Chapter 24

It had taken all night and all day to search the backstreets of London with his uncle and by the time Alex returned home, he was weary. With little to no information about who had set the fire at the Tillingtons' house, there was very little left that he could do but find his wife. Hopefully in her, he might find some comfort.

Dragging his feet, as he entered the house, he told his uncle, "Please, excuse me. I do not think I can stand another moment."

"Of course," his uncle nodded, gesturing Tiny away. "Tiny will find a servant to have a guest room made up for me. Worry not, nephew. We shall get to the bottom of this."

Alex barely felt the clapping of his uncle's hand on his back for he had grown numb.

He wished for nothing more than to sink into his bed, into his wife, into oblivion. The devil lord be damned for the evening. Someone else could sit upon his throne that night for all he cared.

He simply nodded his acknowledgement and trudged his way up the stairs to the master bedroom. It was late. Emmaline had to be in bed by now. Though if he knew her as he thought he did she, like him, would not have slept a wink since the night before.

"Your Grace," a passing maid stopped to dip a curtsy at him, but he gave little more than a grunt of acknowledgement, carrying on. The maid scuttled away just as quickly, leaving him to his exhaustion.

Loosening his cravat, he opened the door to the master bedroom and stepped into darkness. Only the fire in the hearth was lit, casting long furniture shadows against the wall. But it was enough light to see the truth. The room was devoid of life. There were no soft mounds beneath the bedsheets where his wife was lying, no sound of gentle breathing or the sweet snoring his wife made when she slept, no smell of her perfume permeating the air.

"Emmaline? Em?" Though he already sensed the truth, he could not help but hurry across the room to the adjoining lady's chambers. "Emmaline!"

There was no sign of her, not in the master or the lady's chambers, not even in the dressing room. He even ridiculously checked the linen closet, wondering if he might find her hiding there from the stress of the last twenty-four hours.

Nothing.

"Emmaline!" he called again, hoping she would come from him from whichever corner of the house she was hiding.

But when there was a knock upon the door, his heart sank. He knew his wife's knock and that was most definitely not it.

"Nephew?"

His uncle's voice was soft. He didn't like it one bit. Frederick never sounded soft.

"What is it?" Alex bit. "I told you I wished to rest!"

"I found this upon your desk," Frederick stated, entering the room to offer Alex a letter. Unsealed and unfolded, it loomed at Alex out of the darkness. "Forgive me but I have already read it. I thought perhaps it might be important."

Drained, Alex stumbled to the armchair beside the fire and used the light to read by. As he did, his heart shattered.

"This… this cannot be!"

He buried his face in his hand, his head pounding, heart broken in two.

"As I said before, women are faint of heart."

Alex's jaw clenched until his teeth felt like they might break. Confusion battled with anger. How could Emmaline possibly have left him? Where could she have gone?

He looked at the letter again, reading the words aloud, "Your Grace, forgive me but I cannot be married to the devil lord. I cannot have such a target on my back. Forgive me. When I entered this arrangement, I had no knowledge of the burden I would bear."

There was more but Alex could no longer read on. It broke him to his very core.

"This changes nothing," his uncle stated firmly. "We still have to find out who did this."

"Don't you see? It does not matter who did this! It is done!" Alex snarled, turning to his uncle certain he could see the venom dripping from every orifice. He felt as though he wore the very mask he had hated for so long as he stood and bellowed, "I have no wife. I have no heir. My father's conditions have not been met. I stand to lose everything!"

Alex's legs buckled beneath him again then. The little anger he had sank into despair and he clutched his head in both hands, fighting the urge to weep.

"I do not understand," he said, more to himself than to anyone else. "We were so happy. She… she said she understood my situation. She assured me we would be in this together."

His chest tightened until he felt as though he could barely breathe. Then he felt his uncle's hand upon his shoulder.

"Do not fear, nephew. I shall see that you never go without. No matter where this ends," Frederick assured him, squeezing his shoulder tightly, "I shall ensure you have an allowance. I shall keep a roof over your head, over you sister's head. Do not even think of the silly woman. She is a fool not to see the value of this family."

Alex barely heard the words. He was already falling into darkness. How could he go on when the one good thing in his life had walked right out of it?

"Alex? Alex! Brother!"

Lorraine"s shrieking was agony to Alex"s ears. His head pounded and his eyes were blurred. Barely managing to raise his head from his desk, he squinted at his sister.

"Must you shriek like a banshee?" he demanded, feeling only a slight twinge of guilt when he saw her pull back from where she leaned over him.

"Have you been here all night?" she asked, prodding him hard in the shoulder.

