Chapter 23

CHAPTER23

“No, no, this is madness.” Daniel halted in the entryway. The clock in the corner struck midnight, and the one candle that was lit flickered. “This cannot be the case.”

“We have searched the whole route, Your Grace,” the constable standing before him said, slowly shaking his head. He pulled tightly at the uniform he wore, then tried to mask a yawn. It was a late hour, and Daniel shouldn’t have blamed him for it, but the mere idea that the constable may be bored of searching for his missing wife enraged him. “There is no sign of your wife, nor her horse.”

“This is absurd!” Daniel snapped and turned away, marching up and down the corridor. He flung his tailcoat off, finding it too constricting.

Halfway down the stairs stood Dorothea. She was wearing a lounge dress, an informal style, and her usually prim and perfect hair was around her ears. She pulled at a loose belt, fiddling with it relentlessly, revealing the true extent of her fears.

Daniel had been searching for Rachel for hours, but with no luck. He’d started at her father’s house, where they arranged a search of the grounds but found nothing, then he came back to search his own grounds and house, yet his staff had come up equally emptyhanded. Calling for the constable was the last thing he could think of doing, to search the roads in case there had been an accident.

“There is no sign of an incident, and there has been no report of one either,” the constable went on.

“What of the doctors?” Daniel looked back at the constable. “Is it possible she fell from her horse and was taken to a local physician in town? Please, you must have found something.”

The constable shrugged helplessly. The mere sight of it made Daniel groan and look away.

“There is nothing, Your Grace. My men shall resume a search in the morning, but there is little we can do on a dark night like tonight. They must rest. I will return on the morrow with our plans. Good night, Your Grace.” The constable bowed and left quickly.

The disregard and curt manner made Daniel march forward.

“Daniel,” Dorothea hissed in a low tone, bringing him to a stop.

The moment the door was closed, he looked back at her. “He does not care she is missing. He doesn’t care at all! All he thinks about is his bed.” He was haphazard in manner, walking up and down the corridor. He pushed up his shirt sleeves and tugged at his hair. “I cannot sleep like this. How can I close my eyes when I do not know where Rachel is? This is mad! Completely mad, in every way! I cannot believe she would run off like this.”

“She wouldn’t.” Dorothea walked down the stairs. She sat on the bottom step, something that startled Daniel.

His aunt was always so proper, a formidable and impressive presence in every room. Her willingness to sit on the stairs was a testament to what was going on in her mind.

“She wished to go to her sisters. It is the logical place to go. I do not believe she would go anywhere else.” She shook her head. “After what you had told her, she would wish to talk about it with her sisters.”

“She said that’s what she wanted,” Daniel confirmed and paced once more, striding so heavily past the candle beside him on the side table that the flame danced, in danger of going out. “I don’t understand.” He stopped abruptly, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror behind the candle.

He was wild in appearance. His normally tousled hair stood up at different angles, his cravat was half hanging off his neck, and his shirt was untucked from beneath his breeches.

Ah, Rachel, where are you?

The pain of not knowing where she was, of fearing that some dreadful thing might have happened to her, had his heart racing, to the point it echoed in his ears.

“Daniel?”

“What?” Daniel whipped around.

Dorothea patted the step beside her. “Come. Sit.”

“I cannot sit.”

“You expect to pace all night? Exhaustion will not help your wife. Sit.” Dorothea insisted, looking at the step.

Reluctantly, he sat beside his aunt, but he leaned forward and tapped his foot intermittently, his elbows resting on his knees.

“Let us think this through for a minute,” Dorothea pleaded. “We can make sense of it, somehow.”

I cannot.

Daniel drove himself mad by replaying every little thing that had passed between him and Rachel this morning in his mind. For some reason, his imagination began to play tricks on him. He imagined that he was not the only one left behind in this house. He imagined two children were here as well, a boy and a girl, who wanted their mother back.

Why do I keep thinking such things?

He rubbed a hand over his face, closing his eyes as he imagined the boy and girl sitting on either side of him. The boy would cling to his jacket as the girl would hold onto his arm. Such warmth welled up in him as he imagined himself holding onto them that he realized something.

I imagine children an awful lot, for being a man that does not want them.

“What you said this morning, Auntie,” Daniel said, lowering his hand and looking at his aunt, “about my mother wanting this world to be a better place for me, when I was born. Do you ever think that is possible?”

“How do you mean?”

“Is it possible for the world to become better? For it to ever live up to the hopes we have of it?”

At his words, Dorothea frowned. “You are thinking of children now?”

“I just keep thinking…” he trailed off and stared blankly ahead of him. He imagined Rachel stepping through the door, with the two children running toward her. “If I can’t find her—”

“You will. You will find her,” Dorothea cut him off, her voice insistent.

