Prologue

PROLOGUE

L ady Frances Johnson clung desperately to the fingers of her friend, Miss Emily Rutley. If she focused on how Emily's hand felt in hers, she could not spare a thought for the other things.

She could not bear thinking of those other things. Panic threatened to bubble up in her throat at the mere idea. So, she focused on the clench of Emily's fingers in hers, warm through the gloves they both wore, a stark contrast to the cool spring air, to the night where?—

Frances squeezed her eyes shut, willing her heart to slow. Panic would do her no good.

The sounds of panic spilled into the garden regardless though they did not come from Frances nor from Emily. Instead, the alarmed cries and frantic footsteps came from various members of the ton as they rushed toward where Emily and Frances stood, summoned by their friend Lady Diana Fletching.

As they grew closer, the sounds coming from the crowd formed into words. "Grace? Grace! Lady Grace!"

Frances' heart threatened to burst. Grace . Lady Grace Miller, the fourth of their little quartet of friends, their vibrant, beautiful, joyous friend.

And the woman whose scream they'd heard echo over the dark gardens only moments before.

The crowd got closer and individual faces became discernible. Leading the pack was the Duke of Graham, Grace's father. The Duke was one of the leading politicians of the day, and Frances had never seen him look disheveled—had never seen him have the slightest hair out of place. Tonight, though, he wide-eyed, the very picture of alarm.

"Grace?" he called. He rushed directly to Frances, seizing her by the shoulders sharply enough that it tore her grasp from Emily's. "Did you see her? Where is she? Grace? Grace?"

"I—n-no," Frances stammered. She was shy even at the best of times, and this was far from the best of times. She could scarcely get the words past the knot clenching her throat. "We—we heard?—"

"A scream," Emily said. Her voice, too, sounded shaky, but she could at least get the words out. "We were looking for her, and then we heard a scream."

The Duke was looking at Emily, but his fingers clenched painfully around Frances' shoulders. He scarcely seemed to notice what he was doing, not even when his son, Grace's brother Evan Miller, the Marquess of Oackley, prised his fingers from Frances. His gaze, too, was fixed on Emily, his face even more ashen than his father's.

"Where?" the Duke was demanding. "Where did you hear it?"

Emily was competent, made so by years of managing her challenging younger sisters, but she seemed fragile under the Duke's furious gaze.

"H-here," she said, gesturing with her arm. "I mean, we were over there, by the veranda, but the sound—it came from here."

The crowd rippled as Diana tore her arm from her mother's grasp, surging forward to wrap a protective arm around Emily's shoulders. Frances likewise edged closer to Emily until all three girls stood together.

All three, but still missing one. There should have been four.

"So, you could be wrong?" the Duke demanded. "You could have heard someone else—from somewhere else?"

Emily blinked, shaking her head as if to gather her thoughts, but Evan interrupted before Emily could respond. "Father, we must hurry. We have to search. If someone has apprehended Grace—" His voice broke off, a sharp crack in his words showing the pain he suffered in speaking to them. He sounded no less haunted when he continued, "We must hurry before they get away."

The Duke swung his gaze from Emily to his son as if he was in a daze, as if he could not process all the things happening at once and so needed to move extra slowly to compensate. He looked at his heir like he was seeing a stranger.

"Yes, of course," he said. He blinked twice more before the self-assured politician seemed to take charge once more. He looked over the gathered crowd, addressing some of the men. "Banford, go tell the footmen to search the gardens. Gillman, go inside and prevent anyone else from leaving before we've concluded our search. Van Houten, search inside the house. Leave no room untouched."

The three men he'd identified, all contemporaries of the Duke, aristocrats who were no doubt unused to being ordered around, nodded sharply, looking as pleased to have been selected as if they had been schoolboys preening under a teacher's praise.

"I'll search out here, too, if that's where the girls said they heard her," Evan said, his voice choked. He was already peering into the dark. "I'll find her."

Even though everything seemed hopeless, in that one moment, listening to Grace's brother, Frances had the tiniest flicker of hope that it would all be well. He sounded so determined . Surely that kind of determination had to mean something?

"Diana!" Diana's mother, Bridget, the Countess of Preston, had finally elbowed her way to the front of the crowd. She snatched her daughter's arm again. "Come here this instant! We are leaving right now!"

It was foolish, but Frances glanced out over the crowd for her own parents. They were no more likely than Lady Preston to offer comfort in this intensely trying time, but she was still perversely disappointed when she looked and saw they weren't there.

The Duke drew himself up fully as he looked down at the Countess. "No, Madam, you are not. If your daughter has seen something tonight, I need to know what that is. I shall be speaking with these three young women until I am satisfied that I have every detail about what has happened to my darling Grace. Is that clear?"

This last question was delivered with all the power of his Parliamentary speeches, the ones that were printed in the newspaper the next day, the one that various noblemen, including Frances' father, read aloud over the breakfast table to admire their turns of phrase.

The Countess of Preston wilted, and who could have blamed her? Frances, who did not enjoy being in the line of sight of any man, let alone one so imposing, wanted to wilt as well.

She wouldn't though. It took every ounce of her willpower, but she steeled her backbone. She could do this. She would do it.

For Grace.