On the Way to the Wedding (44 page)

“You!”

“You!” he said in return. “Thank God.”

It was Hermione. The one person he knew cared for Lu-cy’s happiness above all else.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed. But she closed the door to the corridor, surely a good sign.

“I had to talk to Lucy.”

“She married Lord Haselby.”

He shook his head. “It has not been consummated.”

Her mouth quite literally fell open. “Good God, you don’t mean to—”

“I will be honest with you,” he cut in. “I don’t know what I mean to do, other than find a way to free her.”

Hermione stared at him for several seconds. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, she said, “She loves you.”

“She told you that?”

She shook her head. “No, but it’s obvious. Or at least with hindsight it is.” She paced the room, then turned suddenly around. “Then why did she marry Lord Haselby? I know she feels strongly about honoring commitments, but surely she could have ended it before today.”

“She is being blackmailed,” Gregory said grimly.

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Hermione’s eyes grew very large. “With what?”

“I can’t tell you.”

To her credit, she did not waste time protesting. Instead, she looked up at him, her eyes sharp and steady. “What can I do to help?”

Five minutes later, Gregory found himself in the company of both Lord Haselby and Lucy’s brother. He would have preferred to have done without the latter, who looked as if he might cheerfully decapitate Gregory were it not for the presence of his wife.

Who had his arm in a viselike grip.

“Where is Lucy?” Richard demanded.

“She is safe,” Gregory replied.

“Pardon me if I am not reassured,” Richard retorted.

“Richard, stop,” Hermione cut in, forcibly pulling him back. “Mr. Bridgerton is not going to hurt her. He has her best interests at heart.”

“Oh, really?” Richard drawled.

Hermione glared at him with more animation than Gregory had ever seen on her pretty face. “He loves her,” she declared.

“Indeed.”

All eyes turned to Lord Haselby, who had been standing by the door, watching the scene with a strange expression of amusement.

No one seemed to know what to say.

“Well, he certainly made it clear this morning,” Haselby continued, settling into a chair with remarkably easy grace.

“Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Er, yes?” Richard answered, and Gregory couldn’t really blame him for his uncertain tone. Haselby did seem to be taking this in a most uncommon manner. Calm. So calm that Gregory’s pulse seemed to feel the need to race twice as fast, if only to make up for Haselby’s shortcomings.

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“She loves me,” Gregory told him, balling his hand into a fist behind his back—not in preparation for violence, but rather because if he didn’t move some part of his body, he was liable to jump out of his skin. “I’m sorry to say it, but—”

“No, no, not at all,” Haselby said with a wave. “I’m quite aware she doesn’t love me. Which is really for the best, as I’m sure we can all agree.”

Gregory wasn’t sure whether he was meant to answer that. Richard was flushing madly, and Hermione looked completely confused.

“Will you release her?” Gregory asked. He did not have time to dance around the subject.

“If I weren’t willing to do that, do you really think I’d be standing here speaking with you in the same tones I use to discuss the weather?”

“Er . . . no?”

Haselby smiled. Slightly. “My father will not be pleased.

A state of affairs which normally brings me great joy, to be sure, but it does present a host of diffi culties. We shall have to proceed with caution.”

“Shouldn’t Lucy be here?” Hermione asked.

Richard resumed his glaring. “Where is my sister?”

“Upstairs,” Gregory said curtly. That narrowed it down to only thirty-odd rooms.

“Upstairs where?” Richard ground out.

Gregory ignored the question. It really wasn’t the best time to reveal that she was presently tied to a water closet.

He turned back to Haselby, who was still seated, one leg crossed casually over the other. He was examining his fi ngernails.

Gregory felt ready to climb the walls. How could the bloody man sit there so calmly? This was the single most critical conversation either of them would ever have, and all he could do was inspect his manicure?

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“Will you release her?” Gregory ground out.

Haselby looked up at him and blinked. “I said I would.”

“But will you reveal her secrets?”

At that, Haselby’s entire demeanor changed. His body seemed to tighten, and his eyes grew deadly sharp. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, each word crisp and precise.

“Nor do I,” Richard added, stepping close.

Gregory turned briefly in his direction. “She is being blackmailed.”

“Not,” Haselby said sharply, “by me.”

“My apologies,” Gregory said quietly. Blackmail was an ugly thing. “I did not mean to imply.”

“I always wondered why she agreed to marry me,”

Haselby said softly.

“It was arranged by her uncle,” Hermione put in. Then, when everyone turned to her in mild surprise, she added,

“Well, you know Lucy. She’s not the sort to rebel. She likes order.”

“All the same,” Haselby said, “she did have a rather dramatic opportunity to get out of it.” He paused, cocking his head to the side. “It’s my father, isn’t it?”

Gregory’s chin jerked in a single, grim nod.

“That is not surprising. He is rather eager to have me married. Well, then—” Haselby brought his hands together, twining his fingers and squeezing them down. “What shall we do? Call his bluff, I imagine.”

Gregory shook his head. “We can’t.”

“Oh, come now. It can’t be that bad. What on earth could Lady Lucinda have done?”

“We really should get her,” Hermione said again. And then, when the three men turned to her again, she added,

“How would you like your fate to be discussed in your absence?”