"Ouch!" he growled back. Every muscle hurt. He did not need to be poked right now. "Was that truly necessary?"

He reached up and rubbed his shoulder. "Yes, you smell like a brew house."

"How would you know?" Alex mocked, reeling back in his chair. Placing his hands over his face, he groaned inwardly.

"I can imagine all too easily, brother," Lorraine sighed, resting against the edge of the desk to look at him. Though he covered his eyes, he could feel her watching. It was most uncomfortable. Nobody needed to see him in this state, least of all his sister.

"Drinking yourself into a stupor shall not aid us any, Alex," Lorraine said softly. Alex gritted his teeth. Again, his sister was right but what was there left to do but drink himself into oblivion. The second Emmaline had run away was the second he lost everything. His land, his title, his estate. It was all gone.

How could he possibly tell his sister that?

"Come on, up with you!" Lorraine insisted. She grabbed his forearm and pulled hard, forcing his hand away from his face.

He glowered at her through his unscarred eye. "Do you truly think you can get me from this chair?"

"If I must, I shall call Sean in here to help me!" Lorraine said with determination, gripping his other hand. "We must continue on, no matter what. Our parents never would have sat here, defeated like this."

Her words cut deep, and Alex snatched his hands away so viciously that if she had not caught herself on the desk, she would have fallen right on top of him.

"How could you possibly know what our mothers might have done in this situation? We killed them both!" he snapped the words at her without thinking and before he knew it, she had struck him clean across the face.

"Enough, Alex! You have wallowed in self-pity for most of your life. You hid it behind your determination to do father proud, to gain yourself a reputation but I have always seen it!" Lorraine hissed back at him, her hands tightened into fists, one rested on the surface of the desk to hold herself up whilst she leaned over him.

"No longer! I allowed it for far too long after the accident. I will not watch you destroy yourself! Not for the club, or uncle, or anyone else for that matter! It is time to fight for the life you always deserved, not the life you believe everybody wanted you to have."

A small part of Alex desperately wanted to grab hold of his sister"s words and use them as fuel to do just that but meekly, he said, "I have lost everything, Lorrie. She is gone."

Her confusion was clear in the way her dark eyes narrowed. "Whatever do you mean? Who is gone?"

Alex could not bear to say another word aloud. His throat was raw with emotion and the amount of liquor he had consumed. And so, he picked up Emmaline"s letter from his desk and handed it to her.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her face grow pale. She placed a horrified hand over her mouth, reading with eyes that flashed across the page. Then, she seemed to look it over again before dropping it in front of him with a triumphant, "Alex, this is a forgery."

In that moment, someone might have knocked him over with a feather had he not been seated. "I beg your pardon?"

"This is Em"s hand," Lorraine stated, throwing an accusing index finger at the letter on the desk.

Alex leaned back in his seat, starting at the letter, disbelieving.

"Do not tell me you do not know your wife"s hand!" Lorraine snapped at him. "She has such beautiful cursive and that most definitely is not her hand."

Alex"s throat constricted.

"How can you know that?" he demanded, even as he thought, how can I not?

"We women tend to enjoy company when writing our correspondence. I saw Emmaline write to her eldest sister just yesterday and remarked on how beautifully she wrote."

A thousand questions rushed through Alex"s mind but the chief among them was, "If this is not from her then where is she?"

Lorraine did not answer. Instead, she asked another question entirely, "How did you come by the letter?"

Alex gritted his teeth. "Frederick."

A niggling feeling of suspicion crept into his stomach. Frederick was a foul and violent man, but he had always been fair when it came to family. Where did he say he got it?

With the fog of liquor and unchecked emotions still plaguing his mind, he couldn"t quite remember what he had said.

Lorraine looked as if she were about to say something when they both were startled by Sean"s racing into the room, almost tripping over the rug in his eagerness.

"Forgive me, Your Grace, my lady," Sean puffed, sucking in air between words, "But I have just had word from our informants at the docks. You won"t believe it, Your Grace!"

"Believe what?" Alex demanded, jumping to his feet, slamming his hands on his desk. Was this something to do with Emmaline?

"The India Rose, Your Grace!" Sean gasped, doubled over with hands on his knees. "She has docked!"

Alex"s eyes almost bulged out of his head. Lorraine looked quite confused.

"We must go immediately!" Alex declared, rushing to grab his hat and coat from the nearby coat rack.

"Alex? What is the meaning of this?" Lorraine demanded.

"I"ll explain on the way!" Alex threw over his shoulder. Ordinarily, he never would have had Lorraine with him on such a journey but today, with so much uncertain and Emmaline"s whereabouts unknown, he needed everyone else close.