The Duke (Daughters of Dishonour #2)

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

I t was a similar sensation, Kit realised, to the feeling he’d experienced when he’d rounded the corner and seen his parents’ ruined carriage all those months ago. A wreck that had no chance of survival, with only his sister thrown clear.

It was the feeling of utter hopelessness.

Far worse than the pain of his injury because he feared this might be permanent. The kind of emotion that encircled him swirled around Elsie’s bedroom where he was standing, as if the feeling was drawing a tighter and tighter pincer movement around him, threatening to cut off his breath and all feeling of logic.

He wanted to cry, scream, and rant just as Samson and Flora were indulging in the former. Hell, he wanted to kill anyone and everyone who threatened the peace and tranquillity he had found with Elsie. After she had agreed to marry him, after discovering what Peterson had been doing, Kit had believed this half-life of his was over, but no… It would never be.

He had imagined after making love to her, after the proposal, there would be a softness and ease to their existence, but this burning all-consuming need for Elsie wasn’t something that he could hide from her. After all, it was not an emotion most young ladies would wish to manage. And now all that strength of feeling was alive in him. The murderous fury simmered through him, but the only people present were a hysterical maid and his younger sister who had followed him into the chamber.

Kit picked through the items of paraphernalia that littered the chamber, including a half-written letter, and a collection of poetry that had her looping scrawl on the first page of the book. Elsie’s discarded belongings scattered here and there, including the ripped ballgown that he had torn when they had first made love… he had never told her that. Never said the truth, why he wished to marry her, hoping instead the sexual connection and the promised stability of marriage would be enough for the pair of them. No, it was more than that, worse than that, for he had hoped. Instead, she merely thought he loved her since he had been a coward who could not muster the courage to admit his feelings.

“Kit?” The voice was soft, low, and called him back to the present moment. Kit looked up from the pile of belongings that remained of Elsie. Her fresh-air scent clung tauntingly in the air, and his eyes moved to his sister. For once he would have liked to be alone. To be able to dismiss his younger sister and be selfish. Flora might be his responsibility, but at this moment, he could not manage her as well as everything else that was thundering through him. Would he—should he send for the local magistrate? Or would it be better to hire an investigator? No, perhaps all the servants could scour the estate for her… unless…

Flora was hugging herself, her face wan from the sight of the bedroom. As she moved and made herself look at him, Kit saw there was a secret bubbling up in her, and for one crazed second, he wondered if she was somehow involved in Elsie’s disappearance. What could his innocent, clueless sister know what she had not said to him when she’d had the opportunity previously?

“What is it?” he asked.

“There is something you should know.” Flora took a tentative step forward, and every wild thing that Kit had been envisioning doing next crumbled away because of his sister’s expression. Doubt and guilt clouded her face. Before he knew what he was about, Kit had closed the distance between Flora and himself, his fingers biting into her forearms.

“What do you know?”

“I—” the tears were increasing, and she swiped at her face, in part attempting to push him away from her. “That hurts, Kit.” She wriggled against his grip, but Kit did not release her. Flora knew something, and she had to tell him.

“Does it concern Elsie? If there is something I need to know—a chance that she might be found…”

“I don’t know—but I think so…”

“Her room—this is what Peterson did to you, but perhaps he managed —”

“It was never solely him.” Flora’s words were said loudly enough to stop Kit’s thoughts and silence him before every one of them suddenly crowded back in. Of course, there had to be others. Of course, there needed to be another person. People—perhaps the whole household, the whole county. “Mrs. Clarke, at first I thought—” Flora sniffed and sucked in a long breath. “I was a fool. I thought she was my friend. You see, I was sure the crash and your injury were my fault, and I went to her…”

“She told you it was your mistake?”

“Always through implication and allusion, I see that now. I should have said something but… I thought if we were leaving, it didn’t matter. But between them—the butler and Mrs. Clarke—they would procure me a means to be able to sleep. Until that evening when only he came…”

“I’ve seen them together.” Samson suddenly spoke up, her utterance causing both Kit and Flora to turn towards her questioningly. “My Clary—that is, I mean,” she stammered as she looked between Kit and Lady Flora. “I’ve heard several people say, and I witnessed them exchange a kiss or two. Nothing worth mentioning. At least, I never thought it was.” Stricken, she looked down at the floor. “That is before now.”

