The Rogue Who Rescued Her

by Christi Caldwell

  Strolling arm in arm, smiles on their faces and children running about, the Barretts and their spouses—Rutland included—hadn’t looked the part of killers. They’d looked like a loving family and nothing more. Such a display, however, meant nothing. Over the years, hadn’t Graham himself become a master of pretense?

  No respectable family wanted a scandal about, and there was no greater scandal than the one Viscount Waters had visited upon his family—both of them. Martha and her children posed a threat to that joyful tableau on full display at Hyde Park.

  Only—Graham abruptly stopped—it did not make sense. He trained his gaze on the longcase clock, following the staccato hand as it ticked away the seconds. The obvious answer was too obvious. If Archer had wished for Martha to… disappear, he’d had countless opportunities in the time in which Waters’ treachery had come to light. The same held true for his sons-in-law and stepson. They’d all had ample opportunity to see that the late viscount’s sins remained dead and buried along with him.

  There was only one certainty—whoever had manipulated them all to get her here. There was no other accounting for the perceived danger in High Town. No, whoever had taken her had a use for her that went behind silencing secrets.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  His heart jumped, and Graham was across the room in several strides. He yanked the panel open—

  “Oh.”

  His butler cleared his throat. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Sutton.”

  His mother tugged off her gloves. Her garments impeccable and not a strand of golden hair out of place, she swept forward. “No need for an introduction, Brambly. Or…” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper in a teasing way that Graham’s father had never managed. “Perhaps, with the time it’s been since I’ve seen him, it would be beneficial.” She winked.

  A sparkle glimmering in his eyes, Brambly backed out, and closing the door, he left the pair alone.

  Doing a small turn about the room, his mother at last stopped in the middle of the room, commanding the office with her vantage. “I’ll give you a hint,” she teased. “This is generally where you gesture to a chair or offer to ring for refreshments.”

  Refreshments with his mother. His world was… had fallen apart, and he was engaging in this farce.

  Dissemble at all times. You cease to be the man you were once you serve the Brethren.

  That lesson ringing inside his head, Graham forced himself to indicate the pair of chairs in front of the fire. “It is a pleasure as always, Mother.”

  She snorted. “If that were true, you’d not have left my house party.” His mother seated herself. “I take it, however, you were… expecting another.”

  Hoping for another. He’d been hoping there’d been some word. Some visit from the Brethren. Alas, his mother had always been more insightful than had been helpful to the troublesome boy he’d been.

  He sidestepped her observation. “Things are dire indeed if you’ve gone and abandoned your houseguests.” The consummate hostess, she’d never do anything as rude as leave her guests.

  She laughed softly. “Come, you know me enough to know I quite despise all duties of hostess. It is your father who loves it so.”

  “Yes, anything that pays homage to his status.” Gathering the untouched-until-now drink he’d poured himself, Graham lifted it in a mock salute. He took a sip and set the snifter down.

  “He respects the title and its history, Sheldon. But he’s not just that man.”

  That severed the thin thread he had on his patience. “Is that why you’re here? To speak to me about the man my father is or is not?” He leaned forward. “I know precisely the manner of man he is.” One who’d berate his son for never being the one he’d wished he’d be. One who’d send his damned man-of-affairs to make a young widow alone in the country an offer of funds if she’d leave his ducal spare to the heir alone. Graham firmed his lips. He was the last man who should have been assigned to Martha.

  If… when she was found, he’d first beg forgiveness, and then he’d try to convince her that he was not only worthy of her, but capable of protecting her and her family.

  But his mother wished to hear none of that, or that her husband, Graham’s father, could go to the devil.

  “Return home, Mother. If you’ve hopes of peace this holiday season, or my making a match with Lady Emilia, you’ve wasted your time.”

  Ever calm in the face of all her children’s squabbling, she sat back. “Oh, Graham, I’ll not lie to you and say that you are completely incorrect. That this… anger between you and your father has torn me apart for the whole of my life. That I wish there could be peace between you and him… and Heath.”

  “I’ve no problems with Heath.”

  A soft smile creased her face. “None that you ever speak of. None that my two boys have ever addressed.”

  His body went taut. This was a discussion he didn’t wish to have. Even if Martha weren’t in peril, he still wouldn’t want to have it, ever. “I accepted long ago that my relationship with His Grace is dead and my one with Heath is fractured. I came to peace with it.”

  “What is this really about, Sheldon?”

  He stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Your father believed your leaving the house party was nothing more than a display of rebellion.”

  “Of course he did,” he said bitterly. His father’s opinion of him had always been low. “And what did you believe?” No doubt the same lowly thoughts.

  “I thought it had something to do with the… young woman you went off to… visit.”

  Graham started.

  His mother gave him a wry smile. “You’ve always seemed to have an opinion about the relationship I have with your father. We speak, Sheldon. About everything.”

  Which also meant… Fury whipped through him. “So you knew what he intended to do,” he stated, the handful of words infused with bitterness.

  She hesitated, and that was all he needed to know.

