The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, #1)(12)

"Did they take anything?" Amelia asked.

"How can you be so dispassionate?" Elizabeth demanded. "They pointed a gun at her!" She turned to Grace. "Did they?"

Grace saw it again in her mind - the cold round end of the pistol, the slow, seductive gaze of the highwayman. He wouldn't have shot her. She knew that now. But still, she murmured, "They did, actually."

"Were you terrified?" Elizabeth asked breathlessly. "I would have been. I would have swooned."

"I wouldn't have swooned," Amelia remarked.

"Well, of course you wouldn't," Elizabeth said irritably. "You didn't even gasp when Grace told you about it."

"It sounds rather exciting, actually." Amelia looked at Grace with great interest. "Was it?"

And Grace - Good heavens, she felt herself blush.

Amelia leaned forward, her eyes lighting up. "Was he handsome, then?"

Elizabeth looked at her sister as if she were mad. "Who?"

"The highwayman, of course."

Grace stammered something and pretended to drink her tea.

"He was," Amelia said triumphantly.

"He was wearing a mask," Grace felt compelled to point out.

"But you could still tell that he was handsome."

"No!"

"Then his accent was terribly romantic. French? Italian?" Amelia's eyes grew even wider. "Spanish."

"You've gone mad," Elizabeth said.

"He didn't have an accent," Grace retorted. Then she thought of that lilt, that devilish little lift in his voice that she couldn't quite place. "Well, not much of one. Scottish, perhaps? Irish? I couldn't tell, precisely."

Amelia sat back with a happy sigh. "A highwayman. How romantic."

"Amelia Willoughby!" Elizabeth scolded. "Grace was just attacked at gunpoint, and you are calling it romantic?"

Amelia opened her mouth to reply, but just then they heard footsteps in the hall.

"The dowager?" Elizabeth whispered to Grace, looking very much as if she'd like to be wrong.

"I don't think so," Grace replied. "She was still abed when I came down. She was rather...ehrm...distraught."

"I should think so," Elizabeth remarked. Then she gasped. "Did they make away with her emeralds?"

Grace shook her head. "We hid them. Under the seat cushions."

"Oh, how clever!" Elizabeth said approvingly. "Amelia, wouldn't you agree?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to Grace. "It was your idea, wasn't it?"

Grace opened her mouth to retort that she would have happily handed them over, but just then Thomas walked past the open doorway to the sitting room.

Conversation stopped. Elizabeth looked at Grace, and Grace looked at Amelia, and Amelia just kept looking at the now empty doorway. After a moment of held breath, Elizabeth turned to Amelia and said,

"I think he does not realize we are here."

"I don't care," Amelia declared, and Grace believed her.

"I wonder where he went," Grace murmured, although she did not think anyone heard her. They were all still watching the doorway, waiting to see if he'd return.

There was a grunt, and then a crash. Grace stood, wondering if she ought to go investigate.

"Bloody hell," she heard Thomas snap.

Grace winced, glancing over at the others. They had risen to their feet as well.

"Careful with that," she heard Thomas say.

And then, as the three ladies watched in silence, the painting of John Cavendish moved past the open doorway, two footmen struggling to keep it upright and balanced.

"Who was that?" Amelia asked once the portrait had gone by.

"The dowager's middle son," Grace murmured. "He died twenty-nine years ago."

"Why are they moving the portrait?"

"The dowager wants it upstairs," Grace replied, thinking that ought to be answer enough. Who knew why the dowager did anything?

Amelia was apparently satisfied with this explanation, because she did not question her further. Or it could have been that Thomas chose that moment to reappear in the doorway.

"Ladies," he said.

They all three bobbed curtsies.

He nodded in that way of his, when he was clearly being nothing but polite. "Pardon." And then he left.

"Well," Elizabeth said, and Grace wasn't certain whether she was trying to express outrage at his rudeness or simply fill the silence. If it was the latter, it didn't work, because no one said anything more until Elizabeth finally added, "Perhaps we should leave."

"No, you can't," Grace replied, feeling dreadful for having to be the bearer of such bad news. "Not yet.

The dowager wants to see Amelia."

Amelia groaned.

"I'm sorry," Grace said. And meant it.

Amelia sat down, looked at the tea tray and announced, "I'm eating the last biscuit."

Grace nodded. Amelia would need sustenance for the ordeal ahead. "Perhaps I should order more?"

But then Thomas returned again. "We nearly lost it on the stairs," he said to Grace, shaking his head.

"The whole thing swung to the right and nearly impaled itself on the railing."