“It isn’t just your fault.” His sister sucked in a breath and gripped Kit’s arm. “Mrs. Clarke… it was always her.” Lifting pleading eyes up to his face, Flora seemed to come alive as she wetted her lips and proceeded after he nodded. “She found me after the carriage crash. When I was frozen in place, and no words would come to me. At first, I thought she meant to comfort me, but I see now that was never her intention.”

“She meant ill?” The question, though an obvious one, slipped from his mouth before Kit could stop himself. It jarred with his recollections and interactions with Mrs. Clarke, which had been polite and perfunctory. Meaning he could think of no reason why the woman—he conjured up the image of her before him: sleek dark hair, over fifty, with a strong handsome face—would have meant ill towards Flora. After all, the woman had been in the family’s employ for a good five years before the crash, her opaque eyes and practical responses making her a perfect servant. One which Kit would never have turned towards her in accusation.

“At first, she was so kind. The model of the mother I had just lost and needed so dearly. She made me believe, as the weeks slipped by, that staying silent was a strong weapon to use to get what I wanted. Embracing a quality so I would stay under her control.” Flora cast her gaze down and paced to the fireplace, her hands twisting. “She made me believe that you blamed me too.”

Mutely, Kit shook his head. The same guilt had pumped angrily through him, and he had not had an older and manipulative woman tricking him to believe such things. The memory of the housekeeper proved to be a hollow mask that he reasoned was all he had ever been designed to see, and the truth was soon uttered forth from his sister.

“When Miss Keating arrived and spoke of London, of leaving, it was close to redemption—I thought we all would be trapped in the manor house forever. ”

But she was gone. Stolen away by the woman who’d poisoned it…

Moving to his sister’s side, Kit placed a quick kiss on her forehead. “None of this was your fault. Or mine.” The words said aloud thrummed through him, and through the chamber, and felt close to a godsend. So much so that Kit gave himself the grace to believe it. Then he released Flora and turned towards the wet eyed maid. “Take us to Mrs. Clarke’s room and then go fetch your man, Clary, you said?”

In the servant’s wake, both Kit and Flora followed, down dark passages of the manor house, that neither were familiar with until a door was pushed open, and Kit was greeted by a wave of sunshine. The sheer brightness was in such a contrast to what he’d expected, he had to hold up his hand to block it out. Some of the day had been lost already and slipping away from him, along with all his hoped-for plans of departing the manor. To his disappointment but not surprise the little room was bare of people or clues.

On stepping inside Kit surveyed the space with as much attention as he could, hoping against reason or logic for some rationale of where Mrs. Clarke might have taken Elsie. Desperately he tried to cling to the hope that the housekeeper could not be entirely mad—perhaps it was merely money she wanted for Peterson, her lover and herself. For a long trip, say, or a magnificent house somewhere. Well, if that was so, she could have it, provided Elsie was returned without a hair on her head hurt. Kit would barter, beg, steal, and sell anything that remained in the manor in order to have Elsie back. If required, he would give himself…

The room though, with its simple bed pushed against the far wall, its white sheets tucked in neatly, its wooden table and chair in the other corner, gave away nothing.

Behind him, Kit could hear a whispered conversation between his sister and the maid, where Flora asked the girl to fetch the London driver discreetly. How much of the household had to be aware of what Mrs. Clarke had done? That was why he needed the man, Clary as an outsider could be trusted, Kit reasoned. The rest of the staff, he was not so sure.

Surely this had to be an explanation for Elsie’s absence, didn’t it? The question gnawed through Kit, and he pushed it away as he tipped the bed over, checking the other side for some kind of clue. Fear started to trick its way up his back. If what the housekeeper wanted was money, then surely, she would have left a note or a list of demands, some way of communicating with him.

“Kit?” Flora’s question pulled him back to himself, out of the grim darkness that was threatening to claim him without Elsie’s presence. His sister walked forward, slipping an arm around him and pressing her head against his chest. “I knew I should have said something sooner, but I was scared. The woman frightened me.”

In truth, Mrs. Clarke was scaring him too. Nothing about her actions made sense. Absent, he patted his sister’s back. “I would never blame you.”

“That is just as well as you look ready to commit a murder,” Flora said. She slipped out of his arms and walked closer to the discarded bed and thin blanket left in a sprawled mess before them. Crouching down, Flora ran her hand over the cotton as Kit opened his mouth to speak, thinking Flora meant to tidy up the bedding. He saw her tear a hole in the mattress, ripping the white seams wide. Out spilled bits of cotton, pieces of straw and feather, and a heavy jumble of letters. Marked and posted from London. Addressed to his Elsie and even to himself. But also, to a woman called Nettley .

