow, and you will apologize for arriving looking like a highwayman.
The lie lasted until he reached the steps, and then Abigail appeared in the doorway.
Her face was pale.
No—
Eric stopped. “Where is the duchess?”
Abigail’s lips parted, but nothing came out.
Eric climbed the remaining steps. “Where is my wife?”
“I don’t know, Your Grace.”
For a second he genuinely failed to understand the words. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“She went out this afternoon. Mrs. Sullyard sent word that she wished to speak with Her Grace concerning your business in London.”
Everything inside him went cold. “Loretta?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Where?”
“The west gate.”
Eric stared at her. “Why would my wife meet Loretta at the west gate?”
Abigail twisted her hands together. “I thought it strange afterward. At the time, I believed… Atlas had said there were papers. Evidence concerning what Mrs. Sullyard spoke of at dinner. I didn’t know—”
“Atlas spoke to you?”
The woman recoiled. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
Eric stepped past her. “Where is the duchess now?”
“She never came back.”
The hall seemed to lengthen before him. Servants had begun gathering at its edges, pretending not to stare while openly doing so.
Eric’s voice dropped. “How long has she been gone?”
“Several hours.”
“Why was the guard not sent for?”
“We didn’t know where you were, Your Grace, and at first we believed Her Grace had gone somewhere with Mrs. Sullyard. Then Violet returned with Mr. Holbrook and—”
Abigail stopped.
Eric barely heard the rest. “Search the grounds.”
“They are, Your Grace.”
“Every road?”
“Yes.”
“The village?”
“Mr. Holbrook has men asking there now.”
Good.
Eric turned toward his study. “Has anything else happened?”
Abigail followed him two steps. “There is a letter.”
He stopped, and the blood left his hands. “A letter?”
Her voice became smaller. “Atlas gave it to me. He said I was to place it in your study where you would find it when you returned. I didn’t open it, Your Grace. I swear I didn’t know.”
“Where?”
“On your desk in the study.”
He moved quickly down the corridor and stopped only when he reached the study, which stood ajar.
The envelope waited beneath the silver paperweight, and his name was written across the front in Adelaide’s hand.
The lines blurred together until he reached the final words:
Do not look for me. By the time you read this, there will be nothing left to find.
Eric’s fist caught the desk. “No.”
He looked down again, and reread every line.
Slowly this time.
No—Not Adelaide. Not the woman who had looked at me yesterday morning with astonishment and tenderness.
She would not write “this marriage was a deception”.
She had called it many things, but she had never called it a scam.
Eric read the letter again.
The phrasing was too dramatic in the wrong places. Too empty where Adelaide would have been precise. There was no mention of her father or Theodore. None of Elise or Violet. None of the household she had invaded and remade.
Eric turned the page over.
Nothing.
“No.”
A sound came from the corridor followed by running feet.
“Eric!”
He turned and Elise flew into the room before anyone could stop her. She struck him around the legs hard enough that he had to catch the desk again.
“You came back.”
Eric looked down at her. The letter crumpled slightly in his hand. “Elise.”
She hugged him tighter. “I told Adelaide you would.”
His heart stopped. “When did you see Adelaide?”
“This afternoon.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
Eric crouched so abruptly his knees protested. “Elise, look at me.”
She did.
“Tell me exactly what you saw, Little Miss.”
The child frowned. “Adelaide went toward the little gate.”
“The west gate?”
“I think.”
“Was anyone with her?”
Elise considered. “A lady.”
“Which lady?”
“I couldn’t see her properly.”
“What happened next?”
Elise’s forehead wrinkled. “Two men played a game.”
Eric went still. “What game?”
“They grabbed Adelaide.”
The room vanished around him. “Grabbed her how?”
Elise demonstrated by catching her own wrist. “Like this. And then one got behind her. She kicked him.”
Of course she had.
“And she shouted.”
“Did you hear what she said?”
“Not all of it. I was by the garden wall. I thought they were being silly because grown-ups do strange things sometimes.”
Eric swallowed hard. “Then what?”
“They put her in the carriage.”
“Which carriage?”
“A dark one with no pictures.”
Unmarked.
