One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(106)

And … Scotland? He would have to forgive her for saying it, but Jack just didn’t seem industrious enough to stage an elopement to Gretna Green. It was a long, hard journey, and an expensive one. He obviously had no funds, and Claudia’s pin money wouldn’t go far. Perhaps they had some goods they hoped to sell.

Had they taken things from the house?

Driven by a sense of dread, and the desire to be anywhere but the drawing room, she grabbed a candlestick and charged up the stairs to her and Spencer’s bedchamber. She yanked open the small corner closet and pried up the panel at the bottom, holding the candle over the hidden cache … straining her eyes into the darkness, searching …

There. It was still there, the cloth-wrapped bundle of Mama’s jewelry. None of it was worth a great deal—not in coin, anyway. But the strands of seed pearls and topaz earrings were priceless to Amelia.

After replacing the secret panel, she stood.

And immediately crumpled back to the floor. She had to pull herself together. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt so lightheaded.

Oh, God. Suddenly it all made sense.

Stay here.

Those were his words to her, his only request. Stay here, in case she comes home.

“Forgive me, Spencer,” Amelia muttered as she stepped over the cottage threshold. She wrapped her foul-weather cloak around her shoulders and closed the door behind her. The rain was lighter now, but cold. The moon shone through a gap in the clouds, but Amelia didn’t trust it to last. She reached for the carriage lamp hanging beside the door. Splashing through shallow puddles, she made a hasty sprint for the stable.

She simply couldn’t stay put in the cottage and wait. If her suppositions were right—and the small voice in her gut told her they were—Claudia was in even greater danger than Spencer realized. But the girl might not be so very far away.

Ducking into the humble stables that temporarily housed beasts bred for kings, Amelia saw that her mature, steady gelding had been left behind. Of course, the men would have taken the fastest mounts.

“Now there, Captain. Would you like to go for a ride?” She extended her hand and let the horse sniff it before cautiously giving him a pat. Stretching up on her toes, she unlooped his halter from the ring. The gelding shuffled forward, and Amelia realized that—logically—her saddle had been removed. As had the bit and bridle. She swung the carriage lamp and her gaze toward the tack hanging on the wall. Could she even remember how it all went together?

“Oh!” Startled by a sudden nudge at her waist, she nearly dropped the carriage lamp. It was only Captain nosing her pocket, looking for a treat. But it made her realize she was completely out of her depth. It would be stupid of her to try to saddle him herself, and perilous to her unborn child if she took a kick or a fall. She would have to go on foot.

The decision made, she left the stable. Eschewing the smooth but circuitous carriage lane, she hurried toward the narrow, winding footpath that climbed the bluff. Few trees grew here, and the way was paved with exposed limestone and moss—rain didn’t improve the traction of either surface. She slipped and stumbled as she went, at one point clawing her fingernails into a bit of turf to keep from tumbling headlong into the river. Somehow she managed to reach the bluff’s plateau with body and carriage lamp intact.

She allowed herself a few moments’ rest and thanksgiving. And then she dashed for the ruins of Beauvale Castle. That was where the d’Orsay boys had always got up to their mischief. As she covered the half-mile’s distance to the walls of crumbling stone, she said a prayer that old habits would have endured.

By the time she reached the gatehouse, she was gasping for breath. Her heart lightened as she saw the door was already ajar. She pushed the slab of oak open and thrust the carriage lamp inside.

Jack stood in the center of the darkened tower. His hair was matted to his forehead in thick, pale locks. He scarcely looked surprised to see her.

“I didn’t know, Amelia.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. Behind him, Claudia shivered in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest. “I swear to you, I had no idea.”

“You’re a fool,” she said, hanging the lamp on a candle sconce blackened with centuries of soot. She brushed past him to go to the girl. “Do you think she’d agree to run off with you on the basis of a dashing smile? You’re not so very handsome as that.”

Hurrying to the corner, Amelia knelt before Claudia. The girl’s lips were blue and quivering; her eyes, unfocused. Tears and rain streaked her face.

Amelia untied her cloak and quickly arranged it around the girl’s trembling shoulders. “It’s all right, dear. Everything will be fine. Claudia.” She waited until the girl met her gaze. “It’s all right. I know. I know everything.”

And then the girl fell into Amelia’s arms, sobbing helplessly against her shoulder. Amelia held her tight, murmuring words of reassurance. The poor dear. She’d been needing this embrace for so long, and Amelia had been too absorbed in her own problems to realize all Claudia’s rudeness had been aimed at pushing her away—not because she resented Amelia, but because she was afraid of anyone learning her secret.

Even Amelia couldn’t have possibly guessed the truth until today, after that tearful epiphany in the kitchen. The girl’s aloof demeanor, her strange moods, her wild fluctuations in appetite and illness in the coach …