Turning wide eyes up to him, Flora gazed in confusion at him. There were dozens of pieces of information here, and it might take hours to read this. His sister’s hand snaked out to the closest letter. Fury burnt through him, and fear that this would be the only way to find his love. With a defeated nod, Kit grabbed up a letter too. If it were the best way of finding Elsie, then he would help.

It felt a great deal longer than Kit would have expected to go through the letters. There were a great many of them, and every page had to be read and checked for a single detail that might provide a clue on where Mrs. Clarke had taken Elsie.

Flora read too. Then when Samson returned with Clary, who could read, he too joined in. A majority of the pages were drafted by the estate’s lawyer in London, a Mr. Holt detailing Kit’s role and urging him to come to Town. One included alongside the lawyer’s missive was from Kit’s uncle, dated around when his parents had died, explaining a mystery around a rare collection of diamonds that had blighted the family for decades. Within his letter, Kit’s uncle had begged him to come to London and help protect him. A wedge of icy guilt slid into Kit’s gut, especially when another letter from Elsie’s sister, announcing herself to be his cousin, Margot, claimed she was on the hunt for the diamonds and the killer who had tried to rob them as well as kill his uncle. Kit’s mind tucked this information away, and the remaining three gasped at the revelations.

“But is there anything about Elsie?” He had given up trying to be ducal or proper, and just called his beloved by her given name.

“Not yet.” Flora had sunk onto her knees as she stared down at the pages. “It is all very exciting to hear about what’s happened—piecing it all together.”

“Poor Miss Keating—the older lady, I mean,” Samson added, “I only got to see her briefly, but having to chase around Town like that…”

Clary, who was close to her, frowned clearly trying his best to signal to his lover that she was being far from discreet. He got to his feet and passed the letter he had been reading over to Kit. “Your Grace.” He, unlike Samson, Flora, or Kit, refused to bend propriety and was sticking to convention as best he could. “I can’t make head nor tail of this one. It’s addressed to a Mother.”

Kit scanned the page, his gaze alighting on the poorly written words, more of a scribble than a true letter, and a shift occurred within him. This was what he’d feared—the motivation for whatever Mrs. Clarke had done with Elsie.

Mamma,

It’s done. Or I am. The bitch stabbed me. As you feared. I will do my best to rid you of them, but I fear that even the doctor can’t do anything. I’ve got the keys and a theory where the stones are—in the old codger’s house, but I don’t know if I’ll manage it.

Hopefully, the luck of the devil will continue to bless me, and if not, know I died your loving son—Francis Nettley

Flora, who had come to stand next to him, read the letter and gasped at the contents. It fit with what they’d read from their cousin Margot about a man called Francis Nettley, trying to break into the duke’s townhouse, and dying in the grounds. They had been lodging the woman who had murdered Kit’s uncle. She had been waiting like a spider for the perfect time to strike.

“When was that dated? The letter from Margot?” Kit scrambled forward, snatching up the most recent from the pile of letters they had designated as belonging to his cousin. Her neat feminine hand laid out much of the drama in London, whilst clearly growing increasingly keen to hear from her younger sister, or indeed from the duke himself. “Just two days.” He turned it over in his hand as he re-read Margot’s words about the dead man. Mrs. Clarke’s son. The housekeeper must have seen it, after all the envelope was torn and the letter stuffed in here. She had her motivation for revenge. And it seemed like she had set her targets on Elsie.

The letter was crushed in his hand as hopelessness rode through him, any lingering idea of rescuing her started to crumble. After all, Mrs. Clarke had planned everything out. She was an adversary worthy of that name, and none of his family had even been away from her before this point.

Looking around the chamber, Kit got to his feet. “I want you to take both Lady Flora and Samson to Exeter.” He drew out his wallet, handing his sister several notes and then one to Clary and Samson each. “You will all be safer away from here. Find the magistrate and inform him of what’s happened. Once that is done, I want you to get to London. Promise me you won’t wait. You will just go.”

“What about you?” Flora looked uncertain. “Wouldn’t we be more useful looking for Elsie too?”

“I don’t want you in harm’s way.”

Flora nodded, and the four of them hurried through the manor, heading towards the stable. Dusk had fallen and the spring evening was upon them. distantly as they headed down the stairs, Kit glanced up, his eye caught by a faint light outside. He froze, following the movement in the forest. It was moving, not towards the manor house, but out as if intending to go through the forest, out towards the bay.

“Go,” he whispered and broke away from the others, tearing through the house after the faintest of lights.