Eric’s grip tightened on the letter. “She didn’t leave.”
Elise stared at him. “No. They took her.”
A servant appeared at the study door. “Your Grace?”
Eric turned. “Find Holbrook. Now. Tell him the duchess was taken from the west gate in an unmarked carriage by two men. One may be connected to Atlas.”
The servant fled and Eric turned, shoving the letter into his pocket. “Elise, stay with Abigail.”
“But—”
“Please, Little Miss?”
Something in his face must have persuaded her and she nodded.
Eric left the study, and moved quickly enough that the corridor blurred at its edges, but when he reached the gallery, he stopped dead in his tracks.
The portrait was uncovered.
Olivia.
For a moment Eric could only stare. The protective sheet lay folded over the chair beneath it. His sister stood within the frame exactly as she had for five years: young, dark-haired, impossible, the cliffs painted behind her like a prophecy everyone had been too stupid to understand.
“Not today.” The words escaped him harshly because the house had chosen cruelty with remarkable precision.
Adelaide gone and Olivia staring down at him. Eric gritted his teeth and turned away when a figure rounded the far corner.
Miss Hale startled at seeing him. Her cap was gone. Her dark hair had been pinned more loosely than usual, several curls escaping around a face gone pale with shock.
Eric stared and felt the corridor tilt.
For one impossible instant, he thought grief had finally broken whatever remained of his mind.
Olivia stood twenty feet away. Eric blinked away the rush of memories and grief. “Miss Hale?”
Violet’s face crumpled and took one step toward him. “Ricky.”
The world stopped.
Her lips trembled. “I am sorry.”
His hand struck the wall because suddenly the floor could not be trusted. “No.”
She began crying. “Eric—”
“No.”
“I didn’t know how—”
“Don’t.” He could barely hear himself. “You don’t get to stand there and call me that— You’re dead.”
Olivia closed her eyes. “I know.”
“I searched for you!”
“I know… I left everything you would recognize.”
Eric stared at her. The meaning came slowly because some truths were too large to enter at once. “You planned your death.”
“Yes.”
The corridor became very quiet., and Eric looked toward the portrait, then back at the woman before him. “Why?”
Olivia wiped at her face. “Atlas.”
The name landed differently now, and Eric’s jaw hardened. “What did he do?”
Olivia looked down. “He was charming when anyone could see him. Patient with Papa. Clever with you. But alone…” Her voice faltered. “He frightened me.”
“I heard you the night before.” Olivia looked up sharply. “Fighting with Father.”
Her face changed. “You were there?”
“In the corridor.”
“Why didn’t you come in?”
The question found every old wound. “I don’t know.”
Olivia’s tears spilled again. “I told him I would leave if he forced the marriage.”
“You said you would leave us all behind.”
“I meant run.”
Eric closed his eyes.
Of course.
Five years of guilt rearranged themselves violently. “I thought you meant— The cliffs.”
“That was for you.”
His eyes landed on her.
Olivia pressed trembling fingers to her mouth before continuing. “When we were children, you used to say the old path above the cliffs was the only place on the estate where you could disappear without leaving Wolverton.”
His stomach turned. “The line in the letter you left… You thought I would understand.”
“I thought you might. Eventually.”
“I thought you killed yourself.”
“I know.”
“For five years.”
“I know.”
His voice rose. “You knew?”
“I knew what the story became.”
“And you let me believe it?”
“I was afraid.”
“So was I!”
The shout echoed through the gallery and Olivia flinched. Eric regretted it instantly and resented himself for regretting anything.
She covered her face. “I had nowhere to go. Atlas knew everyone. Papa would have sent men after me. I thought if they believed I was dead, they would stop searching. I only meant to vanish long enough to get away.”
“And then?”
“I met Thomas. I loved him. We married. Then Elise came. By the time I understood what my disappearance had done to you, I had a child to protect.”
“You could have written.”
“I almost did.”
“When?”
“Dozens of times.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Her shoulders shook. “The first year. Then after Thomas died. Then when I heard Father had died. Every time I thought of it, I imagined Atlas finding out. I imagined him discovering Elise. I told myself another month would not matter after so long.”
Eric stared at her. “Five years mattered. Hell, every day mattered.”
