“Why?” Gerard asked, so Allan didn’t have to. “Wouldnae ye be in this state if it were Dorothy?”
“Maybe,” Stephen said reluctantly.
Allan looked around, moving from room to room in an avid search. He swept aside a deep red curtain which had separated off a gaming room where card games were being played with a heavy, thick atmosphere of pipe smoke hovering in the air. Courtesans walked through this space, offering drinks in dresses that were cut very low indeed. Most men seemed more interested in the courtesans than their card game but not Lord Wetherington.
Lord Wetherington sat at his gaming table, laughing about something and smoking his clay pipe. He had a fist full of cards, and beside him was a stack of tokens to represent all the money he had won that night.
Allan veered toward him.
“Allan!” Stephen hissed, trying to calm him down again. “For God’s sake, just talk to him. We need to know where Frederica is, not hurt the man.”
He hurt Frederica. He tried to force himself on her.
A blanket of red ire had fallen over Allan. Nothing could stop him now as he forced his way through the gamblers to Lord Wetherington’s table. He stopped beside the man, just as Lord Wetherington looked up, staring back at him.
“Where is she?” Allan asked.
There was the glimmer of a smile across Lord Wetherington’s face. Plainly, he felt no need to adopt a pretense now. He put his cards down on the table and pulled the pipe out of his mouth.
“She has left you then? Good,” Lord Wetherington said, that smile growing menacingly across his face. “It was high time she did. I expect to read the news of your annulment in the scandal sheets any day now.”
“You have her — where is she?” Allan said, not backing down. His aggressive tone and his words made not only Lord Wetherington look at him again but every other man at that gambling table.
“You mean… she’s missing?” The worry on Lord Wetherington’s face was a shock. “How can that be?” He stood up.
Allan glanced at Gerard and Stephen, and he saw the same shock in their faces. Neither of them had expected Lord Wetherington not to know she had gone.
“Then, she’s not with you?” Allan said, needing to be certain. “She didn’t come to you after she left our house?”
“No.” Lord Wetherington shook his head.
Allan stepped back. All the rage, all the fury, billowed into something new — an unbridled mixture of fear and anger that he could not contain. He turned on the spot, not knowing what to do next.
“Well, perhaps it’s for the best, eh?” Lord Wetherington said with that smile returning to his cheeks. He leaned an inch toward Allan, earning his gaze. “She never was supposed to marry you, you know?”
“Oh, and you think you deserved her, do you? You think that just because you wanted her, you get to have her? Life doesn’t work like that. She was never yours. She never will be,” Allan barked, his voice seething now.
“Hmm…” Lord Wetherington stood taller. “If I can’t have her, why on Earth should you?” He looked down at Allan, his eyes suddenly small and beady as they worked themselves down Allan’s being and back up to his face again.
That billowing anger spilled out of Allan. Before he knew what he was doing — before Stephen could even grab his shoulder to stop him — Allan lashed out.
The first punch hit Lord Wetherington squarely across the nose, and a bone-cracking sound filled the air.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
Before Allan knew it, he was in his first physical fight in years.
Lord Wetherington tried to hit him back, but he was too slow, and with one firm thud to the chest, the Viscount was knocked down onto his back on the card table. The other gamblers scattered with betting tokens being flung everywhere and clay pipes smashing as they clattered to the floor.
“What is happening here?” a well-dressed man — possibly the owner though Allan didn’t care to look again to find out — called from the corner of the room.
Lord Wetherington was now pulling himself off the table, launching his body at Allan.
But Allan was too quick. He stepped to the side, dodging any possible injury and struck down on the back of Lord Wetherington’s head, knocking him down to his knees.
“Allan!” Stephen’s voice sounded at a distance over the cacophony of voices. “You want to be arrested for assault?”
“Calm yerself,” Gerard called to Stephen. “Nay constable is going to arrest a marquess lookin’ for his missin’ wife.”
