Page 71 of Seductive Reprise
Even though he kept his exterior calm as he opened the envelope—addressed to him, in Rose’s hand—inside he was flailing.
“Gave the lad a guinea. Figured we’d get here faster. Of course, we realized then that Miss Verdier had moved along. Quick, sir, damned quick.” Collins gave a low whistle, obviously impressed with Rose’s evasiveness.
If only they knew, Yusef thought as he unfolded the letter, his heart in his throat.
Please, forgive me—I’m off to Worcestershire.
He reread the sentence, not wanting to believe it. And then she’d begun and scratched out another sentence several times before scribbling:
I still haven’t an answer. Perhaps we should wait to meet until I do.
This was followed by a large blot of ink, as if she’d held the pen there while debating how to close the note. Eventually she’d settled on simply:
Yours, Rose
But it did not feel like she was his. It felt like she’d decided to escape, just like before.
He shoved back from the desk, his mind racing nearly as fast as his heart.
“Where did you say you last spotted her?”
“Er, north, toward the river, sir,” Bartle answered.
Yusef’s eyes shot to the clock on the mantel. “How long ago?”
“Not long,” Bartle answered again. “We came straight here with the letter.”
Yusef’s heart was pounding. He couldn’t let her leave. Not like this. Suddenly another thought occurred to him, and he looked back at the clock, then to his window. Night had just settled. Wife or not, he’d be damned if she gamboled about the streets of London unaccompanied that evening.
“Oh,” Collins said, as if just remembering, “she had that bag with her again. The tube-like one.”
Yusef pictured the cylindrical leather case she’d stored Walter’s portrait in that night at the Hartleys’. Perhaps all was not lost.
“Fetch me my things. Tell the groom to bring my horse up front, post-haste.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
He had no desireto contend with traffic snarls and overturned carriages just now. He’d go faster this way.
She might run away, but not like this. Not in the dark of night, again, with no warning but a hastily scrawled note delivered to his door by some unwashed urchin on foot. When it was far too late for him to do anything about it, or anything for her. She might run, but he would make sure she got where she was going safely.
Hartley’s townhome was only a few streets away. When he arrived, Yusef dismounted and rushed up to the front door, banging upon it like a night watchman with an urgent warning.
The door creaked open to reveal the haggard, miserable face of Hartley’s butler. The ancient man had never been impressed by anyone, let alone Yusef, so he set aside the hauteur of his birthright and blurted out, “Miss Verdier. Is she within?”
The butler narrowed his eyes, studying Yusef’s face.
Yusef was about to shout in a manner he hadn’t indulged in since before he wore long trousers, when Hartley popped outfrom behind his butler, a glass water goblet in his hand. Of course.
He frowned over the butler’s white-wigged head. “What are you doing here, Palgrave?”
Yusef grit his teeth. He’d explain it all later. “Miss Verdier? Has she been by?”
“No. Whatever—”
The rest of Hartley’s question was lost to him, as he ran back down the stairs and mounted Socrates, the older bay he kept in London. With a gentle nudge he set out, narrowly avoiding a costermonger hauling his cart as he wheeled the horse in an arc. He discounted the man’s justified curses, focusing instead on weaving Socrates through the choking traffic on either side of the street. Earlier he’d wished for Rufus, the gelding he kept in Hertfordshire, and his superior speed, but now he realized that Socrates was better suited to this task. The older beast was calm and biddable, not challenging Yusef even as he nudged him into a trot through a massive knot of hansoms and overstuffed wagons.
But his chest tightened as he slowly wended his way through the streets, worrying after Rose. She’dwalkedall the way from Flixton Hall to Chester, for Christ’s sake. In the dark. Would she ever take a care for herself?
