Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(37)

“Yes.” She looked at his profile in the firelight. What would she have done without him? “Though I’m not sorry it wasn’t right away.”

He turned to look at her. She saw the memories of their lovemaking in his blue eyes as he folded her hand tenderly in his. Too tired and battered to do more, they fell asleep side by side, sitting up, cradled by the trunk of the ancient tree.

The next day, they walked on eastward. In the afternoon, the forest finally began to thin as the ground rose.

“Is that Offa’s Dyke?” Georgina asked a little while later.

“It’s hard to tell one ridge from another,” Sebastian replied.

“Don’t let my father hear you say so. I think it is. Look, it goes on along that line.” She pointed.

After a moment Sebastian saw what she meant. “I think you’re right. If we only knew where we were along it, we could find our way straight back to the castle. But finding it is a step in the right direction.”

“So to speak,” Georgina joked.

He just glanced at her.

“The right direction… Never mind.” Georgina had noticed that her betrothed wasn’t quick with plays on words. This one had been silly anyway.

They struggled up the Dyke and over it to continue moving east. The light was starting to fade when Sebastian heard a sound in the distance and stopped. Georgina stumbled a little at the sudden halt. “Listen,” he said. He strained his ears. He was nearly sure he heard something. “Over here!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, making Georgina jump. He waited. This time he was certain he heard a response.

They endured a tense time of inarticulate words flung back and forth, and then Sykes appeared in the gloaming, riding a dun horse and leading Whitefoot and Georgina’s mount.

“By God, I knew you’d come looking,” said Sebastian. “And a welcome sight you are, man.”

“My lord,” replied his valet, dismounting. “I must say the same. I’m very glad to find you. I knew you could not have eloped. I never believed it for a moment.”





Eight


Sebastian and Georgina gaped at Sykes’s tall, thin figure. Even in the midst of a wilderness search he looked impeccably groomed, his dark clothing without a speck of dust.

“Did you say eloped?” Sebastian asked. He couldn’t have heard that right. Yet he was pretty certain he hadn’t lost his wits, despite his dragging fatigue and gnawing hunger.

“The young lady said so, but I was convinced she had to be mistaken.” Sykes might have been standing in Sebastian’s bedchamber, discussing a choice of waistcoats. But their years of association allowed Sebastian to spot real concern in his valet’s shrewd brown eyes.

“What young lady?” said Georgina. “No, never mind. Of course it was Hilda.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“I’ll kill her.”

Sebastian frowned, puzzled. “Perhaps Whitefoot did run off, and she thought…” But how Georgina’s sister could have gotten from a runaway horse to an elopement defeated him. It simply made no sense.

Sykes gave a discreet cough. “I found Whitefoot and her ladyship’s mount in a farmer’s barn not too far from where you were last seen,” he told them.

“Evans, I’ll wager,” said Georgina through a clenched jaw.

“That was the name,” Sykes agreed.

“So the horses ran off to the nearest shelter,” Sebastian guessed.

“Oh, I wager they were taken there,” Georgina said. Beneath the dirt, her face looked grim.

“As to that, the farmer’s son would not give me any information,” the valet replied. “He claimed that he’d been, er, sworn to secrecy.”

“You’ve gone too far this time, Hilda,” said Georgina. She closed her hands into dirt-streaked fists. “I’ll have her shut in the dungeons.”

Sykes blinked. This interesting threat shook him a little out of his role as the perfect servitor. “Are there dungeons at the castle?”

“They’re mostly bricked up. But I shall persuade Papa to reopen one.” Her teeth flashed white in the growing gloom. It was more a snarl than a smile.

“But why would she say such a thing?” Sebastian wondered.

“Why is the least of it! How did she dare?”

Even in his current state, Sebastian could admire the crackle of her anger. He didn’t envy young Hilda. Although, from what he’d seen, he expected she could hold her own.

“Shall we return to the castle?” Sykes suggested. “Your parents have been quite…concerned, my lady.”

Georgina barked a laugh at this. “I’m surprised we didn’t hear the shouting from the bottom of the ravine. Yes, let us go. The sooner this is straightened out, the better.”

She strode over to her horse like a trooper heading into battle. Despite, or perhaps because of, the streaks of dirt and verdure on her habit and the wild disarray of her hair, Sebastian thought she looked magnificent. He helped her into the saddle and mounted up himself. After days of trudging through mud and tramping around woodlands in unsuitable boots, the ride back to Stane seemed almost magically easy. Sebastian recounted their misadventure to Sykes as they went, omitting, of course, the intimacies he and his betrothed had shared.