Richard stepped in front of Gregory. “Tell me,” he said.

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Gregory did not pretend to misunderstand. “It is bad.”

“Tell me.”

“It is your father,” Gregory said in a quiet voice. And he proceeded to relate what Lucy had told to him.

“She did it for us,” Hermione whispered once Gregory was done. She turned to her husband, clutching his hand.

“She did it to save us. Oh, Lucy. ”

But Richard just shook his head. “It’s not true,” he said.

Gregory tried to keep the pity out of his eyes as he said,

“There is proof.”

“Oh, really? What sort of proof?”

“Lucy says there is written proof.”

“Has she seen it?” Richard demanded. “Would she even know how to tell if something were faked?”

Gregory took a long breath. He could not blame Lucy’s brother for his reaction. He supposed he would be the same, were such a thing to come to light about his own father.

“Lucy doesn’t know,” Richard continued, still shaking his head. “She was too young. Father wouldn’t have done such a thing. It is inconceivable.”

“You were young as well,” Gregory said gently.

“I was old enough to know my own father,” Richard snapped, “and he was not a traitor. Someone has deceived Lucy.”

Gregory turned to Haselby. “Your father?”

“Is not that clever,” Haselby finished. “He would cheerfully commit blackmail, but he would do it with the truth, not a lie. He is intelligent, but he is not creative.”

Richard stepped forward. “But my uncle is.”

Gregory turned to him with urgency. “Do you think he has lied to Lucy?”

“He certainly said the one thing to her that would guarantee that she would not back out of the marriage,” Richard said bitterly.

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“But why does he need her to marry Lord Haselby?”

Hermione asked.

They all looked to the man in question.

“I have no idea,” he said.

“He must have secrets of his own,” Gregory said.

Richard shook his head. “Not debts.”

“He’s not getting any money in the settlement,” Haselby remarked.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I may have let my father choose my bride,” he said with a shrug, “but I wasn’t about to marry without reading the contracts.”

“Secrets, then,” Gregory said.

“Perhaps in concert with Lord Davenport,” Hermione added. She turned to Haselby. “So sorry.”

He waved off her apology. “Think nothing of it.”

“What should we do now?” Richard asked.

“Get Lucy,” Hermione immediately answered.

Gregory nodded briskly. “She is right.”

“No,” said Haselby, rising to his feet. “We need my father.”

“Your father?” Richard bit off. “He’s hardly sympathetic to our cause.”

“Perhaps, and I’m the first to say he’s intolerable for more than three minutes at a time, but he will have answers. And for all of his venom, he is mostly harmless.”

“Mostly?” Hermione echoed.

Haselby appeared to consider that. “Mostly.”

“We need to act,” Gregory said. “Now. Haselby, you and Fennsworth will locate your father and interrogate him.

Find out the truth. Lady Fennsworth and I will retrieve Lucy and bring her back here, where Lady Fennsworth will remain with her.” He turned to Richard. “I apologize for the arrangements, but I must have your wife with me to safeguard Lucy’s reputation should someone discover us.

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She’s been gone nearly an hour now. Someone is bound to notice.”

Richard gave him a curt nod, but it was clear he was not happy with the situation. Still, he had no choice. His honor demanded that he be the one to question Lord Davenport.

“Good,” Gregory said. “Then we are agreed. I will meet the two of you back in . . .”

He paused. Aside from Lucy’s room and the upstairs washroom, he had no knowledge of the layout of the house.

“Meet us in the library,” Richard instructed. “It is on the ground floor, facing east.” He took a step toward the door, then turned back and said to Gregory, “Wait here. I will return in a moment.”

Gregory was eager to be off, but Richard’s grave expression had been enough to convince him to remain in place.

Sure enough, when Lucy’s brother returned, barely a minute later, he carried with him two guns.

He held one out to Gregory.

Good God.

“You may need this,” Richard said.

“Heaven help us if I do,” Gregory said under his breath.

“Beg pardon?”

Gregory shook his head.

“Godspeed, then.” Richard nodded at Haselby, and the two of them departed, moving swiftly down the hall.

Gregory beckoned to Hermione. “Let us go,” he said, leading her in the opposite direction. “And do try not to judge me when you see where I am leading you.”

He heard her chuckle as they ascended the stairs. “Why,”

she said, “do I suspect that, if anything, I shall judge you very clever indeed?”

“I did not trust her to remain in place,” Gregory confessed, taking the steps two at a time. When they reached the top, he turned to face her. “It was heavy-handed, but there was nothing else I could do. All I needed was a bit of time.”

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Hermione nodded. “Where are we going?”

“To the nanny’s washroom,” he confessed. “I tied her to the water closet.”

“You tied her to the— Oh my, I cannot wait to see this.”

But when they opened the door to the small washroom, Lucy was gone.

And every indication was that she had not left willingly.

$

Twenty-fi ve

In which we learn what happened,

a mere ten minutes earlier.

Had it been an hour? Surely it had been an hour.

Lucy took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing nerves. Why hadn’t anyone thought to install a clock in the washroom? Shouldn’t someone have realized that eventually someone would find herself tied to the water closet and might wish to know the hour?