Bride (42 page)
“Absolutely not,” Blanche Bastible caroled, avidly perusing Brother John's considerable length. “We should never forgive ourselves for causing a man of the cloth to be turned away, should we, Duchess?”
The dowager concentrated only upon Struan.
“Why,” Blanche exclaimed, “you appear near-starved, Reverend…”
“Brother John.”
“We are
soo
pleased you're here.” Rapidly dispensing small sandwiches onto a plate and surrounding them with miniature cakes, Blanche swayed and pirouetted, and linked an arm with Brother John's. “We shall sit together and enjoy this bounty, Brother John. My late husband was a man of the cloth, you know. The Reverend Felix Bastible. A dear, fine man taken from this life in his prime. But Felix never complained—even when he was desperately ill. He bore his pain with such bravery. I miss him so.”
Struan took up a mince tart and thrust it at Max, who ate the delicacy in a single bite and returned to warming his hands. If only all these people would go away and leave a man to find peace with his wife. Given time he could do that; he knew he could.
Brother John listened in silence to Blanche's prattling. His gray eyes held no expression. He allowed her to stroll with him to the couch and pull him down beside her.
The duchess's cane, connecting with the floor, made a tableau of the room and its occupants.
Max burst suddenly and astoundingly into choking sobs.
“A disaster,” the duchess proclaimed. “I should have allowed myself the luxury of admitting a premonition. From the first moment I set foot in this dreadful lodge I knew no good lay ahead.”
“Pray, calm yourself, Your Grace,” Brother John said, clearly concerned at such a display of agitation in one so elderly and frail. “Allow me to counsel you.”
“Twaddle.” The duchess's bright eyes glittered. “Find someone in need of counsel.”
“Isn't she
wonderful?”
Blanche, popping a sugared almond into the amazed monk's mouth, reduced him to spasms of coughing. She promptly thumped his back.
“I avoid shows of emotion,” the duchess told Struan. “All that outpouring and such. Demeaning. But I will tell you that I am concerned for my granddaughter. She is your wife and that cannot be changed. I also cannot deny my feelings—or my fears. And I cannot bring myself to leave this place without knowing she is safe.”
“She is safe,” Struan said vehemently. “I would give my life for hers.”
“So you say.”
Max's sobs rose to a wail before he fell to huddle in a ball on the rug.
“Silence, boy,” the duchess said. “Leave these things to those better able to deal with them. And stop that noise, I tell you.”
Struan dropped to a knee and drew the pointed muddle of arms and legs against his chest. “Hush, Max. It's all right.”
“S'not.”
The cane hit the floor again. “I will get to the bottom of what's afoot here. It might occasionally appear that I am a less than gentle woman. That appearance is entirely erroneous, I assure you.
“My granddaughter is dear to me. If she were not, I would be less distraught at losing her under such circumstances. And because she is so dear, the disappearance of the girl has all but undone me. There is great danger here, I'm certain of it.”
Struan looked up to see Brother John's alarmed expression. “Explain yourself, Your Grace,” Struan demanded, getting to his feet.
“The foolish creature has simply
gone.
Not a trace, I understand.”
Max positively shrieked.
“Stop that!” The dowager pressed a finger to each ear. “What are you going to do about this, Viscount Hunsingore? Be quick, young man, or I shall take matters into my own hands.”
Brother John got up with Blanche still wrapped around his arm. “Struan—”
“Gone. Did she go of her own… Do you mean she was abducted?”
“Her room was secured from the inside,” the duchess responded. “I had the lock forced. No sign of her.”
Casting wildly about, Struan strode to the door. “I heard Justine lock that door myself. If she's not there…”
Blanche flapped a hand. “Not Lady Justine. Your daughter.
Ella.
Gone from a locked room and without a trace.”
J
ustine pulled the covers up to Max's chin and sat still beside him, listening to his even breathing. Finally, on the second night since Ella's disappearance, he slept.
The memory of Struan's anguished voice begging her to help him from the other side of her door still rang in Justine's mind. Nothing could have stopped her from answering that cry. Bringing Max, they'd come together to the castle and searched.
