"They were worried about you," Alec told him.
"Where's Joy?"
The words gripped her, and her breath stopped. She looked past the faces of Richard, Neil, and Henson to Alec.
He didn't stiffen. He didn't scowl. He didn't evade the question. He just said truthfully, "I don't know."
"I like Joy. She thinks I'm smart." He paused thoughtfully, then asked quietly, "Wasn't she worried about me too?"
Her body tightened with a wave of threatening sickness and she had to grip the back of an old chair.
"She was very worried," Alec told him. "She didn't want to leave your side but I was angry. I said some cruel things to her."
"That was dumb."
He looked Stephen straight in the eye. "It was. But I'll find her. I promise I'll find her."
He'll never find me.
The ache was so great that Joy fell to her knees, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed. When she pulled her hands away the image had faded. A plea on her face and anguish in her voice she turned to her aunt. "I love him. Please. He needs me."
The MacLean watched her, then glanced at the blank window. A moment later she shook her head, turned, and left the room.
***
And so it was that the days dragged by, empty, silent, and devoid of magic. Stephen recovered and spent most of his time in the garden, caring for the flowers and plants that Joy had taught him about. He would say with simple unshakable confidence that she would come back soon. Alec had promised.
But Alec's confidence had waned.
He had ridden over every acre of
Belmore
Park
. He'd sat slumped in a chair in his chamber for hours on end. In a kind of deliberate self-punishment, he surrounded himself with reminders of her. The only food he would eat was roasted chicken legs, turnips, and gingerbread. On every table and every mantel in the rooms he frequented stood vase after vase of pink roses.
One day a wagon had come from
London
filled with heavy crates. It had taken three footmen to carry the stacks of Gothic romances into the duchess' room. They were stacked along a wall seeming to await her return.
He memorized the names of his servants, then confused the wits out of them when he ordered all the clocks set for different times. He went through the gardens looking for small birds and first blooms. He walked on the roof at night, looking at the stars, and wondered if he'd ever look down and see them in her eyes again. He prayed for snow. He picked a sprig of rosemary and remembered. And every so often, when he was alone at night, he cried.
Alec stared off in the distance, remembering. Like the ribbons on a Maypole she had twisted and twined her way into his life. He laughed to himself. What life? He'd had no life before Scottish. He'd had his pride and his name, neither of which mattered to him anymore.
That cold shell of a life seemed to have existed long, long ago. Now he had a brother he loved, but still the house was empty, lonely, cold. Without Joy he could find no peace. He felt wounded, and he knew with surety that he would never heal without her.
He craved her magic. But it wasn't her witchcraft—weak and feeble and often disastrous—that he needed as surely as he needed breath. It was Scottish. The strongest magic she had was herself.
The clouds above the garden broke a bit. Rain sprinkled the flagstone walks. Alec wondered if she was crying. He closed his eyes briefly, then let go of the elm tree.
***
Alec watched the door of his study close in the wake of the royal messenger. He turned back to stare down at the royal invitation to the fete in honor of His Grace, the Duke of Wellington. He tossed it across the desk. "I don't give a bloody damn who the prince is honoring, I'm not going to
London
. I won't leave until I find her."
"I take it there's been no word." Downe sat across the room, twirling a cane.
Alec shook his head. "Nothing. Not a thing for two months. I received the report from
Surrey
last week. She's not there. The Lockleys knew nothing. I've got every man I could hire turning all of
England
upside down. All reports are the same. She's disappeared. The only reports I've yet to receive are from James and Fitzwater. They're combing the isle of
Mull
."
Seymour
fumbled with the growing collection of charms that weighted the chain on his waistcoat, then looked up. "Thought I spotted her myself a week ago in
London
. I scared the wits out of Billingham's wife. He almost called me out. From the back she looked exactly like Joy."
"You'd think there would be some clue. Something," Downe said, frowning.
Alec sagged back in his chair and shook his head in defeat. "She's gone. I don't think I'm ever going to find her." He looked at his friends. "Where else can I look? There's got to be some clue, something I've missed."
"Did those two servants ever come back?" Downe asked. "What were their names again?"
"Hungan John and Forbes."
He nodded, then looked uncomfortably at Alec. "Do you suppose they had anything to do with her disappearance?"
Alec shook his head. He suspected that Joy had had something to do with their disappearance, but he couldn't explain that to Downe, so he lied and said they had been checked out. There was nothing else he could do but wait and hope. He clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Where the hell would a witch go?
