Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

" W here is she?" James demanded as he threw open the front door of his townhouse less than ten minutes after he'd sprinted out of his club and then rode his horse across town, with Nathan galloping in his wake. "Where is my wife?"

A voice rang out from the top of the stairs. "There you are!"

James looked up to see his sister-in-law, Rosalie, sitting on the top step. Tears were streaming down her face, and she looked paler than was normal for a girl who rarely left the house, always preferring to keep her nose buried in a book.

"Where's Violet?" James demanded.

His long legs carried him across the hall in seconds, and then he climbed up the stairs. Urgency quickened his steps, and Rosalie had just stood up by the time he joined her on the landing.

"Is she still here?"

"No, she left about twenty minutes ago."

"Blast!" His panic and fear were so great that the word came out harsher than he had intended. Rosalie shrank back.

"Don't be afraid," Nathan said, coming up the stairs behind James.

He reached into his pocket and produced a kerchief, which he handed to her.

She nodded in thanks and then dabbed at the tears on her cheeks.

"Twenty minutes isn't long, James," Nathan continued. "We can still stop her. Where did she go, Miss Rosalie? Did she say?"

"She said she was going to our cousin's," Rosalie said, sniffling as she dabbed at her eyes. "But there was something so mysterious in the way she left that I'm not sure what to believe."

"Yes, there is something mysterious about it all," James agreed darkly. "She told me she was going to Eavestone's townhouse, that he and your sister had returned tonight."

Rosalie's eyes went wide. "I have not heard anything about that."

"I believe she was lying to me, which means it's likely she was lying to you as well."

"We don't know that," Nathan said. "We need to go to Lord Carfield's house at once."

"Fine." James was so worried and scared that he didn't have time to try and be polite. "We can go. But if she's not there, what do we do next?"

Nathan's eyebrows knitted together, and he shook his head. "I don't know."

"I'll go to my mother's house," Rosalie offered. She had stopped crying, and she had a look of steely determination on her face that strongly reminded James of Violet. "If she isn't with Niles, then she might be at our mother's."

"You shouldn't go by yourself, Miss Rosalie," Nathan advised. "It can be dangerous."

"This is my sister, and I'm going to look for her," she insisted, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Just as she would have looked for me."

"I'll get the carriage ready," James said.

"There's no time!" Rosalie cried. "If Violet isn't at either place, then we can't waste a second in finding her before my father does. Lord Ketterdon will take me on his horse."

She nodded at Nathan, who looked taken aback.

"But it is most improper. If someone sees?—"

"I don't give a fig about propriety right now! You'll take me, and if she's not there, we will meet His Grace at Carfield House."

Neither gentleman was able to argue with her.

Rosalie ran to fetch her cloak, and then the three of them set off for Carfield House at such a quick pace that if James hadn't been so worried about his wife, he would have been concerned for Miss Rosalie being on a horse, galloping through the streets of Mayfair.

It was early evening when they arrived at Carfield House. James jumped off his horse the moment he pulled it to a halt, then ran up the drive. He had just begun banging on the door when the butler answered it, looking startled.

"Where is Lord Carfield?" James asked at once. "I must speak with him. And the Duchess of Attorton, is she here?"

"Your Grace?" Niles Crampton, the new Viscount Carfield, had come out of his study at the loud banging and was now striding across the hall towards him. "What are you doing here?"

"Is Violet here?" James asked, not bothering with the formalities.

"Violet?" Niles frowned. "No, of course not. I assume she is at Bolden House."

"She isn't," James said shortly. "That's why I'm looking for her here. You're sure she didn't arrive without you knowing it?"

"Her Grace has not been here since her wedding," the butler interjected, bowing quickly.

Dread was carving out the inside of James's stomach. Violet wasn't here. There was still a possibility that she had gone to her mother's house, but he had a bad feeling that it wasn't going to be that simple.

A few minutes later, Nathan and Rosalie arrived with Lady Carfield. James had only to take one look at his mother-in-law's face to know that Violet had not been with her.

"What is going on, Your Grace?" Lady Carfield asked at once. "Where is my daughter? Why did she disappear?"

James wasn't sure he could speak. The contents of his stomach were roiling so hard that he feared he was going to be sick. He looked at Nathan, and he knew that his cousin understood at once.

Very quickly, Nathan filled Lady Carfield in on everything that had happened. By the end of his explanation, her face became deathly pale.

"She has been taken by Jebediah," she said when Nathan had finished speaking. "There is no other explanation. He has been lying in wait all these weeks, planning to strike against one or all of us. I knew that it would be one of his daughters that he targeted. Oh, my poor Violet… I should have protected her better." Tears began to stream down her face.

There was a hushed silence as everyone absorbed her words.

I knew it . I knew it all along. I was just afraid to admit it to myself.

