The Duchess Hunt (6 page)

But before she had a chance to adequately
process this new information or to consider her options further, he repeated in
a low growl, “Promise, Sarah.”

“I promise,” she breathed. She didn’t take
her eyes from his lips. Her voice could have fluttered away on the wings of a
butterfly.

He straightened and took a step back.
“Good.” He gave a short nod, but his eyes had lightened, and his hungry gaze
burned hot under her skin. “Good night, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”

With that, he swiveled and retreated down
the path, leaving her to watch his broad, wool-covered shoulders recede into
the darkness, her heart galloping again.

Chapter
Three

Simon and Sam woke at dawn the next
morning to search the dower house. As Esme had said, everything was in its
place, with no sign of a struggle or anything untoward – besides the empty safe
and the items missing from it.

After breakfast, Esme and Sarah joined
them to continue the search, while Theo and Mark rode to question the
villagers.

From the moment Sarah walked through the
door of the dower house, Simon’s awareness of her sharpened, honing in on the
small things about her he found so fascinating. The fresh scent of her, like a
meadow after a spring rain. The curve of her waist, the rise and fall of her
bosom, the pale turn of her ankle when her skirt lifted slightly as she leaned
over something. Her pink lips pursed in concentration as she filed through a
sheaf of papers. The way black curls kept falling over her eyes… how his
fingers itched to smooth the hair back, tuck it behind her ear.

When he’d touched her last night, felt the
soft flesh of her chin pressing against his fingertips, his body had hardened
and his cock had stirred, straining against the material of his pantaloons.
He’d looked into those wide blue eyes, had studied the contrast of her dark
lashes and brows against her porcelain skin, and he had grown uncomfortably
hard. He’d wanted to brush his fingers over the slant of her cheekbones, press
his lips to that soft, pink mouth, lay her down on the bench…

Hell.

He wished that part of him that had become
so wildly attracted to Sarah Osborne would retreat. This was neither the time
nor the place, and as much as his body told him otherwise, Sarah was most
certainly not the woman.

And, for God’s sake, his mother was
missing.

They were all in the duchess’s bedchamber,
Sarah and Esme going through the bedside tables while Simon and Sam searched
their mother’s desk drawers, when Sarah said, “Ooh. They didn’t take all the
jewelry, then.”

Simon turned to see her holding up
something small between her thumb and forefinger. He frowned. “What is it?”

“It’s a ring,” she said. They all gathered
around to see the object she transferred to her palm so they could view it more
clearly.

“Mother’s ring.” He gazed at the
diamond-encrusted gold. She never took it off – hadn’t since the day his father
had given it to her as a wedding gift. Simon’s grandfather had purchased the
ring for his grandmother on a long-ago trip to the Continent.

After a long silence in which no one
moved, Esme asked warily, “Why is it not on her finger?”

“Perhaps she removed it before retiring at
night?” Sarah suggested. “It was in her bedside table.”

“Although her bed is made,” Sam said, “so
we know she wasn’t forcefully taken from it.”

“She could have been… taken… just before
she went to bed.” Esme nearly garbled the word
taken
. “Everything is laid out on her dressing table as if she was
preparing for bed.”

That was true. There was a basin full of
water and soap scum, long since grown cold. A cosmetics jar was open on the
dressing table, and the duchess’s brush had strands of hair in its bristles as
if she’d just finished combing her hair.

“Yes,” Sam agreed. “Though if she was
removed from this house against her will, she didn’t put up much of a struggle.
If she had, things wouldn’t be so orderly.”

“And yet if she knew she would be
leaving,” Sarah mused, “she wouldn’t have been preparing for bed.”

“Perhaps the person she left the dower
house with was someone she knew,” Simon said.

“Oh, that doesn’t help at all,” Esme
whispered. “She is acquainted with
everyone
.”

“It does narrow the field a bit, though.”
Simon took the ring from Sarah’s open hand and slipped it into his pocket.
“I’ll keep it safe until she returns to us.”

Simon met Sarah’s gaze. He stared into her
lovely blue eyes for a long moment, heat creeping beneath his skin, before he
returned to himself and looked away.

“Let’s finish here,” he said in a brisk
voice.

After he’d gone to bed last night, he
hadn’t been able to push the images from his mind. He’d lain there, wide awake,
his skin crawling with need, craving Sarah Osborne under him. Now, as he sifted
through the duchess’s papers, none of them providing a clue as to what had
happened to her, worries about his mother’s fate battled with fantasies of
Sarah’s warm, naked, slender form arching against his.

Every nerve in his body heated, reaching
out for her. Craving her. Every time she glanced at him, heat scorched through
him. Need, rising and burning, aching and demanding.

His body paid no heed to his strict
attempts at discipline, to his notions of honor and responsibility.

He wanted her.

God help him.

After a quick luncheon, Simon began to
question the staff. Over and over again, he asked the same questions and
received the same answers.

“When was the last time you saw the
duchess?”

“’Bout a week ago, Your Grace.”

“Where?”

“Out and about on the property.”

“Did anything seem odd about her? Was she
behaving differently in any way?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you seen anyone besides the staff
and family on the grounds of Ironwood Park recently?”

“No, sir.”

And on and on. Until one of the coachmen
entered the saloon through the double doors of dark, heavy oak.

He was a new employee, tall, dark-haired,
and dark-eyed, and clearly he had never been inside the saloon before, for he
gazed in unabashed wonder at the octagon-shaped ceiling painted with an image
of Apollo driving into the sun.