As he mentally cataloged the possibilities for the thousandth time, the room became silent, too silent. It drew his gaze from the ceiling to his two friends.
Downe seemed caught off his guard, and
Seymour
's mouth gaped open. The viscount closed his mouth and drew himself up straighter. "Seems a tad out of line to call Joy a witch, Belmore."
Seymour
's tone was defensive.
He had spoken aloud. He was going out of his mind. Insane.
Seymour harped on, "Joy's no witch. Everyone knows witches look like that old hag that told us about her in the first place."
Alec blinked once, then slowly looked up. The clock ticked away the seconds. Alec slammed his hands on the desk with a bang and shot to his feet. "Bloody hell! That's it! The old woman. I'd forgotten about her. But that's it!" He crossed the room, his long legs eating up the distance in three strides.
His hand on the doorknob, he turned back to his friends, who were scrambling to follow. "I'm going to search every street corner in town until I find her." He ripped open the doors and shouted, "Henson! Pack my things. We're leaving for London."
His deep voice echoed down the marble halls, and three maids looked up in fright at the duke running toward them, shouting. He stopped in front of one of them and pointed at her. "Mary White."
The maid nodded, clutching her feather duster to her white apron.
He looked at the next maid and said, "Mary Jones."
She nodded and remembered to curtsy.
He turned to the third maid, whose head was already bent almost to her knees. "Mary Brown."
She slowly looked up and nodded.
The Duke of Belmore smiled. "Well, Marys, don't stand there. Run and tell Stephen, we're going to London."
Chapter 30
One month later, the
London
season was at its peak. Balls and soirees ate up the idle time of the quality, and provided gossip and scandal—daily sustenance of a starving ton. Just last week news had arrived from the Continent that a certain countess was seen in
Paris
on the arm of the brother of her husband's current mistress. This latest
on-dit
set aside the rampant speculation about the strange behavior of the Duke of Belmore. It was whispered between deals at snug little card parties and teas that he'd gone batty with grief at the disappearance of his duchess. Rumor had it that he'd been accosting the flower sellers on the street corners. The Duke of Belmore!
But this week the gossips had new fodder: the prince's fete—the largest single event of this flamboyant season— was to take place tonight. From early in the morning, ladies had begun to flutter and flit, donning jewels and silks, feathers and fans, preparing to flaunt their wealth and taste before those who
mattered.
Before their mirrors, gentlemen practiced the brooding stares that would gain them the mystique of a dark poet. They perfected that smooth pinch of snuff and the turning of a fine masculine leg.
The royal musicians tuned up their violins, cellos, and flutes and the finest florists in
London
delivered the hundreds of imported potted lemon trees, which had become the Rage. As was done before, the trees would line the ballroom at Carlton House, a sight that was rumored to have cost in the thousands of pounds. The Regent, however, refused to be bothered by ha'pennies, for tonight the ton would welcome home
England
's newest peer and hero, the Duke of Wellington.
The Belmore carriage was one of the hundreds that lined the route to Carlton House. Packed three deep from
Pall Mall
to the top of St. James's Street, the conveyances stood waiting to deposit their occupants at the corner where Horse Guards framed the entrance line to the gates. So here was the whole of the ton, sitting in their carriages in the light of the new gas lamps, dressed up in all their finery, and waiting to pay tribute to their hero and their prince.
"Blast it all! What a crush!"
Seymour
opened the carriage window and stuck his coppery head outside.
"Watch out for my leg,
Seymour
." The Earl of Downe rapped the viscount with his cane.
Seymour
poked his head back inside and glanced at Downe's leg. "Oh, sorry 'bout that. Forgot all about your foot."
"Damned female," the earl muttered and adjusted his foot so it was well out of the way of his eager friend.
"What damned female?" Stephen asked in innocent curiosity. Alec turned and glared at Downe.
The earl stammered through some kind of explanation that
Seymour
said was a "lame excuse" and then explained his pun to Stephen, who laughed after a few minutes of thought. The regent had come across Alec and his brother in the park early one morning and had taken a particular liking to Stephen Castlemaine. The lad had shown such an extensive knowledge of plants and flowers—a subject dear to the regent's heart, since he was midway through the design of his personal gardens—that Prinny had requested another audience with the duke's brother.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury quietly commented that the younger Castlemaine was a bit slow, the prince had angrily replied, "So was Moses," which silenced the royal contingent. Within a day, Stephen Castlemaine had become a royal favorite. Alec still chose to protect his brother, preferring to keep him away from fickle society, but tonight he'd agreed to let Stephen accompany them.