Page 122 of The Viscount's Seduction
Blast it, he couldn’t fire without risking hitting one of the servants.
“My lord! My lord! My lord!” Cries came from all around, above, from the back of the house, from the front.
He aimed the gun at the man. “You’re cornered, Donegal.”
Donegal burst to his feet and crashed into two servants. They snatched at him, missed, and looked to Bakeley.
“Get him,” he cried. He shoved the gun in his pocket and joined the pursuit.
The villain ran down a walk, through the garden, into the mews. Servants reached for him. He was like oil, too slick to be held by the grooms when they grabbed him.
He burst through the mews, fled down the alley and disappeared, the two servants in pursuit.
Bakeley stopped and rested his hands on his knees, panting. When this was over, he’d best get back to his boxing and fencing.
“My lord.” Lloyd hovered over him. “Are you hurt?”
“Where the hell was everyone?”
“The library door lock was jammed. They will catch him.”
He shook his head. “They won’t.”
Sirena.He must get back to her.
Lloyd’s boots trudged behind him back to the house. At the servant’s door, he took a lantern from a groom.
“Sirena,” he called.
The housekeeper hurried over, attired in her night robe.
“Shall I call for the surgeon?” she asked.
“Where is Lady Sirena?”
Lloyd looked at the housekeeper and the footman who’d joined them. “Where is she?”
“Sh-she’s not here, my lord. I came down when I heard the shouting and she hasn’t been here.”
His chest tightened as if someone had ripped out his own heart.
Another footman ran up. “Mr. Lloyd, my lord, we have checked all the rooms. The ladies and the staff are safe and there are no other intruders.”
“Did you see Lady Sirena?”
“No my lord.”
His hands went numb. Sirena had been taken.
He fought for composure and lost. “Search again, damn you.”
He went outside and circled the building. A clatter of hooves in the street reached them, and the muffled scream of a woman. The lantern slipped from his hands and he ran.
He spotted his father’s coach turning the corner, but in front of the house, another carriage pulled away. Unmarked. Too fine to be hired.
A stocking-clad foot kicked out while a hand gripped the edge of the door, trying to close it.
Two horses, too fine to be hired.