  Of all the disappointments he’d felt toward his father, never had it stung or hurt quite like this. The directive to order Martha away had come from his mother. “If you’ve come in the hopes I’ll accompany you for the remainder of your house party, I fear you are to be even more disappointed.” The least of the reasons of which had to do with his bloody father’s insulting proposition to Martha and all to do with her. Oh, God. Madness shredded his patience and mind all at the same time. He came to his feet. “You should go.”

  His mother studied him for a long moment, the same maternal trick she’d employed with her troublesome son whereby she could pull forth every secret he’d sought—and failed—to keep from her, until now. “You care for her.”

  “No,” he said automatically. Care was a weak emotion that could never capture the depth of what he felt for Martha Donaldson.

  “You love her,” she breathed.

  Yes, he loved her. He loved her strength and courage and resilience in the face of all the ugliness life had heaped upon her narrow shoulders. He loved that she fought at every turn for the happiness of her children. And she is gone…

  Graham dragged his hands through his hair. “I’ve nothing to say.”

  “You’ve already said everything with your silence,” she said gently. His mother gave her head a little shake, a woman putting together the final pieces of an at-last-solved riddle. “Of course, she was… is nothing like the usual ladies you keep company with.” She wrinkled her nose. “Actresses and notoriously emotionless widows and not young mothers from the country—”

  The door opened, and Frederick rushed in. “I heard—” The boy’s face fell, and all hope was extinguished as he took in Graham’s mother. “Oh.”

  Had a mythical winged and horned unicorn swept into the room, the duchess wouldn’t have been more surprised. She blinked wildly. “Hullo,” she at last blurted.

  Frederick cleared his throat. “Hello.”

  Graham stepped in to perform
introductions. “Frederick, allow me to introduce you to my mother, the Duchess of Sutton. Mother, Frederick Donaldson.”

  There was a softening to his mother’s features as she quit her chair and drifted over to the boy. “Hello,” she repeated as she fell to a knee beside him. “It is lovely to meet you.”

  Martha’s son glanced past her shoulder, a search for reassurance that eased the nagging ache that had been there since Martha had disappeared. “She’s not one of those pompous duchesses,” he promised.

  “Oh, not at all,” his mother readily agreed. Her fingers came up to smooth the wrinkled lines of Frederick’s coat. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Frederick continued to eye her with a world-weariness. Graham recognized the look too well, the desire to flee a situation that threatened… or, in this case, felt threatening.

  “Frederick, would you allow us a moment?”

  Relief paraded over the boy’s features. He dropped a quick bow. “Your Grace,” he murmured and bolted off, closing the door behind him.

  His mother remained kneeling for a moment, staring at the door. “No, she isn’t the usual company you keep. And I find I prefer it,” she said, coming to her feet and facing him.

  “She is not my mistress,” he said tightly. “Nor do I want her to be. If she’ll have me…” If she is found. Do not think that. Do not… “I intend to marry her.”

  That statement ushered in a thick, charged tension that blanketed the room. “I… see,” she said, equanimous. Wandering past him, she retrieved her gloves. With slow, precise movements, she drew on the white articles. “I believed you’d left the house party because of your father.” Which he had, countless times before. “Your father believed it was to see one of your many mistresses.” Which had also been true countless times before. “But now?” She cast a lingering glance at the door. “Now I realize it had nothing to do with either, but rather, the young woman.”

  With that, she started for the door.

  When she reached the panel, she stopped. “Oh, and Sheldon? You said earlier you are at peace, but if that were the case, you wouldn’t be bitter. You wouldn’t be resentful. Come home. Let us all try again… your father, Heath, you, and if you can convince Miss Donaldson to marry you? Her and her family.”

  With that offering, his mother left.

  Graham hadn’t a moment to contemplate the unexpected olive branch before the door burst open.

  “There’s no word?”

  Graham motioned to the leather winged chair opposite his desk that Frederick had occupied nearly nonstop since Martha had gone missing. The only moment he’d abandoned it had been when Graham had sent him to the kitchens for food, so he could allow himself a moment to indulge in panic. “There hasn’t been.” Nothing outside the missives that he’d sent and received from those in the Home Office searching for her whereabouts.

  “Do you believe she’s all right?”

  Since the discovery of Martha’s abandoned sketch pad and the trail of her footsteps alongside another, larger, male pair, that had been nearly the only utterance to fall from Frederick’s lips.

  And just like each time he’d asked before, Graham brought himself to utter his return phrase. “I do.”

  That assurance wasn’t solely for the boy, however. It was as much for Graham himself. Because he had to believe that Martha was all right. That she’d not come to harm. For he’d know it if she wasn’t. There would be an empty hole where his heart, in fact, was.

  “I shouldn’t have been so mean to her.” Frederick buried his chin in his chest, his words slashing through Graham’s self-absorbed musings. “I-I’ve been rotted.”

  “Shh,” Graham soothed. “This is not the time for regrets. When she comes home, you can show her every day you love her.” And every day I will prove why we belong together… All of us.

  “But I was rotten to her. She wanted me to go cut down a tree with her…”

  Graham puzzled his brow.

  “It’s a tradition for the holidays,” the boy explained. “And I told her my sisters would probably like to do it and then blamed her for sending them away.”

