Leslie Lafoy (31 page)

“Jesus. No. Please, no.”

The plea did nothing to alter the reality before him. The easel was overturned, the paint pots and brushes scattered around it, the portrait lying facedown, a hole punched through the center of the canvas. Simone’s jacket lay, neatly folded, over the back of one of the chairs.

He swayed on his feet, his mind reeling and his throat tightening with tears. He was too late. He’d blundered. He’d dawdled. He hadn’t anticipated quickly enough. Emmaline. And Simone. God, his Simone. Gone. Taken just as Sarah had been. If anything happened …

Deep inside him, a dam suddenly gave way. Anger, white and molten, shot through his veins, turning his confusion and self-pity to ash and crystallizing his thoughts. Emmaline would have squeaked and stood by her easel petrified with fear and let herself be taken captive. But not Simone. He knew her, knew that it was in the battle with Simone that the easel had been overturned and the painting destroyed.

Two long strides took him to the jumble of paint pots. Squatting down in their midst, he snatched up the tin of turpentine and turned it upside down. A thin stream of spirits poured out to spatter on the rocks at his feet. Not long. It hadn’t been overturned that long or it all would have evaporated. But how long? He pressed a fingertip into a puddle of raw sienna. The surface hazed for only a second and then gave way, pooling up around his nail. It had all been spilled no more than an hour ago. Maybe no more than thirty minutes. But even if it was the latter, it was too long ago for an effective pursuit; they were well gone.

Fighting off the anger and the frustration, Tristan rose and stepped out of the circle of debris. He moved forward, his gaze sweeping the furniture, the potted plants. Not one cushion or pillow was out of place. Not a single pot had been shoved askew, much less overturned. There wasn’t a damn leaf broken or even twisted the wrong way. The gravel, though … There were small patches that had been turned and tossed slightly back. Given the pattern and length between them … Clearly a man had run along the path, toward the easel. Had Simone been standing beside Em when they’d been surprised?

Surprised … How the hell had that happened? Obviously whoever had taken them hadn’t come in through the house or the servants would have seen them. Which meant they’d had to enter through the rear door of the greenhouse and come up on … It didn’t make sense. Simone would have heard them enter, would have heard them moving.

Tristan strode along the gravel path that meandered through the foliage toward the rear of the structure. The door was in sight, closed and secure, when a slight glint off the path to the left caught his attention. He stopped and turned and bent to push aside the green and white leaves of some vining plant. Under them was a small glass bottle of the sort that apothecaries used for dispensing liquid medicines. He retrieved it, noting that only a drop or two of something clear remained to roll around the bottom edge. His heart sinking and his stomach twisting with certainty, he pulled the cork, lifted the opening to his nose, and cautiously sniffed.

“Lockwood!”

“I’m here, Noland,” he called back, wheeling about and moving along the path toward the front of the greenhouse, the bottle clutched tightly in his hand.

“We didn’t find anything in Lady Lockwood’s rooms,” his friend said the instant he rounded the bend in the path and came into sight. “Which is damn disappointing considering the other obvious concerns of the moment.”

The man had always had a gift for understatement. The beauty of it was lost on Tristan’s clerk, however. The man stood beside Noland, his gaze riveted to the scattered painting supplies, his skin growing more pallid by the second. “Gregory!”

As the young man lifted his gaze, Tristan tossed the bottle at him, saying, “Catch!”

“Chloroform?” Noland asked as it tumbled through the air.

“Yes.”

“Let’s hope that the bastard who used it on them knew what he was doing,” his friend offered as something else caught Tristan’s eye. “Otherwise…”

“Otherwise, what?” Gregory asked.

“Otherwise Em and Simone could have been easily overdosed,” Tristan explained, moving toward the sidewall and the large, scuffed patch of gravel halfway between it and the main path.

“Overdosed! Do you mean they could be dead?”

“Only by accident,” Noland supplied as Tristan studied the gravel. “But since I doubt very much that Lady Lockwood would be at all pleased to have corpses delivered, I’m sure that whoever took Lady Emmaline and Lady Simone would be most careful about applying the drug.”

“Why would she care whether they’re alive?”