Careful not to wake the boy, she got up and looked down on his pale face. Blue shadows underscored his closed eyes. “Found in a pickpocket's den in Covent Garden,” Struan had said. Not “I rescued him.”
Struan never boasted, never spoke of his accomplishments at all.
She crossed her arms tightly. He'd lied to her and she'd felt betrayed. Vast, incredible lies. He'd never been married, never had children, never been widowed.
Ella—that beautiful, gentle girl—removed from a house of ill repute. “Removed.” Not “Saved.” Not “I saved her.”
They were all out there now, the men—Arran leading one search party, Calum another, while Struan, Caleb, and the servants scoured every inch of this immense building for the third time.
The monk had gone with the Mercers and a band of other tenants to walk the riverbanks.
Black hair floating amid the reeds…
Justine covered her mouth. She let herself quietly into the sitting room between Max's room and the one that had been… the one that was Ella's.
A dreadful, dreary sitting room. Windowless, just as the children's bedchambers were windowless.
A small fortress.
She set her lips in a firm line. The time for falsehoods was past. Struan must tell her exactly what had been in those letters and what had led up to this desperate pass.
Kidnapped
Pacing, Justine battled a swell of sickness. Struan had as good as admitted he was being blackmailed. And she'd as good as proved he had men standing watch over her in his absence. The children had been kept here under guard. Caleb Murray's wild words to Max when he'd caught up with him at the lodge had been more than an empty threat. The man's job had been to keep Ella and Max safe from… from whomever.
And Justine would know who that person was, and why he had a hold over Struan.
She had been less than truthful. The circumstances of her being here at all were entirely a fiction. Struan had eventually been trapped into marriage by her lies!
But she'd admitted the truth before that marriage.
He hadn't asked her to come and interfere in his life.
But he'd been glad to see her—he'd said as much.
He'd defended her again and again against Grandmama's sharp tongue. And he'd almost made her believe she
could
do the things other women did.
And he'd told her he loved her.
And she'd believed him.
She still believed him.
The door flew open with enough force to slam it against the wall, and Struan scuffed into the room.
“Hush!” Justine whispered urgently. “Max is finally asleep.”
Struan's dark eyes passed over her and away. Fatigue stretched the flesh of his lean face more tightly across flaring bone.
Justine closed the door softly behind him. “That child was exhausted, yet he would not sleep lest Ella returned and he wasn't awake to greet her.”
“Why her?” Struan said through his teeth. “Why punish an innocent? The argument is with
me.”
He turned away, rested his fists on darkly paneled walls, and bowed his head.
“Tell me who has done this? And why. I want to help, Struan.”
He flung himself to face her. “Don't pry, woman. You have made your feelings toward me plain.”
His words stung. “And you have made yours plain toward me, sir. You have not trusted me as an equal. Equals share their problems.”
“Leave me be.”
“A priest.
You were once ready to take your final vows, yet you did not think to mention the fact to me.”
“I…” He dropped into a chair and stretched out his long legs. “You cannot know what it meant to me. What I suffered then. I should have told you, but I didn't. I cannot change it.”
Did he want her acceptance, her consolation—her affection? Would he rebuff her if they were offered?
Could she offer him solace?
“My God!” Struan buried his face. “She has done nothing, yet she may be dead. Dead of who knows what horrors.”
If her eyes were not too dry, she would cry. “There is something we're missing. No one can take a girl from a room locked on the inside and leave it locked.”
“Can't they? She is not there, is she?”
Not bothering to reply, Justine entered Ella's room. She already knew every nook and cranny. The bed draped in somber brown. Oppressive tapestries covering the walls. The dressing table with stool pushed back as Ella must have left it. A writing table with unused paper and a standish. A romantical novel on the table beside the bed. Everything just as the last time Justine checked.
“We cannot stay here and do
nothing!”
she shouted, and clapped her hands over her mouth. She never shouted.
Struan appeared in the doorway. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Anything,” she implored. “Please let us do something.”