  Oh, Frederick. The guilt the boy carried was greater than that of any man. Graham came round his desk. Capturing the other leather winged chair, he dragged it closer to Frederick’s. Not so very long ago, he’d have run off in horror at the prospect of offering comfort to a child, a role so foreign before, but now familiar. One that felt… right in every way. “As children”—regardless of age—“we know precisely what will agitate our parents. Or hurt them… And we often act without thinking.” Sometimes with thinking, too. “Your mother knows you love her.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” he whispered, his voice threadbare.

  Did his own father and mother realize the same of Graham? Or had he, with his own angry and unwillingness to talk about how he’d felt through the years, contributed to building the barriers that left them wondering why he’d resented them? “She knows,” he promised. “But everyone benefits from a reminder now and then. And when she is back, you’ll tell her how you feel.” Just as I will…

  Frederick gave a shaky nod. “I will.” His was an avowal.

  “And when she returns, Frederick… there is something I’d ask you.”

  The boy stared at him with a question in his eyes.

  “I’d like to marry your mother. I’d ask for permission to wed her, if she’ll have me.” Graham held that direct little gaze. “If you’ll all have—oomph.” He staggered back as Frederick hurled himself against his chest, and then Graham righted the both of them.

  “Yes,” Frederick cried. “You can.”

  Graham wrapped his arms around the boy and held him, this child, with his spirit and strength and courage, who was so very much like his mother. Tears blurred his eyes and clogged his throat.

  Frederick scrambled out of his arms, a bright blush on his cheeks. He picked at his collar. “Err… That is…” He added a layer of deepness to his voice. “As long as you promise to care for her and love her and make her happy and not hurt her.”

  “I will,” he promised. If she let him. If they found her…

  His stomach pitched, bile climbing his throat as the traitorous thought steeped in reality crept forward.

  To keep Martha’s son from seeing that real terror, Graham returned to his desk and focused on her file, while Frederick sat in a companionable silence.

  In the time since she’d been gone, Graham had scoured the pages of her file from the Home Office. Looking for clues. Looking for the names of her enemies.

  Her captor wouldn’t be a villager from High Town. They’d not have traveled to London to hurt her here when they’d had all the opportunities under the High Town sun to see to the act in that miserable countryside.

  So who… who…?

  Martha had gone of her own volition to London, but some unknown foe had impelled her into that decision. It therefore only made sense that it was a member of the peerage.

  And where in blazes were his goddamned superiors with information? It had been hours since he’d received a damned note from anyone.

  There was a quick rapping at the door.

  His butler entered. “Lords Edward Helling and Exeter,” he announced as the two older gentlemen swept forward.

  About bloody time.

  Graham, however, fixed his gaze on just one in that pair. Exeter. Fury pumped through his veins. The man who’d promised Martha assistance, who’d promised to keep her secret, had failed her at every turn. “Frederick, will you return this”—he handed over Martha’s sketch pad—“to your mother’s rooms? See that the pages are straightened, so when she comes home she doesn’t see her work wrinkled.”

  Frederick leaped up and grabbed the book. Cradling it close to his chest like Bluebeard’s trove, he hurried off.

  Calling forth every lesson on patience and timing and silence, Graham waited a few moments before asking, “Who has taken her?”

  “I don’t know,” Exeter s
aid.

  “Why are you here, then?” Graham demanded.

  “To see if you’ve uncovered any information about who might have abducted Miss Donaldson.”

  They were relying on him to have information about her whereabouts. Holding off on sharing his speculations, Graham briefly turned his ire on Lord Edward. “You insisted she was safer in London.”

  “And you insisted on bringing her to Hyde Park despite my warnings.” The other man bowed his head. “We were both wrong.”

  Guilt needled, deserved and well placed. Nonetheless… “That is it? Simply… ‘we were wrong’?” Lord Edward temporarily forgotten, Graham pointed a finger at the earl, now the husband of the late viscount’s rightful wife. “You offered Miss Donaldson assurances, and you failed.”

  The gentleman’s face contorted. “I know. I’m deserving of that blame.”

  “Bloody right you are.” Only, the other man’s ownership of guilt and Graham’s charges against him did nothing… Neither brought her back. Even so, he fed that outrage. “You were content with her buried away in High Town, while you lived your fairy-tale life with your new wife and new babe.”

  The color leached from Lord Exeter’s cheeks.

  “You,” Graham sneered, “promised her security and safety, but that wasn’t really your concern, was it?”

  “Whitworth,” Lord Edward barked.

  “Was it?” he thundered. Graham rushed across the room and grabbed Lord Exeter by his lapels, dragging the slightly shorter man closer to eye level.

  “Unhand him,” his mentor commanded.

  “You told her one thing. Mayhap you made yourself feel better at the idea of leaving a young woman with three children unprotected and alone.”

  Lord Exeter’s throat moved. “I saw her daughters admitted to a school where they’d be treated with kindness and where they might build a future.”

  A red curtain of rage descended over Graham’s vision, briefly blinding him. “She was separated from her children, you bastard,” he hissed. He ignored Lord Edward’s continued commands that he stand down. “Tell me… would having your new son sent away be some consolation to you?”