Awakening His Duchess (37 page)

Beau scanned the room, crossed to the clothes press, and
opened the doors. “Where were you when he said he was going to see me?”

“We were in the library. We had just finished tea with his grandfather
when he said he needed to go meet you. I assumed he had an appointment with you
to ride as his lesson had been cut short in the morning.”

Beau winced. “Did he go outside?”

“I do not know, sir. I did not pay attention. The duke
offered me a cigar, then I started feeling poorly. If anything has happened to
Etienne, I will not forgive myself.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed and for a second she feared he would
dismiss Danvers, but the thought trailed away as she feared for Etienne. Where
could he be? Was he hurt somewhere, needing her, calling for her or worse—not
able to call?

“Go to the stables and inquire if they have seen him,” Beau
said coldly. “If not, have them search the stalls and tack rooms in case he is
hiding there.”

Danvers left, and she stared at Beau’s grimly determined
face as he moved back toward the stairs.

“Something terrible has happened to him,” she whispered. All
the tragedies that could beset a boy crowded her mind, and now her dream where
she had seen the machete coming down on him seemed a warning she had ignored.
Her chest squeezed, and she twisted her useless cold hands. How had she let so
many hours pass without checking on Etienne? She never let so much time go by
without knowing where he was.

Beau focused on her face. “No, he is fine. He is just being
willful and has likely hidden away because he has not had me and everyone else
at his beck and call.”

She recoiled. “If you meant those words to comfort, they do
not. He is not like that.”

“He is not like me then. Come, Yvette, he was sulky this
morning because our riding lesson was abbreviated. He is likely trying to
punish me. I should have told him I would make time for another lesson after
tea.” Beau’s eyes looked starkly blue against his tanned face.

He was not as certain as he appeared to be.

“We’ll find him,” he told her sternly as if he could thwart
any other outcome by sheer force of will.

In the space of what seemed like an eternity, the house was
thoroughly searched and Beau stood in the hall in front of the massive
fireplace as he organized a methodical search of the grounds.

The awful possibilities were like monsters in her thoughts,
biting, clawing and growling with a thousand imagined scenarios. Etienne kicked
by a horse and lying unconscious somewhere. Etienne fallen out of a tree on his
head and broken or dead. Etienne sliced apart by a machete as had been foretold
in her dream.

“Yvette,” Beau said.

She snapped her head in his direction.

“Mazi and I are heading toward the fallen tree. If Etienne
was trying to find me, that is the direction he would have gone. You will stay
here in case he returns or is found. Or if the duke needs you.”

She nodded. If she were in Saint-Domingue she’d know where
to look, she’d know the slave huts, but England was still foreign to her. She
didn’t know the estate and all the places a child might hide, but Beau had
grown up here. Surely he would know what to do, where to look.

“I cannot just wait here.” She wanted a task to do, a place
to tear apart, not this endless waiting with her very being ground to sand
under the weight of her terror. She muttered a thousand prayers and then curses
at a God who would allow her to think she might be happy and then destroy her
by taking away the child she loved with all her heart. The only blood she had
left.

Beau gripped her shoulders, and his heat penetrated her cold
fear. “Can you check my father’s room without alerting him? I do not want him
to worry while he is so sick.”

She nodded. She’d very nearly forgotten the duke’s
precarious health.

“We will find him,” he told her fiercely. “Trust me, sugar.”

She swallowed hard and tried to believe him, but there was
nothing but blackness and evil in the world. She felt almost as if she were
outside herself looking down, as if the fear was too great for her to inhabit
her body.

Beau gripped her arms and gave her a little shake. His hands
on her shoulders trembled. He was as alarmed as she was, and he was choosing to
look for Etienne when his father might not be long for this world. For Etienne
and Beau’s sake she had to hold it together. “I will.”

She had to trust her son’s father to organize and command
the people of the estate just as he had organized everyone to get the tree off
Thomas. She knew he loved his son even though they’d had little time together.
She knew this time she had to rely on someone else to protect her son. “Please
find him, Beau.”