He stared at her. “You care about her—about both of them.”
“Of course I care. I came to love Ella and Max for themselves. I cannot stop loving them.”
“You are unusual.”
She shook her head and laughed harshly. “Not as unusual as you, my lord.”
“I am a fool.”
Justine was incredulous. “For being a champion to oppressed children?”
“Not for that.” His intent eyes revealed nothing of what he felt—or everything. “For other things, but never for that.”
“How much longer must we wait?” To break the tension she lifted the bedskirts and peered beneath. Of course, there was no sign of Ella. There was no sign of her anywhere in the room.
“I cannot bear this.” Justine trailed to a corner and beat her fists against a faded gray-green tapestry.
She paused, hands in midair. “Did you hear that? Struan, did you hear that noise?”
“No.”
“Well, I did.” Struggling with the weighty hanging, she lifted it aside to reveal more of the ghastly paneling used in the sitting room.
“Look!
Sin's ears, Struan, come here at once!”
He came to her shoulder and propped up the hanging.
“A door. Oh, Struan, there's a door. Of course, there had to be. How else could she be gone from a locked room?”
“I searched for one,” he said, reaching past Justine to push the row of four square panels wide open. “Evidently I lacked your touch. Pray, Justine. Pray with me that this may lead us to Ella—and that she is safe.”
“I haven't stopped praying,” she told him. “I'll get a lantern. We must see where this leads.”
Struan was already striding away. In seconds he came back with a lantern from the hall outside the apartments. “If I do not return in reasonable time, go for Caleb.”
“I'm coming with you.”
“You are
not
coming with me.” He held up a palm. “Please. Do not waste time in argument. I shall be faster without you.”
Justine glanced away. He would be faster because of her wretched leg.
“I need you here,” he said softly. “To ensure I am not trapped and to go for help if necessary.”
She nodded. “Yes, yes. Go. I will be here.”
He hesitated, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. But then he turned away and she heard his boots descending stairs.
If he'd tried to kiss her, she would have accepted that kiss. She would have returned it. And if that meant she was weak and foolish, so be it. He was her husband because she had loved him from the moment she first saw him. She still loved him—would always love him.
Time passed. Justine didn't know how much time, only that it was very long. Perhaps only minutes, but the longest minutes of her life. Now and again she leaned through the hidden door. Light from the room revealed stone steps winding downward and out of sight.
How long should she wait before going in search of Caleb? The castle felt heavy and unfriendly. Announcing she would come out when the “nonsense” was all over, Grandmama had closeted herself in her rooms. For much of the day Blanche Wren had insisted upon sitting with Justine. The woman was annoying but surprisingly sympathetic. Justine had eventually insisted Blanche go to her bed.
At first the sounds that arose from the secret stairway brought Justine to her toes in anticipation. A thud. Then another thud. And another. Slow.
Her heels sank to the floor.
Struan—she hoped it was Struan—was dragging something heavy up the steps.
She must not call out.
The thumps grew closer. A hard surface hitting the stones.
Justine craned her neck into the opening again. At last she saw his broad shoulders. Struan struggled awkwardly backward up the stairs, and she soon saw that his burden was a large wooden trunk.
When he arrived in the doorway, she moved aside, drawing back the tapestry.
Grunting, Struan hauled the trunk into the bedchamber. He raised a sweat-soaked face and his eyes bored into Justine's. “The steps lead all the way to a little chamber with a rotting hatch. It opens into a stable building that hasn't been used for years. The hatch has been opened recently.”
“But Ella isn't—”
“Waiting for me to find her outside the hatch? No, Ella's not there.”
Struan looked at the trunk. “This was in the chamber. It's locked.”
Justine swallowed. “Probably been there for years.”
He swept a finger over the curved lid. “No dust. But it's heavy.”
“Is it?” Breaths were hard to come by.
“I'm going to break the lock.”
Justine wiped cold, sweating palms on her skirts. “You think… Struan, Ella could be in there, couldn't she?”
“Go and wait in the other room.”
This time she would not allow him his way. “Open it.”