Authors: Elizabeth Essex
He eased himself through the gate, checking in both directions, before he motioned her through, and pushed the gate almost closed. So he would have another way out of the place, she supposed. Just in case.
What a strange, clever duke he was.
And he was cleverer still, standing still and listening before he spoke. “Claire. There look to be a fair number of guests still here.”
The hidden gate gave on to the narrow side lawn toward the side of the house. But when she stopped to listen with him she could hear snatches of conversation over the thick hush of the summer mist. “Pray God they aren’t talking about us.”
“No bet. Chances are they are.” And with that cynical—he would undoubtedly say “realistic”—remark, he led the way toward the front of the house, where a path led to a servants’ or tradesmen’s entrance set low, a half story belowground.
“This should be quiet enough.” He led the way, checking through the door for other people, making sure that they were alone as he led her in, and then down an empty corridor. “I thought we’d head for my grandmother’s private sitting room. It’s the most likely place—”
She thought he might have said more, but instead he shucked off his livery coat and left it on a peg along the hallway, and then showed her up one of the smaller side stairways to the baize green door that separated the servants’ world—the one to which she had belonged for most of the past twelve hours—from the family’s.
“Are you ready?”
It was the same question he had asked last night, as they were about to set off from Chelsea, and the same question he had repeated at the lead works. “Yes,” she answered, putting all her determination and resolve into her voice. “I’m ready for anything.”
“Excellent. And remember, Claire,” he murmured low. “The danger lies not in the remembering, but in the forgetting.”
He had said that before as well, when they were first out on the water last night. It seemed a very, very long time ago.
“I’ll remember.”
And then the lovely, magical time was over and they were no longer alone. No longer alone in the world with only each other.
“Your Grace.” Doggett, the Riverchon butler, with whom she had been on nice terms—she had always made it a point to learn servants’ names, even when visiting other houses—emerged from somewhere down a corridor and stood uncharacteristically flat-footed, gaping at them. “My lady, we’ve all been so concerned.”
Gratitude, mixed with the hot sting of guilt, filled her. She had thought only of herself, and then her parents when she sent her note. She had not thought of how her disappearance might have affected all the other people who lived at the periphery of her life.
“Thank you, Doggett. You are very kind to worry after me. I apologize for your fears. But as you can see, I am back now.” She was careful not to say “we,” careful of the proprieties that she had so enthusiastically brushed aside for the past twelve hours.
Tanner—His Grace—led the way past Doggett. “My guest would like some refreshment. Coffee, and a good deal of tea. And I should also like you to notify the earl and countess that Lady Claire awaits them in Her Grace’s parlor.”
His voice was all chilly, formal Duke of Fenmore, as if he had just chanced to find her wandering the halls, lost and wearing her absurd maid’s costume. Indeed, if she had not experienced the past hours with him, she never would have believed him capable of being anything other than the chilly, aloof Duke of Fenmore.
But Doggett looked relieved to have his master back. “Yes, Your Grace. But the Earl Sanderson has left, Your Grace, and has journeyed to London.”
“Oh.” Claire brightened. It would much easier than she thought. Lord only knew what her father would do if he saw her in her present state—and Fenmore as well, looking like his disreputable Tanner self. Not that she was going to have an easy time with her mother.
“I believe he went to Fenmore House on the advice of Her Grace,” Doggett was clarifying, “to see if Lady Claire might be recovered from there.”
“Recovered from Fenmore House?” she parroted. “There is no need for ‘recovery.’”
Beside her, His Grace of Tanner made a soothing but somehow impatient sound—a subtle warning not to give away too much. “Where is Her Grace?”
“In the drawing room, Your Grace, with her other guests.”
“Would you be so kind as to request her to attend me in her parlor at her earliest convenience.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The man bowed and headed back down the corridor the way he had come until Tanner—His Grace—said, “The countess first, if you please, Doggett.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Doggett bowed again and headed in the opposite direction, toward the main staircase. Claire’s mother was presumably above.
