My Seductive Innocent (31 page)

Sophia stared at him for a long moment. He looked vaguely familiar. “Have we met?”

His eyes widened. “Yes,” he mumbled. “Yes, we have. I wasn’t going to mention it unless you did, because I wasn’t sure...” He shifted his weight awkwardly from his good leg to his cane. His knuckles curled tightly around the top of the cane and turned white. Sophia dragged her gaze back to his face, ashamed she had been staring. Around her, the group was silent.

Then the memory of when she’d met Mr. Ellison hit her, and she gasped. “You were lost and I gave you directions!”

“That’s right,” he nodded.

Sophia recalled it all now. “How funny! I told Nathan about you when
he
was lost. He said if I’d just directed him where to turn to find Mr. Bantry’s he could have. He was so pompous about it.” She laughed at the memory. “And I recalled you and told him how―” She caught sight of the deep flush that had crept up Mr. Ellison’s cheeks, and she halted her words. How unthinking of her to retell a story that painted the man as a fool. No one here need know what had happened. She took a deep breath. “I told him he likely would have found it, since you had, and was sorry I’d insisted on taking him to Mr. Bantry’s myself because I’d delayed him. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been shot.”

“Shot?” the beautiful woman exclaimed. “When was Scarsdale shot?”

Sophia wished she had kept her mouth shut. She was going to have to explain it all now. Maybe Nathan didn’t want everyone to know. Before she could speak, Mr. Ellison stepped near her and gave her a reassuring smile. “Scarsdale was shot on the road between the duchess’s father’s pub and the horse trainer he was searching for. Likely it was thieves after some jewels.”

Sophia shook her head. “No. They were trying to―”

“Enough!” Lady Anthony snapped. “Neither the Duchess of Aversley nor her husband has time to stand around and listen to fanciful tales. We’ve come to tell you that Scarsdale is missing.”

“What?” Surely, she could not have heard correctly.

“He is missing,” the woman snapped.

“Oh, do be quiet!” the Duchess of Aversley snapped herself. “Can you not see you’ve given her a shock?”

Was she shocked? Sophia knitted her brows, trying to make her mind answer the question. The ground did seem to be swaying. She reached out to grab something to steady herself and Mr. Burk was there suddenly, like a solid, immovable tree. He gripped her elbow. “Are ye all right, Yer Grace?”

She nodded, studying the four faces around her. Three held lines of concern, and one, Nathan’s aunt, held annoyance. Sophia wet her lips and forced her throat to work, despite the fact that she was sure it wouldn’t since her heart had lodged itself there. “How long?” Was she whispering? She cleared her throat and tried again. “Where was he last seen? Is anything known?”

Lady Anthony rattled out another long, annoyed sigh. “Let us have this conversation back at the house. It’s entirely too cold to stand around outside explaining it all.” She turned on her heel and the word
No
shattered the brief silence.

Sophia couldn’t say how long she stood there, not realizing she’d been the one to screech, but after the blood that was roaring in her ears abated, coherent thought returned. Her heart still slammed unmercifully against her ribs, but she looked around the group and acknowledged mixed expressions of horror and shock leveled at her. She had screamed. She should be embarrassed, but in this moment, she didn’t care. A league of horses could not drag her back inside until she had all the information they did about what had happened to Nathan.

His aunt sucked in a deep breath that made Sophia stiffen. “How dare you―”

“Cease talking,” Sophia ground out, not caring that she was being rude and unladylike. “Which one of you can tell me what happened?”

The handsome man, who she could only assume to be the Duke of Aversley, stepped forward, bringing his wife with him. She came to Sophia’s side and took her hand. “No one knows for sure.”

“The Bow Street Runners are on the case,” Mr. Ellison added.

“I’ve hired a private investigator, as well,” the duke supplied.

“When did he disappear?” Sophia’s voice was gravelly, and the ground was doing that funny tilting thing again.

“The night after he came back to London,” the duke said. “His curricle was at the docks, so we know he’d been there.” The duke stopped talking and glanced to his wife, who nodded. He swiped a hand across his face. “It seems he never left, however.”

She hadn’t known she’d grown to love Nathan so much until this moment. Sophia’s heart splintered as sure as if it were made of china and someone had bashed it with an enormous piece of wood. She sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed her eyes shut on a wave of piercing, nauseating pain. A hand came to her elbow again, and Sophia forced herself to open her eyes. The Duke of Aversley gripped her. “Are you all right, Duchess?”

“Sophia,” she interrupted. “Call me Sophia.”

He inclined his head. “As you wish it.”

She smiled weakly and glanced at his wife. “You must call me Sophia, too.”

The woman nodded, reached into her reticule, and held out a handkerchief to Sophia. “You must call me Amelia. My dear, you are crying.”

Sophia glanced at the handkerchief still in Amelia’s grasp, then swiped a hand across her cheek and blinked in surprise. Amelia was right. She was crying. Her world was spinning out of control. She took the handkerchief and dabbed first her cheeks and then her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sure Nathan would be mortified at my display.”

Amelia smiled and then hugged Sophia. “And I’m sure he’d be pleased to know you care so much.”