All of a sudden, Rosalie turned to him, her expression thunderous.

"This is all your fault!" she yelled, and James felt the force of her anger like a slap in the face. "How could you have allowed her to annul your marriage? How could you have pushed her to the point where she would want to leave you? Your foolishness and arrogance have put my sister's life in danger, and if anything happens to her, I will never forgive you!"

James could barely make eye contact with his sister-in-law. His heart was pounding painfully in his chest, and he couldn't take a full breath.

"You're right, Miss Rosalie," he whispered as a crushing sense of guilt settled over him. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't pushed her away, if I hadn't insisted that we live separate lives, then she might not have left, and she wouldn't be at risk of being harmed by your father."

"You don't know that she left of her own free will," Nathan pointed out quietly. "Lady Carfield may be right—Violet could have been coerced by her father. Perhaps he forced her to ask for the annulment to gain control over her once more."

Something that felt very similar to hope welled in James's chest. "Do you mean… do you think there's a possibility that she doesn't want to annul our marriage?"

"It's a possibility, yes," Nathan said. "It was very sudden, after all. And would Violet really have known where to find a solicitor and get paperwork drawn up?"

"Violet spoke to me of an annulment as well," Lady Carfield admitted, "but I encouraged her not to go through with it. I told her that you should try to work things out, that you were a good man who adored her. I don't believe she would have decided so quickly to annul the marriage. It sounds to me as if her hand was forced."

James suddenly remembered something his wife had said. "She told me that you helped her find the solicitor that drew up the papers!"

"I most certainly did not!" Lady Carfield gasped. "She only mentioned it last night—right after the ball, when you two had that terrible argument in front of half of the ton. It was the first time she had threatened you with an annulment, and I was adamant that she should try to fix things with you."

"That confirms it, then," James said. All the pieces of the puzzle were slotting into place in his mind. "The annulment was the work of Jebediah Crampton. He somehow found a way to draw up the papers and get them to her, along with some sort of threat that convinced her she had no other choice. He was probably threatening to harm Miss Rosalie. Violet would do anything to protect her. And if Jebediah was able to reach her, then she knew he'd be able to reach Miss Rosalie."

Even amid all the worry that was currently making him sick to his stomach, James couldn't help but hold on to the smallest glimmer of hope.

She didn't want to annul our marriage! There is still a chance for us!

But first, he had to find her.

"Where could she be?" he asked, turning to Lady Carfield. "Where would your husband have taken her? And why? If we know the why, it may help us narrow down the where."

"I don't know," Lady Carfield mumbled, her eyes going wide. "I haven't lived with my husband for a decade. I don't know where he might have gone to hide, especially with a young lady."

"I think the why is easy enough to figure out," Nathan said slowly. "If he wanted to simply kill Violet"—James's heart stuttered—"then he wouldn't have needed to get an annulment. He must need Violet to be unmarried, which means he has plans to marry her off to someone else."

"Or he simply wants to make sure she is his property, not her husband's," Lady Carfield said, but James's mouth had suddenly gone very dry.

"You're right," he said to Nathan. "That's the reason. I know it in my gut. She said she wanted to be a mother. Lord Carfield must need her to marry someone who needs an heir. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's someone who can help him reclaim his title or wealth—someone he needs a favor from."

He closed his eyes briefly as the horror of that thought washed over him. Violet, married to someone else… someone of her father's choosing, who was no doubt as evil and cruel as he was. It was the worst fate he could imagine for the kind, thoughtful, sensitive, beautiful soul that was his wife.

Or was she his ex-wife now?

Had she filed the paperwork yet? How long would it take for the annulment to go through?

"I need to remember the name of the lawyer," he said suddenly. "If I can remember the name of the lawyer on the annulment papers, then we can go to his office and stop this from going through. Miss Rosalie, did she say anything to you about the name of the solicitor?"

"No," Rosalie said, shaking her head.

"Did she say anything?" he pressed. "Anything that might give us a clue as to where she might have gone?"

Rosalie frowned, her brow furrowing in thought. For several tense seconds, every person in the hall stared at her—even the butler—with bated breath, waiting to see if there might be any clue that could help them find Violet.

Then, suddenly, her eyes lit up. "She did say something odd! I mentioned Mr. Cain, the man I danced with at the ball and who called on me this morning, and she grabbed my wrist quite painfully and said, ‘ You must promise me you will never see that man again. He is a snake, Rosalie, and he will only cause you pain.' But she'd had no objection to him earlier that day when he'd visited. And he'd left before she could speak with him. I don't know what might have changed her mind about him, unless he was in league with my father…"

Suddenly, the color drained from her face, and she swallowed. "Oh my God, do you think he has been in on it? Was he only courting me to help my father get to Violet?"

James's jaw was set, and his hands were already clenched into fists. "I don't know. But we're going to find out."