Silk Is For Seduction - Loretta Chase [110]
At three o’clock he’d taken her home. “You’ll be no good to anybody if you don’t get some rest,” he told her.
“How can I rest?”
“Lie down. Put your feet up. Take some brandy. I’m going home to do the same thing. The search hasn’t stopped. It won’t stop. Longmore and I will come back for you in a few hours. When it’s light.”
“She’s afraid of the dark.” Her voice wobbled.
“I know,” he said.
“What shall I do?” she said.
What shall I do if she’s dead?
The unspoken question.
“We’ll find her,” he said.
The conversation played through his mind again and again while he lay on the library sofa. He closed his eyes but they wouldn’t stay closed.
He rose and paced.
He had to think the unthinkable. He had to allow for the possibility she’d been taken. Very well. But all was not lost. A ransom would be sought. Who’d keep a well-dressed child, who spoke with the accents of the gently bred, when money might be made?
Had the police thought of that? He rose and went to his desk. He started making notes and planning strategies while he waited for the sun to rise.
A loud cough woke him.
Clevedon opened his eyes. His mouth tasted gritty and his head ached and he thought at first he’d been on a prime binge. Then he realized his head wasn’t on a pillow but on his desk. Then he remembered what had happened.
He jerked his head up from the desk.
Halliday stood on the other side.
“What?” Clevedon said. “What? What time is it?” He looked toward the window. Dawn had broken, but not long ago. Good.
“A quarter past seven, your grace.”
“Good. Thank you for waking me. I did not want to oversleep.”
“There’s someone to see you, sir,” said Halliday.
“From the police?” Clevedon said. “Have they found her?”
He saw that Halliday was having difficulty maintaining his composure.
Clevedon leapt up from his chair. There was a great rushing noise in his head. His heart pounded. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“If I may, sir.”
“May what?”
But Halliday went out.
“Halliday!”
The house steward came back in. He was carrying a very dirty, very wet little girl.
“His majesty presents his compliments, your grace, and requests to know whether this article belongs to you,” Halliday said.
The Duke of Clevedon’s carriage arrived later than promised. The sun was climbing upward, and Marcelline had already tried and failed to eat the tea and toast her sisters made for her. She hadn’t slept a wink. She’d been afraid to.
She was ready and waiting, pacing the closed shop, when the carriage stopped at the front door. She ran out, and nearly collided with Joseph hurrying toward her. “It’s all right, Mrs. Noirot,” he said. “We’ve got her safe and sound and his grace sends his compliments and apologizes for not bringing Miss Erroll straightaway, but she wouldn’t come. And so I was to come and ask would the mountain please come to Mahomet? That is to say, those were his words exactly, madam.”
Marcelline found them in the drawing room—one of the drawing rooms. They were on the rug. Strewn about them were tin soldiers, horses, miniature cannons, and all the other artifacts of war.
Lucie was wearing what appeared to be page’s livery, a coat and breeches made for a boy some inches taller. She had on red stockings and no shoes. Her hair had been tied up behind with what seemed to be a man’s handkerchief. She was watching Clevedon line up some cavalrymen. He looked up toward the door first, and hastily rose.
Lucie looked up then. “Mama!” she cried.
Marcelline crouched down and opened her arms. Lucie jumped up and ran into them.
“My love, my love,” Marcelline said. She nuzzled Lucie’s warm neck, and inhaled her familiar scent, mixed with something flowery. Perfumed soap. Her hair was damp.
She held her tight for a long time, until Lucie grew impatient and pulled away. “We’re playing soldiers,” she said.
Marcelline grasped her shoulders and looked into her vivid blue eyes, her grandmother DeLucey’s eyes.
“You ran away,” Marcelline said.