 
*~*~*

Find Etienne
, was
a mantra burning in Beau’s head. It was either find him or punch a hole in the nearest
man’s face. His stomach burned and his head buzzed. Beau wasn’t sure what he’d
do when he found Etienne. Hug him then turn him over his knee for making them
frantic about him, for making Yvette look like a ghost with her eyes just dark
holes in her pale face. For a minute he’d thought she would faint. She’d
swayed, but when he shook her she seemed to come into herself again.

Still, he couldn’t worry about her when his son had not been
seen for hours now. Not since some time in the late afternoon, but now it was
full dark. The house had been searched top to bottom, attics and cellars. The
grounds gone over inch by painstaking inch. Beau didn’t know how late it was,
although it felt like an eternity had passed.

What had Etienne been thinking? All around him the boy’s
name rang out, and lanterns bobbed where the tenants had joined the menservants
in the search. Beau hated not tearing across the ground and searching every
inch himself, but his father was right. To lead effectively he had to delegate
and monitor the progress of every searcher, make certain they looked every
place, yet didn’t waste time crossing over each other’s paths.

“Etienne,” he shouted for the millionth time. His throat was
raw and his breath hung in the air. Did his son have an overcoat? It was far
too cold out here for one little boy, but the servants had been through the
house. Wherever he was, it wasn’t safe and warm in his bed. Even so Beau had
insisted the maids go through every room again, just in case he’d been
overlooked.

The moon shone down on an estate that looked menacing and
full of traps in the darkness. Yet keeping everyone searching and researching
the same grounds was not likely to yield new results.

He’d sent people up the road in either direction. It had
been hours now and no one returned with the news of a small boy tramping down a
lane. How far could the child have gone?

Dawn would be breaking soon. Etienne had to have gone
somewhere, and Beau could no longer stand by and wait. The blackness inside him
yawned bigger than he could bear. He himself had to search even if it was going
over the same ground. He couldn’t go back inside and see the answering
hollowness in Yvette’s expression. Couldn’t face her disappointment or his own
despair. He had to find his son. “I’m going to the village, Mazi.”

“I will go with you. We will walk both sides of the road in
case he is fallen in the ditch on the way,” said his friend.

Beau pulled the stable master aside. “Mr. Gates, you are in
charge here. I will return as soon as possible.”

“Do you want the curricle?”

Beau considered for half a second. But it would be better if
he and Mazi were on foot in case Etienne was in a ditch. Mazi would be able to
carry Etienne back if need be. And his leg had carried him across England. He
would make it for as long as he needed to. “Hitch it and have it ready. If I
have not returned in an hour, bring it to the village.”

“Very good, my lord.”

“And if Etienne is found, come right away.”

Mazi handed Beau a lantern. They walked along the road
retracing their steps that had brought them here just a week earlier. How much
had changed, how much had been so different from what he expected? But he
couldn’t have found Etienne only to have him ripped away from him now. He had
to find his son.

Beau’s gut churned as they moved along the road, sweeping
the light across the berms, holding it over the ditches. The lanterns cast odd
irregular shadows and each one seemed rife with possibilities that quickened
his breathing and jolted his heart yet continued to yield nothing. Where could
Etienne have gone?

The truth was he didn’t know his son well enough to fathom
how he thought. Still he wished he would have promised the boy a late afternoon
ride and then moved heaven and hell to show up for it. Surely Etienne wouldn’t
have run away if he’d known Beau planned to make up the missed riding time with
him.

Bloody hell, he’d promised himself he’d be different from
his father, but he hadn’t been. There had been an emergency, but he should have
taken the time to explain it to Etienne, to promise the disruption to their
routines would not continue long. He shouldn’t have brushed him aside assuming
the servants or Danvers would explain. Etienne had needed to hear it from him.
Beau knew that.

Still he’d done exactly as his father had done to him. He’d
dismissed the boy’s needs when it would have taken him just a minute or two to
explain to him or say he could come along.

