But it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t send him to Paris, it wouldn’t find Dashing, and it wouldn’t rid him of his desire for Lucia.
Bloody hell. He released Dandridge and allowed Lucia to pull them apart.
“Just leave, please, before he gets up,” she sobbed. “I’m not going to leave you with him.”
He saw her glance at Dandridge. Her fiancé was crouching, arms thrown over his face to shield himself from further blows.
“You can see he’s no threat. I need to explain about my brother. He’ll understand once I explain.” Her voice was high, panicked. Alex wondered whether she was attempting to convince him or herself.
“But you have to go, Selbourne. Leave.”
Alex didn’t move.
“Please, Alex,” she whispered.
“Is that what you want?” Alex flicked a finger at Dandridge, still cowering and emitting small whines of pain.
Lucia closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Her voice was so low that it was a moment before he comprehended her reply. “Yes.”
“I leave you to him.” Turning, Alex strode from the garden. He didn’t look back.
Chapter Thirteen
“Oh!” Lucia winced.
“Sorry, miss. Another tangle.” Jane smiled at Lucia apologetically in the mirror of her rosewood dressing table and raised her weapon again.
“It’s my fault,” Lucia said. “I should have waited for you before I took my hair down.” But it seemed as though she’d been in a hurry about everything tonight. She couldn’t wait to leave Ethan and Francesca’s dinner party and only escaped the ball she was to have attended afterward by pleading a headache. For once her mother hadn’t argued with her, only kissed her forehead and told her to get some rest. After the night she’d had, rest was exactly what she needed. She rolled her stiff neck to get rid of the kinks and nodded absently at whatever Jane was saying.
The worst of it was that she hadn’t even lied about the headache. The pounding in her temples had begun with a vengeance as soon as Alex left the garden, and she’d been forced to soothe Reginald’s bristling temper.
He was angrier than she’d ever seen him. Even confiding her worries about her brother hadn’t dulled his fury. He’d appeared suitably sympathetic but obviously not sympathetic enough to refrain from lecturing her for a quarter of an hour. And, in what Lucia assumed was supposed to be a magnanimous gesture, Reginald had apologized. Well, he’d said he regretted that he’d been forced to behave in such an ungentlemanly fashion, which was the closest Lucia had ever seen him come to an apology. She closed her eyes, trying to still the drumsticks in her head. She prayed Reginald and Alex wouldn’t cross paths again for a long, long time. The mere idea brought the drumsticks back up to tempo.
With a groan, she dismissed Jane and curled up on her bed. Beside her, Gatto purred and kneaded her belly. Lucia could see the life ahead of her all too clearly now, and the picture was bleak. Lady Dandridge was never going to be satisfied with her. The dragon would always be sniffing out some fault or other to be corrected. Reginald was firmly under his mother’s thumb, not that Lucia expected to have any sway with him after tonight’s events anyway, but it was dispiriting to know for a certainty that she’d have little influence in her own marriage. She was miserable, and she wasn’t even married yet.
Her first impulse, as always, was to go to John with her worries. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d needed his advice more.
She rolled onto her back, and Gatto mewed in protest. “Oh, hush,” she said stroking him. Where was John? Was he safe? In good health? She was horribly selfish to be worrying about her own problems when John could be in real danger. But oh, how she needed him. Rising, she pulled on her slippers and lit a candle, then padded down the hallway to his room.
She opened the door and stepped inside. Immediately she felt better. John’s presence was strong here. She could almost smell Guard’s Bouquet, the cologne he favored, and hear his teasing laugh. Everything was exactly as he’d left it. Nothing had been moved, only dusted and straightened. Sinking onto the bed, she wondered if he’d left behind any clues to his whereabouts.
And then she wanted to kick herself because the possibility hadn’t occurred to her before.
But a hundred possibilities occurred to her then. With a rush of excitement, Lucia bounded off the bed and spun in a circle, hardly sure where to begin. She glanced at the small oak desk pushed against the wall near the door and ran to it first. Pulling open each drawer, she rifled through its contents, heedless of the disorder she created. There were bills, invitations—a few love notes. Hmm, those looked interesting . . .
She slammed the drawer. She didn’t have time to read love notes right now, not that she would have anyway . . . well, perhaps just one.
The next drawer was locked, and she hunted for the key but couldn’t find it. She might have to break in later, but things weren’t to the destruction-of-property stage yet. She crouched down, balanced on the balls of her feet next to the desk, and tried to think logically. The desk hadn’t yielded any clues, but John was clever, and it was an obvious hiding place. Where else might John hide something?
Her eyes flicked to the cherry clothespress near the bed. Nothing of interest in there unless . . .
In her haste to rise, she almost tripped over her night robe. With a jerk, she pulled the clothespress’s heavy door open and scanned the contents, then frowned and bit her lip. Everything was as it should be. All of John’s clothes were in their usual order, or disorder, as it were. She noted a few items missing, but wherever he’d gone, he hadn’t taken much with him.
She had the paneled door half shut when she thought of the waistcoat. She grabbed a handful of garments and sorted through them, separating the waistcoats. She tossed the older ones to the side, discarded several others, and had three left. One she didn’t remember seeing him wear. It was dark green with embroidery, and she brought the waistcoat closer to the candlelight, examining it from every angle. But if there was something special about the garment, she failed to see it. Although Lucia wasn’t overly familiar with men’s waistcoats, it seemed to her that all the pockets and buttons were in their rightful places.
She dropped the waistcoat on the floor and turned back to the wardrobe. Then, on impulse, she reached down and scooped it back up again. She shrugged her robe off and pulled the waistcoat over her chemise. With a nervous glance at the door, she went to stand before the cheval mirror. She didn’t know how she’d ever explain what she was doing in John’s room wearing his waistcoat over her underclothes if someone found her. The garment was huge, swallowing her slender figure, but she fitted it against her ribs, running her hands along the soft material. She jerked with surprise when she heard a crackle as her fingers passed over the left side.
Lucia parted the garment and peered at the lining. No pockets. Nothing that looked out of the ordinary. Had she just imagined the sound of paper rustling?