“Actually, I think I had rather just go to my mother, now. I think that would help, if indeed, as you suspect, she did not get my note. I don’t want to make her wait any—”
Before Tanner could answer, a door banged open at the far end of the entry hall.
Claire turned to see her father burst into the house, stop in his tracks, and then stride directly toward her. “Claire. My God.” Her father enveloped her in a crushing but brief embrace. “My God. Are you all right?” He pushed her back at her elbows to take a look at her. “Are you unharmed?”
“As you see. I’m quite—”
He did not let her finish but pulled her back against his chest, and Claire was once again enveloped in the strong comfort of her father’s love. “Where in hell and gone have you been, young lady?” The words rumbled through his chest. “And why in hell did you not send word for me to come get you?”
Her poor father. He would not be swearing at her unless he had been well and truly frightened. “I did send word, but—” She had been too busy finding Maisy Carter, and doing what needed to be done. She had been too busy staying with her Tanner. But she was quite sure her father did not want to hear
that
.
“And what in the name of God are you wearing? Your mother will have another apoplexy if she sees you in this. Has she seen you?”
“I am sorry, Papa, but—”
“Why have you not gone to her?” Her father released her and immediately started toward the stairs.
“But what about His Grace?” Claire turned to indicate her companion and savior. Surely her father would want to thank him? And discuss whatever other agreements the houses of Sanderson and Fenmore might want to come to regarding a betrothal? At least she hoped so.
Only to find His Grace, her Tanner, was gone.
Claire looked about, rotating a full circle, with her father staring at her as if she had lost her mind. But she had not. Tanner had been right
there.
He could not have left her. Not now when she needed him most.
“Where did he go?” She looked at her father.
“Who?” her father demanded.
“His Grace of Fenmore.” She turned back to Doggett, who appeared from down the stairs. “Where did His Grace go?” She needed Tanner’s calm logic, his factual way of saying things.
“He is here?” Her father closed his eyes as if his sight gave him pain. “Almighty God.”
Claire couldn’t tell if he uttered an epithet or a prayer. “What is the matter?”
“Search the grounds,” her father commanded Doggett. “Now!”
“No. Papa! You don’t understand— You can’t—”
“What in God’s name were you doing with Fenmore?” Now it was her father’s uncompromising gaze that centered on her, narrow and intent.
“Conversing.” The lie slipped out before she thought of anything better to say. And it wasn’t a lie, strictly speaking. She and Tanner had conversed. And for some reason she could not explain—especially in light of her father’s belligerence—she felt protective of His Grace. She might want to curse him herself, but she could not bear to hear others do it.
“Conversing? For seventeen hours, while we turn the world upside down looking for you? Have you no idea what has happened here? A maid has gone missing—we could only assume that she had gone with you—and Lord Peter Rosing is all but fatally assaulted and left for dead, presumably at the hands of Fenmore, and you tell me you have been
conversing
with him?” He cut himself off and passed his hand over his eyes. “My God, Claire. You can have no idea what I’ve been made to do.”
“No idea of what?”
Her father shook his head while he answered. “His Grace stands accused— No. I won’t discuss this now. Not here. Not when your mother has been beside herself with worry. And that distressing bruise across your face is only going to make matters worse.” His voice rose as he vented what could only be a monstrous amount of worry.
Claire had to tell herself it was a mark of love that her papa was still so worried for her that the unruffled calm that had been always been the hallmark of his character—and had stood him in good stead through the raising of her three rambunctious brothers—had so deserted him as to make him raise his voice at her.
“Any other woman would have taken to her bed with the hysterics, but your mother has stayed up all night waiting for some word of you. Quietly pacing back and forth. Convincing me to travel the length of the Richmond Road in the dead of night in the hopes that you had somehow made it back to our home in London. And then you just simply appear with the bloody Duke of Fenmore, who then promptly disappears? What in hell am I supposed to think? You’re not the sort of child who tears off on a lark.”