Simon had not been introduced to this man,
and evidently none of his brothers had either, for none of them greeted him.
Sarah was the one to rise from a gilded red velvet armchair, one of several
arranged about the vast room. She came forward to stand beside the man and make
the introductions.

“Your Grace, this is Robert Johnston, the
new coachman. He has been at Ironwood Park since September of last year.”

“Mr. Johnston,” Simon acknowledged with a
tilt of his head.

Sarah introduced the man to Simon’s
brothers one by one, and when they were finished, Johnston turned his attention
back to Sarah, his mouth quirked in something of a smile as his gaze took her
in. Simon saw interest in that gaze.

He didn’t like it.

He arranged the sheets of paper that were
lying on the table in front of him and stacked them with loud taps on the
polished wood surface. Johnston’s attention snapped back to him.

“We’ve brought you here to ask you some
questions. You are acquainted with the duchess, correct?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I drive her to the
village often.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Johnston tilted his head, considered.
“Well, I’d say that’d be just over a week ago. Last time I drove for her.”

“Did anything seem odd about her? Was she
behaving differently in any way?”

“No, sir. She was kind and friendly as
always. She gave me some pennies to go to the pub for a pint while she was at
her ladies’ gathering.”

Mark snorted. “Of course she did,” he said
under his breath.

“And you drove her home after that?” Simon
asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And there were no odd occurrences or
incidents that you recall on that day?”

“No, sir. None.”

Looking down at the papers he held, Simon
blew a breath through clenched teeth. Not one blasted soul had seen or heard
anything odd. His mother had seemingly vanished into thin air.

Johnston cleared his throat, and Simon
glanced up to see him looking at Sarah again, who was giving him an encouraging
nod. Johnston turned back to Simon. There was hesitation in his voice when he
said, “There was one thing, though.”

Simon set down the papers on the table.
Very slightly, he leaned forward. “Tell me.”

“I did see – and hear – something I’d
count as odd. Not that last day I drove Her Grace, but days later. Two days,
maybe.” He scrunched his forehead as if trying to remember.

Everyone waited in suspended silence for
him to continue.

He glanced at Sarah again as if asking
permission, and she nodded again, urging him with her expression.

“It was early evening. It’d been pouring
down rain all day, but it had finally let up, and the moon was providing a bit
of light, so I’d gone out to exercise one of the mares. I saw a cart in the
driveway of the dower house as I passed it. I’ve seen carts there before, mind,
when something’s being delivered to Her Grace and such. But this cart didn’t
belong to anyone I knew, and it was drawn by asses, not horses. And the back
was piled high” – he gestured above his head to demonstrate – “but I couldn’t
tell what with. ’Twas all covered by oiled woolen blankets, water from the
earlier rain still dribbling off the pile down the sides.

“I rode on, not giving it much thought
beyond that. I had ridden behind the dower house when I heard it.”

“Heard what?” Theo breathed.

Johnston swallowed. “Well, sir… it was
shouting. Coming somewhere from the upper story – I couldn’t rightly tell which
window it came from. It sounded like the duchess was yelling at someone.”

“What was she saying?” Simon asked.

Johnston looked a little pink now. “I
couldn’t hear it all, Your Grace. But I thought I heard ‘fool’ and ‘bloody
idiot’ and ‘how dare he!’” Again, he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I
was… er… rather discomfited, sir, and I thought the duchess wouldn’t like me
eavesdropping. It wasn’t my place to listen to a private conversation like
that. So I turned the horse and rode away.”

“Did she sound like she was afraid?” Sam
asked.

“Why, no sir. She sounded very angry.
Angrier than I’d have ever thought a lady like that was capable of. It sounded
like she wanted someone’s blood. Honestly…” Blushing full-on now, the tips of
his ears scarlet, he said, “I thought she might be beating one of the
servants.”

Simon supposed that Johnston was new
enough to Ironwood Park that he could forgive him for thinking that. Any of the
older staff would never have considered such a thing.

“Did you hear anyone else?” Sam asked.
“Was anyone else speaking?”

“No, ’twas just Her Grace. Or,” he
amended, “I thought it was.” He frowned again. “It did sound like her, but her
voice was raised so high and angry, I can’t be completely sure of it.”

“Oh, it was Mama, all right,” Mark
mumbled. “I’d bet my dinner on it.”

Simon would, too. Their mother rarely lost
her temper, but when she did she lost it monstrously.

“Have you anything else you can tell us,
Johnston?” Simon asked him.

Johnston’s forehead lined with thought.
“Can’t say as I have, Your Grace.”

“All right. If you think of anything else,
you must come to me straightaway.”

“Yes, sir.”

He dismissed the coachman, and Sarah
walked him out. As soon as the door closed behind them, Mark asked, “What the
devil could have made Mama so angry?”

Sam blew out a breath. “Who knows? Nothing
that we found in the house gave us any clues.”

His brothers continued talking, but Simon
kept glancing at the door, wishing Sarah would return. He didn’t like the way
the coachman had looked at her. He didn’t like her being alone with him.

“What do you think, Trent?” Mark was
asking.

Simon dragged his attention from the door.
“About what?”

“Do you think we should all leave Ironwood
Park tomorrow?” Mark repeated.

Simon kept his gaze cool, and he leveled
it on his brother. “Yes. Since we haven’t unearthed any answers here, we’ll all
leave to our respective destinations tomorrow, as planned. Except you, Mark.”