“I want to make her happy.” The words tumbled out of his lips. “I can’t imagine not doing so. Or, God forbid, I can’t imagine her…” He gulped, the temptation to cry burning in his eyes. “I can’t imagine her being gone from this world and never having what she dreamed of. Children.”

He ached as he laid back on the stairs, resting his head on another step.

Dorothea reached for his shoulder and squeezed it tightly. “She is not gone, Daniel. We’ll find her.”

“There must be something more I can do. Something!” he hissed at himself.

He sat up, his manner desperate, when someone’s footsteps made the stairs creak. Turning around, he saw Anne standing at the top of the stairs.

She was dressed for bed, wrapped up in her dressing gown.

“Daniel,” she said weakly. “Look at you.” She hastened down the stairs and moved to sit on his other side. “You’re driving yourself to madness.”

“I feel mad,” Daniel muttered. He wiped at his eyes, not wanting the tears to fall. He hardly cared if Dorothea and Anne saw him in this state, he was just angry at the tears, for they hardly helped Rachel. “She should be here!”

He looked at the hands of the clock again. It read past midnight. By this time, he and Rachel should be in bed together, falling asleep in one another’s arms.

I’d give anything to have those moments back.

He stood abruptly. “Someone must have seen something.”

“Wonderful, he’s back to his pacing,” Dorothea muttered.

“If she never reached her sisters, and the constable cannot find anything on the route to suggest there was an incident, then something must have happened here before she left.” Daniel waved a hand toward the door. “I did not watch her leave.”

He remembered with an ache in his chest the way his and Rachel’s eyes had connected through the window, but then he had walked away, finding he could not bear to see her ride away from him.

“I did.” Anne sat forward. “She took the horse and rode down the driveway, then she stopped to talk to that man. I went inside then.”

“Man? What man?” Daniel asked suddenly.

“A man. I presumed he’d come to visit you.” Anne gestured toward him. “Surely he was coming to see you if he rode down the drive.”

“Anne, I have not had any visitors today.” Daniel looked at his aunt, but she shook her head.

“Neither have I.”

“Then… who was this man?” He stepped forward, impatience in his manner. It was the first hint of something else being amiss. “Anne, please.”

“I do not know who he was. I can describe him, though.” She stood slowly. “He was tall and had golden hair. I’m certain he was at your ball the other night. The handsome one. The one all the ladies liked to gaze at. I thought he had come to see you on some business.”

I know that description.

Daniel reeled, stepping back again.

“Daniel, what is it?” Dorothea asked with sudden fear.

“I know the description. That is the Marquess of Repington.”

* * *

“Lord Repington!” Daniel barked, slamming on the door so many times that dogs howled down the street, spooked at this late hour.

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, but Daniel hardly cared. Rachel was missing, and he had to find her.

Lord Repington is the only lead I have.

He couldn’t understand why the Marquess would come to the house and then not call on him. Surely, he had come to discuss the brewery.

Perhaps not. Perhaps he came to see Rachel instead.

“Open this door!” Daniel called again, slamming his fist against the wood. “Open it, or I’ll call the constable. I’m warning you!”

The door opened abruptly. A very tired-looking butler appeared on the other side, stuffing his shirt hastily into his trousers and pulling on his jacket. He’d evidently been roused from his sleep.

“What is this? Who are you?”

“The Duke of Elbridge. Where is Lord Repington?”

Daniel didn’t wait for an answer but strode into the house. He looked around the entryway madly, desperate to see some sign of Rachel.

“Lord Repington!” he barked again and reached for a door.

“You cannot go in there, Your Grace.”

The butler hurried after him but was too slow. Daniel easily opened the door and stepped inside, finding there was a candle in this room casting a soft orange glow around the space.

“I presume you have some reason for barging into my house at this late hour.” Lord Repington was sitting in an armchair by an open window, a candle beside him and a book in his lap. There was a strange smile curling at his lips.

Why would a man smile when another had barged into his house in this manner?

“You saw my wife.”

Daniel stepped around the butler, who tried to get in his way again. When the butler laid a hand on his arm, Daniel lost his patience. As a trained soldier, he only took a second to grab that hand, then swing it up past the butler’s back and shove him away.

The butler fell into the nearest chair, fidgeting in shock as he rubbed his now sore arm.

“You saw my wife,” Daniel said again, striding toward Lord Repington. “This morning, you came to the house, and you were with her.”

Lord Repington didn’t answer but lifted a wine glass to his lips, taking a small sip. As he put the glass back down again, that insufferable curl of his lip was still there.

“Answer me!” Daniel shouted.