“No, sir. It wasn’t a lark.” Guilt made her defensive. But at the mention of the Duke of Fenmore she looked around again, as if surely, surely he was just hiding in plain sight, being quiet against a wall, listening and waiting for the storm to pass.
But he was not.
There was only the butler, Doggett, who was trying to show them into Her Grace the dowager duchess’s parlor, so they might continue this distressing dressing-down in a more private setting. “The countess is on her way down, my lord.”
Claire’s father propelled her by the elbow into the lovely rose pink sitting room and deposited her near a chair, but she couldn’t sit. She couldn’t. Guilt, shame, and the unexpeced desolation of being abandoned by His Grace of Fenmore began to burn a raw hole in her chest.
But she made herself speak. She had come too far to go back to being pampered and cosseted and obedient now. And she had known what she was doing. “It wasn’t a lark. It was … necessary.” She chose the word carefully.
“Necessary?”
“Yes. Absolutely necessary. To do the right thing.” Yes. She said it again, to firm the idea in her mind. “The absolute right thing.”
“Necessary.” Her father took a too-sharp breath. “Did he force you to marry him?”
“Fenmore? Good God, no.”
“Did the Duke of Fenmore hurt you?”
“No. Not at all.” She said it more forcefully, resentful on His Grace’s behalf, willing her father to hear her and understand. “His Grace was a perfect gentleman.” He was only hurting her now with his absence.
Her father closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Claire.”
She was astonished, and brought entirely out of her own selfish pain to see the almost-haggard expression on her father’s face. The lines around his mouth looked deeper than they ever had before, graven into his cheeks, aging him by years instead of hours. “Papa, please listen to me.”
“Just tell me.” He took her hands between his own. “Just tell me what happened, and I will make it all go away. I will fix whatever it is that happened.”
Before last night she would never have heard a thing wrong with his words. Before last night she would have gratefully let him fix whatever it was that needed fixing. She would have smiled and said yes.
But no more. And it was already fixed—fixed before Lord Peter Rosing had had a chance to hurt her beyond all repair. And she had fixed the rest, herself. Almost. But with the help of His Grace of Tanner, she had at least learned to stand on her own two feet. “Papa, I am well. I am not hurt.”
“I can see your face, Claire. Just. Tell. Me. What did Fenmore do?”
“No. You’ve got it wrong,” she assured her father. But she wished Fenmore were there to say what he had done himself. She had no idea how much to say—she had no idea if he really would be brought up on charges for assaulting Rosing.
But her father was waiting; nearly twenty years had taught her that he was not a man who could be lied to. “His Grace of Fenmore helped me.”
Her father raised his head and fixed her with a steady, probing eye. “Helped you?”
Claire felt her resolve waver under the unrelenting pressure of his stare. It was too much. Too private. Too full of her own foolish, vain, desperate stupidity to do anything more than assure him that she was not hurt, or ruined so badly as he feared.
She tried to find a way to find the courage to say what was necessary. “Yes. I … asked His Grace to take me away from the party for a little while.”
“You asked him? Good God, Claire. You’re nearly twenty years old, now. You should have long ago learned better than to—” He broke off for a moment, searching for words. “Than to trust a man like Fenmore.”
No matter how carefully chosen, her father’s words stung like a slap. Heat and humiliation scalded her cheeks. She
had
trusted the wrong man—but not the wrong man her father thought.
She pulled her hand away and found a chair, putting as much distance between them as she could. “You are wrong about His Grace. Fenmore was entirely trustworthy.
He
did as I asked.
He
helped me. And then we found the body—”
“Body.” The shocked whisper stopped them both, and Claire turned to see her mother, the Countess Sanderson, in the doorway.
At the sight of Claire, her mother took a deep, almost gasping breath, as if she had not drawn air into her lungs for hours or even days. And then she rushed to take Claire into her arms.
And there was nothing Claire could do but burst into tears.
Once she had begun, it was impossible to stop. It was as if all the remarkable and horrible and interesting and life-changing things that had happened to her over the long course of the night hit her all at once, like a cricket bat to the back of her head.