“I know—”
“No, you don’t.”
Olivia accepted that in silence.
Eric turned away.
Adelaide.
God.
Adelaide.
The grief of finding Olivia alive collided with the terror of knowing his wife was gone.
He faced Olivia again.
“Atlas took Adelaide.”
Olivia went utterly still.
“What?”
“He arranged my journey to London. There was no emergency. He has been interfering with the estate, with my accounts, with my will. Today Adelaide was taken from the west gate.”
Color drained from Olivia ’s face. “No.”
“Elise saw it.”
“Eric—”
“I have a forged letter in Adelaide’s hand telling me she intends to die.”
Olivia stared up at him, eyes glassy and arms outstretched as if to steady herself. “He’s done this before…”
Eric stepped toward her and let her hands rest on his arms as the heat of anger filled his veins. “What?”
She gripped his sleeves. “He made death useful once. Mine.”
Understanding arrived cold and complete. Atlas had watched Olivia disappear and had survived the aftermath beside Eric. He had seen exactly what a letter, an absence, and a few carefully placed belongings could do. And now Adelaide had vanished.
Eric looked toward the uncovered portrait. “I am going to be furious with you for a very long time.”
Olivia gave a wet, startled laugh that broke almost immediately beneath another sob.
Eric stood before her in the portrait gallery with one hand still braced against the back of a chair, as though some part of him continued to distrust the floor beneath his feet.
The uncovered portrait of the sister he had mourned watched them from the wall. Five years of grief stood between the painted girl and the living woman beneath it, and for one suspended moment, the urgency elsewhere in the house receded. Adelaide was gone.
Atlas was moving pieces Eric did not yet understand. Men were being sent toward the roads. Theodore would return any moment.
But this could not wait another five years.
Olivia wiped at her face with trembling fingers. “That sounds exhausting.”
“I intend to make it so.”
Her lips twitched.
Eric held her out at an arm’s length, eyes finding hers. “But I will not let you take responsibility for every bad decision I made afterward. If I do, then I learned absolutely nothing from five years of blaming myself for yours.”
Olivia stared at him briefly until her face folded again, but this time when she cried, she did not turn away.
Eric did not think. He simply pulled her into him.
His sister collided against his chest with a sound that was half sob, half gasp. His arms tightened around her so hard he knew she would complain later.
“I am so angry with you, but I am grateful you are here,” he said into her hair, which made her break completely then.
Footsteps sounded at the far end of the gallery. Theodore appeared, took in the sight of them both, and halted. “Oh.”
Eric looked at him, and Theodore’s gaze moved from Olivia ’s tear-streaked face to Eric’s arms still around her. Then to the uncovered portrait.
Understanding arrived in stages. “Oh.”
Olivia wiped her face. “That is becoming tiresome.”
Theodore pointed vaguely toward the portrait and looked genuinely overwhelmed for the briefest moment before his expression changed. “Adelaide.”
Eric released Olivia . “Yes.”
The tenderness of the last minutes did not vanish, but transformed into purpose.
Olivia straightened. “You need to know what happened yesterday.”
Eric looked at her.
“Atlas.”
His body went cold again. “Tell me.”
Olivia glanced at Theodore. “Adelaide found him cornering me in the servants’ passage.”
Eric’s jaw tightened. “Cornering you?”
“He did not touch me.”
“That is not the defense you think it is.”
“I know.”
“What did he want?”
Olivia hesitated. “At first, I thought he was merely behaving as he always did when he believed a woman had less power than he did.”
Theodore’s face darkened. “And then?”
“He said I looked familiar.”
Eric stared at her. “Did he recognize you?”
“Somewhat.”
“Did Adelaide hear this?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
Olivia’s expression softened painfully. “She stepped between us and ordered him out. Told him that if I said stop, that was the end of the matter. He became angry with her.”
Eric saw red. “How angry?”
“He hid it quickly, but for a moment, very.”
Eric nodded slowly before he turned toward the stairs. “Get Abigail,” he called out over his shoulder, and Theodore acknowledged him.
The conversation with his sister was far from over, but Adelaide was in certain danger, and it was up to him to get her back safely.