“What good would it do, hmm?” Lord Repington asked, lifting his chin higher. “You barge into my home at this late hour and then expect me to talk to you like a reasonable gentleman. I will not engage in this.” He tutted as if Daniel was behaving like a child.

Daniel’s eyes darted over Lord Repington’s countenance. The man was fully dressed, a strange thing for this late hour. His boots, which he’d flicked up onto a stool beside him, were muddied, as if he’d come in from walking through the garden.

“Where have you been?” Daniel asked, needing to know.

“That is none of your business.”

“Then answer me this. Where is my wife?”

“Have you lost her? Oh, dear, how careless of you.” Lord Repington tutted again, a mocking look of pity in his eyes.

Daniel saw at once the confident smugness, something he had not seen in Lord Repington before. “You are behind this, are you not?” he asked, realizing more and more what was going on here. “I introduced the pair of you at the ball, then you call on her and she vanishes. What have you done to my wife?”

“Dear, dear Elbridge, you really must keep a better eye on your wife in the future. She’s like a dog, you see? You have to bring them to heel.”

“Do not talk about my wife like that.” Daniel’s voice boomed around the room.

Calmly, Lord Repington lifted his wine glass to his lips again. Daniel was tempted to snatch it away and smash it on the floor, but instead, he went for something bolder. He crossed toward the small table where Lord Repington had placed his book and the carafe of wine, then he knocked the carafe off the table.

It smashed on the floor, the purplish-red liquid spreading out like blood between the glass shards.

“What is the meaning of this!?” the butler raged and stood again.

“Don’t come near me,” Daniel warned with a raised hand.

The butler stood back, rubbing his sore arm.

Slowly, Daniel took the arm of Lord Repington’s chair and leaned toward him. “I am not a calm man. Nor a man capable of quiet words and mocking glances when my wife is missing. I know you are a part of this, so quit your act, or I will cause more havoc in your house.”

“You are so confident that I am involved in this matter,” Lord Repington said with something of a malicious twinkle in his eyes.

“Because you are mere seconds away from laughing. Only a man who had something to do with this would be tempted to laugh. Any other man would have been concerned and would have at least asked me how long my wife had been missing or what I know of her whereabouts. You have not responded like a normal human.” Daniel stood straight again. “Fine, if you will not tell me anything, then I shall search your house.”

“You will do no such thing.” The butler put himself in the doorway again, but Daniel strode toward him with so much vigor that he backed up.

“Out of my way.”

“No!” The butler held his ground.

Daniel merely had to grip his shoulder tightly and push him out of the way.

“Rachel!”

He shouted the house down and searched the rooms as thoroughly as he could. He checked every chamber, even the servants’ chambers, frightening some out of their wits.

Daniel didn’t find anything. He returned to the stairwell and headed back to the main corridor, where he found Lord Repington leaning against the sitting room doorframe, looking as confident as ever.

“Did you find her?” the Marquess asked mockingly.

“What did you do to her?” Daniel stood before him menacingly. Every fiber of his being was tied up in anger and fear for Rachel.

What if some harm has come to her? What if this monster has hurt her?

His hand curled into a fist at his side. Something would have to be done about that.

“You wish to speak plainly, Your Grace?” Lord Repington asked, his smile fading for the first time.

“Do so,” Daniel urged, his voice deathly quiet.

“Very well, then listen here.” Lord Repington cleared his throat as if about to give a speech. “My father and I watched years ago as the thing most prized and precious to us was burnt down to the ground.”

“Wait… what?” Daniel thought of the brewery his father and the Duke of Gainsborough had once owned together. “That was an accident.”

“Was it?” Lord Repington laughed. “Or was it your father’s attempt to buy us out of the brewery?”

“You couldn’t buy it,” Daniel said sharply. “Your father had gambled away most of your money, so he could not afford it.”

Lord Repington’s gaze darkened, his blue eyes turning ice cold.

“We watched as all our hopes burned. Now, maybe it’s time for you to do the same. Watch what you prize burn.” The Marquess nodded his head at someone in the passageway.

Daniel looked around to see Lord Repington had gathered many of his staff. Along with the butler, there were four footmen.

“Say goodbye to your precious wife, Your Grace,” Lord Repington said snidely.

“You bast—” Daniel didn’t get any further. He launched himself at Lord Repington’s back but was caught from behind by the footmen and the butler.

They dragged him out kicking and screaming.

“You come back here!” Daniel roared. “You will not lay a finger on her, or I’ll kill you myself. You hear me!”

He was pushed down the front stairs.

Daniel tripped and landed on his front, but he hardly cared about the bruises. He knew what true pain and real wounds were like from the war, so he scrambled to stand up straight, catching sight of Lord Repington smiling from a window.

The Marquess waved once at Daniel, then closed the curtains.