In their slow trek toward the village, he and Mazi craned
over every dark shape. Each rock or clump of vegetation spurred his hopes then
crashed them down as the lantern light revealed their true nature.

He’d do better. He found himself mentally promising to
always consider his son’s needs in exchange for finding Etienne safe, unharmed.

They reached the village and there had been no signs of one
little boy. Dawn was lightening the sky, and soon it would be bright enough to
search the grounds again. Possibly the darkness had hidden Etienne from view,
but that would mean he wasn’t responding to their calls. Beau’s throat tightened
and his gut turned watery. Surely by now cold and hunger would have made
Etienne answer if he was able to.

“We should ask again if anyone has seen him,” said Mazi, his
voice low, the sort of tone he’d often used when Beau was in the grips of the drugs
the bokor made him drink each morning.

That Mazi thought he needed to be calmed, terrified him.

He headed for the first door on his side of the street and
knocked.

No one had seen Etienne, but they all remarked on the
strange French man staying at the inn. Beau headed there as quickly as he
could. He pushed open the door to the inn and entered the foyer. Ahead of him
the taproom was relatively empty with only a couple of the older village men
drinking morning coffee.

One of the older men looked up. “Heard you were back.”

Beau pushed forward. “Have you seen my son?”

The other put down his mug and touched his forelock. “Ain’t
seen your son.”

“What of the man who was staying here?” demanded Beau. Could
he have had anything to do with Etienne being missing?

“Ain’t seen him since yesterday. But then he keeps to
himself.”

Beau’s spine tightened as if a knife had been jabbed in it.

“My lord, what can I do for you?” asked the landlord, coming
forward. “Won’t you have a cup of coffee?”

“No. Tell me about this French man you had staying here. Is
he still here?”

The landlord blanched and took a step back. “Paid up and
left yesterday afternoon.”

The timing was too coincidental.

“He said when he came here that he had business with the
duke.”

Beau searched his mind. “No man has had business with the
duke since I’ve been home. Certainly no French man.”

He would know, wouldn’t he? He’d been with his father every
day up until the tree fell.

The landlord wrung his hands. “Said he was from the same
place as your wife and the boy. Left a letter for her. Said I was to deliver it
this morning. Just as I had my boy deliver the cigars a few days ago.” He spun
toward the counter in the entry. “I’ll get the letter for you.”

None of this made sense. Had Etienne been taken by someone
from Saint-Domingue? Why? Beau followed the landlord.

The man plunked a sealed letter on the counter, but Beau
frowned at it. It had originally been addressed to Yvette Petit. Someone who
had known her in Saint-Domingue then, because she’d never been called that
here. A line below gave the title, Countess of Arrington.

He stared at the letter. Behind him Mazi questioned the
innkeeper.
No, he hadn’t seen the young master with the man from
Saint-Domingue, but the man had left every day to go to the castle—or so he’d
said.

The man certainly hadn’t met with the duke. Had he met with
Yvette? Could she be a part of his son having gone missing? But her anguish
seemed real.

Beau picked up the heavy sheet, slid his fingers under the
wax seal, and popped it loose. The letter might be addressed to Yvette, but if
it explained Etienne’s disappearance, Beau didn’t want to waste time. But why
would an old acquaintance take their son? For ransom? If someone she knew from
Saint-Domingue needed money, petitioning her for help would make more sense
than taking Etienne.

The greeting was in French,
Yvette,
ma cher amour.
My dearest love?

Beau’s stomach roiled and his hand shook. What man had the
right to call her his dearest love? Her husband was dead—or so she’d said. Had
she had a lover? The words swam before his eyes as he tried to translate the
vows of everlasting love and assurances that the letter writer knew Yvette felt
the same.

Unable to read more until he knew who was intimate with his
wife, Beau skipped to the bottom.
Votre mari fidèle, Henri.

Her husband was alive? Why would she lie about such a thing?
His chest slammed with the force of the elm tree knocking into him, toppling
him down, and pinning him under its weight.