Sophia was so grateful to have Amelia and her husband here to buffer Nathan’s aunt. And she was glad, she supposed, his cousin was here, too. He seemed nice enough, though he did keep casting wary glances between her and his mother. She took a long, steadying breath. “What can I do to help find him?”

“He’d want you to stay here where it’s safe,” the duke replied, and Amelia nodded her agreement.

Amelia squeezed Sophia’s hand. “I’m sure they will locate him in a few days. In the meantime, we will stay here with you, if you would like.”

“All of you?” Sophia couldn’t help but hope Lady Anthony was leaving.

Mr. Ellison nodded. “Yes. We should be together at a time like this. We are family.”

She thought she saw a grim smile pull at Lady Anthony’s lips.
Family.
Her heart, which she’d been sure could not splinter further proved her wrong and opened like a yawning, cavernous hole. The sound of the crack echoed in her ears. Nathan and her brother were her family. Certainly not his aunt. And she didn’t know his cousin well enough to judge yet.

She grasped Amelia’s hand, very glad she had offered to stay. She felt more at ease with her and the duke than Nathan’s relatives, and that realization sent a pang of sadness through her for Nathan. She struggled to fight the tears that threatened to come again.

R
avensdale’s men held both Nathan’s arms as the man’s fist connected with his face time and again. The ship he’d woken up on dipped underneath his feet in the rough, stormy waters, but the movement didn’t stop Ravensdale’s onslaught. The sound of bone crunching filled Nathan’s ears, and darkness overtook him.

H
e awoke in blackness to a boot kicking him in the side. It connected with his ribs and he coughed until he thought he might die. Several pairs of hands gripped him and jerked him to his feet. His head lolled as he was dragged out of the darkness and into the bright day. Immediately, he was blinded, unaccustomed now to the light. And the sounds―the lapping of waves, calls of the birds overhead, men moving about the ship and talking, and the hum of the water parting as the ship glided across it―were deafening, threatening to drive him mad.

A hand gripped the back of his still-lolling head and yanked up his face. He forced himself to open his eyes, though the fever ravaging his body made even that slight task seem almost impossible. Ravensdale stood before him with a smirk on his face. “Ready to address me as captain yet?”

Nathan didn’t bother to answer. He simply spat at Ravensdale’s boots.

His reward was a hard jab to the gut that sent him slumping forward almost to the ground, except he was snatched back up at the last moment. Ravensdale stepped so close to Nathan he could smell the liquor seeping out of the fiend’s pores. “I’ll tell you what, Scarsdale. Since you refuse to call me
Captain
, I’m going to make a special trip back to Whitecliffe after I leave you with the pirates, and I’m going to find your new duchess and bed her every way you can imagine.”

Rage exploded in Nathan’s head and through his veins in painful shots. He roared and wrenched his arms out of the grip of the man who held him and locked his hands around Ravensdale’s neck with only one thought in mind. He was going to kill him. He was going to cut off his air and watch him die.

Ravensdale’s face turned red and white as he clawed at Nathan’s hands. The thugs grabbed him, trying to tear him away from Ravensdale. He thought he heard shouting, but his blood roared in his ears as he pictured Ravensdale touching Sophia. Someone punched him in the side, but he didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He squeezed harder and harder, determination making him feel invincible. Something hit him in the head with such force his legs buckled instantly and blackness consumed him once more.

H
is legs were on fire! Nathan’s eyes popped open, and he tried to surge upward to bat at his legs but he was tied down. He squinted against the light, and when his eyes finally adjusted, he opened them slowly, again to the face of Ravensdale. Nathan’s gaze immediately went to the man’s black-and-blue neck. Ravensdale’s eyes narrowed on him. “You surprised me with your determination to kill me, Scarsdale. I didn’t think you had murder in you.”

Nathan swallowed, his throat incredibly dry. “For you I have it in me.” His voice was cracked and creaky, not having been used much in the days since he’d been taken.

“You’ll not get another chance,” Ravensdale said and motioned behind him. A young boy stepped forward holding a bucket that sloshed. “Again,” Ravensdale commanded as he stepped back and the boy stepped forward, then tilted his bucket over Nathan’s legs. Instant heat seared the gash and the bullet wound in his legs, and he had to fight blacking out again.
Salt water.
The sting of the salt against the raw open wounds felt akin to being set on fire. Nathan gritted his teeth against the pain, which ebbed slightly, and perspiration dampened his brow.

Ravensdale motioned the boy away and moved back toward Nathan. “The physician will be here shortly to examine you.”

“Afraid to untie me?” Nathan croaked.

“Not afraid. Just smart. You’re going to stay locked below for the next two days until we reach Saint-Malo. I’ll be stopping there to pick up a Barbary corsair I’m hiring and to hand you over to be a slave on his brother’s ship—payment for the corsair’s services in helping me capture some white slaves, you see. I must thank you, really. Your betrayal has made me quite rich.”

“Glad I could be of service,” Nathan snarled as the door banged open and a pirate came in with an older man leaning heavily against him while singing a lusty tune. The pirate looked at Ravensdale. “Dr. Rowley’s been at the spirits again.”