Page 35 of Magick in the Night
“My lord!” she exclaimed, hastily rising. “What an honor?—”
“Was Lady Blackburn here earlier?”
“Yes, my lord. She left not half an hour ago—perhaps a bit more. I walked her to the door myself.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
The woman frowned in thought. “It wasn’t expressly stated but my assumption was she intended to return to the inn and wait for you. She seemed distracted, though. Worried, perhaps.”
Gabriel’s heart lurched. “Thank you,” he said tightly, and turned on his heel.
Back in the street, he paused to scan the narrow lane that wound between the dressmaker’s and the inn. But there was no sign of her. So he kept walking, kept looking. The air was growing heavier, the first flakes of snow beginning to flit about as the sky deepened to steel gray. He began to walk, slowly at first, then faster, his eyes searching the ground for any sign of her passage.
Halfway between the two buildings, something caught his eye—a glint of color against the cobblestones. He crouched, his breath catching as he reached for it.
A single red rose.
It was fresh, its petals unbruised, though the stem bore ragged break, as though it had been torn free in haste.
For a moment, he could not move. The flower lay across his palm, small and perfect—and utterly wrong. Roses did not grow here, not in the heart of the village. There was only one place where he had ever seen that particular shade of red, deep as wine and rich as blood: the wild rosebush that climbed the stone wall beside the Ashcombe cottage. That late blooming rose bush climbed one wall of the cottage, defying rain, wind and even snow.
A chill ran through him.
“Eliza,” he whispered.
He straightened, shoving the rose into his coat pocket as he turned back toward the inn. Bursting through the door, he called for the head groom. “Gather every man we have,” he ordered. “Eliza is missing. Spread out through the village—ask if anyone saw her pass this way.”
The grooms scattered, their boots echoing against the cobbles. Gabriel strode toward the stables to ready his horse when one of the men came running up the road, breathless.
“My lord!” the groom called. “I saw Mr. Dabney not fifteen minutes past—headed toward the old Ashcombe road. Thought it odd, him going that way when it’d be much quicker to take the Western Road.”
Gabriel’s blood turned cold.
“Dabney,” he said under his breath. The man’s face came to him at once—smiling, eager, his gaze far too admiring when it lingered upon Eliza at church. A possessive gleam that had made Gabriel’s stomach turn even then.
“Fetch the horses!” he snapped. “Now!”
Within moments, he was in the saddle, spurring his mount hard down the rutted track that led from the village toward the forest. Even as the snow and sleet began to fall in earnest, the hard pellets stinging his skin, he kept the pace. The wind tore at his coat as the countryside blurred past. Each hoofbeat thudded in his chest like a drum, his mind filled with images he could not bear—Eliza frightened, struggling, alone.
The sky had darkened by the time he reached the bend in the road that overlooked the valley. Ahead, a carriage moved at a sedate pace, its polished wheels glinting in the weak light. Gabriel recognized it instantly as Dabney’s, the matched grays pulling it with lazy indifference.
He drew rein sharply, forcing his horse to a stop. Something was wrong. The carriage moved too calmly, too deliberately.Dabney himself sat within, glancing out the window with no sign of haste or guilt.
Gabriel’s gut twisted.
He urged his horse forward until he was level with the driver, who looked up in alarm. “My lord!” the man stammered. “Mr. Dabney’s orders were to return home directly?—”
“Where is your master?”
“Inside, my lord.”
Gabriel swung down and wrenched open the carriage door. Dabney blinked up at him, startled.
“Blackburn!” he exclaimed. “Good heavens—what the devil are you doing?”
Gabriel’s voice was low and dangerous. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Dabney looked genuinely baffled. “What are you talking about?”
