One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(104)

How would losing feel? It would feel damn good. It would feel remarkably like a victory.

This was the moment to walk away.

Apparently, Bellamy had decided the same. He picked up the token and replaced it in his pocket as he rose. “Well, then. If you haven’t the stones—”

“Sit down,” Spencer told him, flipping Leo’s token into the center of the desk. “We’re going to finish this tonight. The other tokens are upstairs. Let me send a servant for the lockbox.”

He rose from his chair, but before he could even reach the door, Amelia burst through it. Behind her came Lily, dressed in nightclothes and wrapper, her unbound hair hanging to her waist. Both women wore expressions of fear.

“Good God, what is it?” Spencer moved to take Amelia in his arms. To the devil with horses and cards … At that moment, embracing her was the only thing in the world he wanted to do. It seemed the thing he’d been made to do. She needed him, and she’d come to him. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her now.

But as he reached for her, her arms stiffened. She held him off.

“We’ve no time,” she said, swallowing hard. “Claudia is missing.”

Chapter Twenty-one

“Missing?” Spencer’s face turned the color of ash. He gripped her elbow. “Are you certain? Perhaps she’s only—”

“No. She’s gone, and she’s not alone.” Amelia swallowed hard, wondering how she could possibly tell him this next. But she had to do it. If there was any hope, it depended on swift action. “She’s gone with Jack. They left a note.”

Raising her fist in the gap between them, she bade her fingers to relax. In her palm lay the crumpled scrap of paper she’d found tacked to the kitchen doorjamb, in that pockmarked patch just below the lintel where countless coats of enamel had worn through to the grain. Her brothers had always left their messages there. The d’Orsay Post, they called it. And true to form, Jack’s message was succinct:

We’re for Gretna.

The paper was signed by them both.

Spencer stared at the words so fiercely, Amelia would not have been surprised to see the scrawled letters roust themselves from the paper and rearrange to spell different words, just to escape his displeasure. She too wished there were some way she could alter the facts.

“How long?” he asked brusquely.

“We … we don’t know. Obviously sometime since dinner, so a few hours at most. The horses are all still here, so they must be on foot.” Surrendering the note, she knitted her fingers in a tight clasp. “I can only imagine he’s after her dowry.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lily said from behind her. “I retired early, and of course I didn’t hear her go out.”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer said. “My ward isn’t your responsibility.”

He gave Amelia a sharp look, stabbing at her conscience. Of course, Claudia was partly her responsibility. And Jack … Jack wouldn’t even have been here, if she hadn’t insisted he stay. “I’m so sorry,” she said feebly. “That he would run off with her like this, in the middle of the night … I simply can’t believe it of him.”

“Of course you can’t. You haven’t believed anything I’ve told you of him. No matter what he does, you defend the rogue. Why should you stop now?”

“Perhaps there’s some misunderstanding, some other explanation,” she said feebly. Feebly, because even she knew the words were foolishness.

Steeling his jaw, he headed for the desk. “I told you nothing good would come of letting him stay.”

“Yes, you did.” But she’d been willing to take that risk, assuming stupidly that hers were the only feelings at stake. That if Jack wrought more mischief, he would be hurting only her. She’d never dreamed his actions could affect Spencer and Claudia, too. Oh, Lord.

By this time, Bellamy and Ashworth were on their feet.

“What’s going on?” Bellamy asked.

“My brother has eloped with Claudia,” Amelia told him. When Spencer shot her a look, she added, “It’s not as though we can hide it from them. For God’s sake, let them help.”

“Which way would they have gone, Morland?” Ashworth asked.

“Well?” Spencer looked to Amelia. “You know the area best.”

She shrugged helplessly, catching one fingertip between her opposite thumb and forefinger and pinching it hard. “Any number of ways. Most likely toward Gloucester, to catch a mail coach headed north. But to get there they might have gone north through Colford, or east, toward Lydney. Then there’s the river. They might have headed south toward the Severn, intending to ferry over to Aust and continue to London. The fastest coaches to Scotland leave from there. Or they could have hoped to board a ship …” Her voice dwindled, along with her hopes. The possibilities seemed endless; the likelihood of catching them, slim. “In any direction, they’re not much more than a half-dozen miles from transport.”

“Well,” Ashworth said, “there are three of us.”

“I’ll order my fastest horses saddled,” Spencer said, pulling open a low drawer of the desk. “We’ll each take a different route.”

“Precisely when did I offer my assistance?” Bellamy asked.