Page 84 of His Mad Duchess
Edward swirled his brandy thoughtfully. “Then fight. Fight for her, for the truth, for whatever this is. Better to fail trying than to drown in brandy.”
Sebastian’s gaze snapped to him. “Fight? For what? For her heart? For a marriage already fractured? What if the truth demands I release her?”
Edward tilted his head. “And what if it demands the opposite?”
The question landed like a stone in his chest. Sebastian sat frozen, thoughts colliding.What if it demands the opposite?
For a long moment, Sebastian said nothing, his thoughts a storm. He had sworn not to speak his suspicions aloud—not yet, not to Edward, not to anyone. But the weight of them pressed heavily.
He set his glass down, unfinished. “I will find the truth first. Only then will I know what battle lies before me.”
Edward studied him with keen eyes, then smiled faintly. “Well, at least you are not drinking yourself into idiocy. That is progress.”
Sebastian huffed a laugh, low and tired. “Do not tempt me.”
“Tempt you?” Edward rose, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “No. I intend to drag you out of here before you become truly pathetic. Come, if you must wrestle with fate, do it on your feet, not hunched over a brandy glass.”
Sebastian allowed himself to be pulled up, though his heart remained heavy. He did not yet name the feeling gnawing within him. But as Edward steered him toward the door, one thing burned clear: he could not… would not… surrender Margaret without a fight.
Sebastian reached Brighton as the afternoon light slanted low across the sea, the wind sharp with salt. The carriage had scarcely halted before the Duncaster Estate when he was down from the step, boots striking the pavement with a force that betrayed his impatience.
His coat hung askew from the long ride, the dust of the road dulling its dark cloth. Shadows marked the hollows beneath his eyes, proof of nights robbed of sleep. His hair, usually so precisely ordered, had fallen loose across his brow, lending him a look more restless soldier than polished duke. Yet the set of his shoulders was unyielding, driven by a purpose that no fatigue could soften.
Mrs. Fowler, startled by his sudden appearance, dropped into a hurried curtsey. “Your Grace! We had no word you were coming?—”
“Where is she?” His voice cut cleanly, the demand clipped, urgent. “My mother. Where is she?”
Mrs. Fowler faltered, her eyes widening. “Her Grace, she… she is not here, Your Grace.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “Not here? Then where?”
“She left some days ago. We were told she meant to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells, but no letter came after. We expected her return…” The housekeeper trailed off, wringing her apron.
Sebastian strode through the hall as though his mother might yet materialize in one of the rooms, calling her name softly, then louder—“Mother? Mother!”—but each chamber echoed with nothing but his own voice and the muted lap of waves beyond the windows.
At last, he stopped in the drawing room, the fire cold in the grate, the air stale with disuse. His eyes swept the mantel, the chairs, the empty space where she might have been. The urgency that had carried him this far pressed harder now, a heaviness beneath his ribs.
He turned sharply back to the housekeeper. “When precisely did she go? Who attended her? What carriage? What direction?”
The woman stammered under his gaze. “I cannot say, Your Grace. Her maid went with her, but she has not returned either. We were given no instructions save to keep the house ready.”
Sebastian pressed a hand to the mantel, the cold marble grounding him against the swell of frustration.Gone. Always gone. Even when I need her most.
He straightened abruptly. “Bring me her correspondence. Every scrap. Letters received, letters sent. I will see them now. Also, fetch Parsons for me.”
The housekeeper bobbed and hurried away, leaving him alone in the hollow silence of his mother’s drawing rooms; every tick of the clock seemed to mock his impatience.
Sebastian closed the drawing-room door with a sharp snap and crossed the hall to his mother’s office, the only room in the Brighton house he ever felt had any weight to it. The scent of ink and paper was faint but lingering, a trace of her presence clinging to the polished mahogany desk.
He dropped into the chair behind it, his hand raking once through his hair. Margaret’s face rose unbidden, pale, stricken, her voice breaking as she said she could not stay. He clenched his jaw, the memory cutting deeper than any blade.She leaves, and I let her. She bleeds, and I stand useless. God help me—what if I have already lost her?
His gaze fell on the neat arrangement of quills and sand, the blotter smooth as if untouched for a long time. No letter half-written, no trace of her hand.
He had expected her here—after all, he and Margaret had left her in Brighton, and she had spoken of staying to avoid the eyes of London. But the silence of the room told otherwise. She was gone.
His fists tightened against the armrests. “Whatever the cost,” he muttered, the words slipping out before he could catch them. The empty room caught the stark and unyielding vow. “Somewhere in this house lies the truth, and I will not leave until I find it.”
The door creaked open, breaking his train of thought. A footman stepped inside, a stack of papers in his hands, his head bowed low.