“Because if she didn’t need them alive,” Noland answered, “she would have had them killed right here and been done with it. As she would have had done with Miss Sheraton this morning. Clearly she has some sort of larger plan.”

“But how do we know they weren’t killed and their bodies simply removed so that it appears to be only a kidnapping? What if they’ve been dumped out along a dark and rainy road, their—”

“Do get a grip on yourself, Mr. Gregory. It’s midafternoon, the sky is reasonably sunny, and Lady Lockwood is motivated by profit. Which isn’t to be had in significant measure from any of the ladies’ deaths. Now, of course Tristan’s death is quite another matter entirely.”

“Which means,” Tristan said, leaning down to pluck several strands of long raven dark hair from the gravel, “that her plan likely involves using the ladies as bait to draw me into a vulnerable position.”

“Wouldn’t just one of them do for that? Why all three?”

“I don’t know,” he had to admit, slowly twining Simone’s hair around his finger. “I honestly don’t know and couldn’t guess. Noland? Do you have any ideas on the matter?”

“I’m afraid not. Although,” he added on a sigh, “I’m sure that once we see it unfold, we’ll slap ourselves on the forehead, lament that it was painfully predictable, and then roundly chastise ourselves for blindness and complete stupidity.”

“You’re not making me feel very hopeful about a positive outcome, Lord Noland.”

Noland said something in reply, but Tristan was too preoccupied with his own concerns and questions to worry overly much about a bit of tension between his friends. Judging by the way the gravel had been shoved and plowed and scraped, there had been a considerable struggle on the spot. And given that it was Simone’s hair that he held … He bent down and looked the ground over carefully.

No blood. At least not any that he could see. That none of Simone’s had been spilled was an incredible relief. And oddly enough, there was a bit of hope in knowing that none of her attackers’ had been, either. If she’d managed to get that deadly little knife of hers unsheathed, there would have been plenty of evidence of that fact. That there wasn’t … If they didn’t think to search her, then she had the means to defend herself and Emmaline if they weren’t caught unaware next time. How they’d been caught this time.…

He turned and looked back to where Em had had her easel, to the scattered paint pots and the torn canvas. The gravel was hardly disturbed under it all, though. Yes, several little spots where someone had walked, turning a few of the stones in the process, but beyond that …

Yes, it looked as though it was just as he’d surmised in the first moments. Simone had obviously put up one hell of a fight. And, just as obviously, Emmy hadn’t. And while neither of their reactions was the least bit surprising, he had to admit that he was disappointed in his sister. She’d been making such wonderful progress in coming out of her shy and retiring shell. Of all the times to revert to timid mousedom …

“Lockwood, if I may make a suggestion?”

He looked up to meet Noland’s gaze. “Any and all are welcome.”

“It’s apparent that we have no choice but to await Lady Lockwood’s invitation to the end party. It would be best, don’t you think, to place ourselves in a position to receive it and quickly act on it?”

“Agreed,” he said, nodding, his mind working through the tangle of shoulds, coulds, oughts, and maybes. “Gregory, I want you to go back to the warehouse office and wait there. Noland—”

“I’m off to the Yard to advise them of the latest two kidnappings. The more eyes and ears we have on the task of finding the ladies, the better our chances of actually doing so.”

The man could read minds. Amazing. If only he could have read Lucinda’s before all— Tristan left the thought unfinished and brought his brain back to the immediate tasks at hand. “I need to find the Duke of Ryland.”

“Oh, damn,” Noland said. “I hadn’t thought of notification. Probably a good indication of why my superiors keep me assigned to a desk. Would you like us to go along with you? Moral support and all that?”

“Thank you for offering, but it’s probably best if I dance alone on this one.”

“If you’re sure…”

Tristan nodded.

“If word comes to the warehouse,” Gregory posed, “to where do I relay it?”

Good man, Gregory. Always thinking
. “If it comes in the next two hours, I’m likely to be at His Grace’s home. When I’ve taken the beating I’m due, I’ll return to my town house. I think Lucinda’s most likely to look for me there.”

“Then I’ll stop by your home on my way to the warehouse and advise your staff of your whereabouts for the time being. That way they can relay the message should it come more quickly than you seem to expect.”

Yes, always thinking
. “Remind me to give you a raise, Gregory.”

“Assisting in the safe return of your ladies will be sufficient recompense, sir.”

“I’ll be to your house as quickly as I can, Lockwood.”

He nodded his thanks to both men and then watched them leave.
Your ladies.
God, how true. Emmaline. Sarah. Simone. The only three women in the world to whom he had any obligation. And to this point, he’d utterly and completely failed each of them. His only hope—their only hope—lay in everyone acting with some degree of rationality.

Not that that was likely to have a positive impact on the outcome as far as Sarah was concerned. She could recant her earlier claim of being with his child, but considering the circumstances under which she’d be singing a different tune … Lucinda, acting in a perfectly rational and logical sort of way, wouldn’t believe her. The birth of a descendant, legitimate or not, would put one hell of a kink in Lucinda’s long-range plan. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let Sarah live long enough to give birth. So why hadn’t Lucinda had her killed along the road this morning?… Quick, easy, the perfect accidental death. Why did Lucinda need Sarah alive for the moment?

Tristan expelled a long breath and scraped his fingers through his hair. Noland was undoubtedly right; when Lucinda’s plot unfolded, he was going to kick himself for not seeing it sooner.

Whatever the plot, the odds of Emmaline emerging from the ordeal unscathed were the best. She was, after all, Lucinda’s daughter. She posed no threat whatsoever to her mother’s ambitions. In fact, if Em lived, Lucinda would have access to her trust fund monies without all that many eyebrows being raised in suspicion. So why she’d had Em kidnapped, too …

Most likely it hadn’t been intentional, he reasoned. Em had been taken simply because she’d been with Simone at the wrong time.

Simone. He could see her so clearly in his mind’s eye. The inviting way she tipped her head back to smile up at him, the sure and artful way she skimmed her hands over his body and sent his senses reeling. And God, how wonderful he felt when she sighed and nuzzled into him so contentedly in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Never in his life had he felt as he did when he was with Simone. Emotions ran deeper and stronger. And as ridiculous as it sounded, the sun really did shine brighter and life did offer more hope, more happiness. He actually counted the hours until they could be together again, looked for ways to put himself in her path just so that those hours could be fewer.

Jesus, how he enjoyed the way her eyes sparkled when he surprised her. He adored how she laughed when he teased her, how passionately she surrendered every time he tempted her. She never shied back. Never pleaded inexperience or modesty or used any one of the million other ploys women used to bend men to their whims. She made him hungry in a hundred different ways, happy in a thousand.

But Lucinda didn’t know any of that, he assured himself. The only thing that she could surmise was that Simone was the latest Sarah in his life, that she was just another female whose company he enjoyed for the moment and who would soon be replaced by another. There was no logical reason for Lucinda to have taken Simone. None at all. She wasn’t carrying his child. She wasn’t hoping to marry him. And it was the illogic of her being swept into Lucinda’s plot that frightened him the most.

He knew the odds of Sarah’s survival. He knew the odds of Emmaline’s as well. But Simone’s … She was a survivor, he reminded himself. She’d grown up in the streets and hadn’t left her sensibilities behind when she’d moved into the peerage. She’d led them all out of the fire that night at the party. Simone had uncommon good sense and incredible instincts for survival. If she had just half a chance to fight or flee, she’d be all right. But if there wasn’t that half chance …

If only he’d never met her. If he had had the patience to wait until after he’d dealt with Lucinda … But he had met Simone and he hadn’t been able to resist the urging of his desires. And somewhere along the way, amid the lust and the danger and the knowing better, he’d also heard the whispers of his heart.

Tristan closed his eyes with a groan as realization and certainty cascaded through his soul. His days of running from the ugliness and disillusionment of his life were over. There would never again be a year spent at sea. Nor another night cavorting in the bed of a woman whose name he either didn’t know or couldn’t be bothered to remember. Amassing a fortune was no longer going to be the largest purpose of his days. Its extent wasn’t ever again going to be the measure of his worth or the source of his greatest security. He was going to pray every day and for things he had never wanted or cared about until now.

If he died today … or tomorrow … or the next day … He wasn’t going to lie down and let it happen. If he was going out, it was going to be in the fight to live the life he’d never thought he could have, never thought he’d deserved.