Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(64)

Even as he failed to understand why, the reality of the situation pressed down on him.

She was gone.

Malcolm took her . . . could harm her . . .

Impotent rage burned through him. His hands curled into fists at his sides until he wanted to break something. Namely his cousin.

“Your cousin?” Cleo angled her head “What would he want with Grier?”

“To keep us from marrying, I suspect. He wasn’t keen on our match . . . unfortunately now I realize just how much.”

Jack blustered, various shades of red and purple churning over his face. “If he harms one hair on her head—”

“She will come to no harm,” Sev swiftly cut in, his voice an icy wind, even as he knew nothing anymore. Not the ground he stood upon, not the gnawing fear inside him.

He never suspected Malcolm would do such a thing. Why should he care so much whom Sev married? It didn’t affect him.

“Where did he take her?” Cleo echoed his own thoughts, looking at him with expectation bright in her eyes. As though he should know.

Sev shook his head, despising that he didn’t. That this terrible thing had somehow come to pass and he hadn’t seen it coming.

“You don’t know?” Jack bellowed.

“No. He didn’t exactly inform me of his plan to abduct my fiancée.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Look,” he said in a calm voice that reflected none of his turmoil. “He doesn’t know I know that he took her.”

As much as he wanted to do something, scour the vastness of London and the world beyond—that would be senseless. He hadn’t a clue where to begin searching.

“So? What does that help?” Jack snapped.

“He’ll return. With nothing to fear, Malcolm shall return. Either here or to his mother’s residence.”

“So we wait?” Cleo shook her head, looking as frustrated as he felt.

“We haven’t another choice.” As much as he loathed the idea of doing nothing and sitting around while Malcolm did God knew what to Grier, he saw no other solution.

He’d wait.

And be ready for Malcolm when he returned.

True fear flickered across Cleo’s young face. “While we wait your cousin could be doing anything—”

“We’ll wait out his return,” Sev cut in, not wanting to discuss the wretched scenarios already playing out in his thoughts—all the possible horrors that Grier could be suffering at his cousin’s hands.

“I don’t think Malcolm will harm her,” he said, even though he knew no such thing but felt the need to placate Grier’s sister.

“He abducted her. I’m certain you didn’t think he would do that, either!” Hot color splashed Cleo’s cheeks.

“No. I confess, I did not,” he replied uneasily, admitting that he did not know his cousin at all.

“What if he kills her,” Jack grimly inserted with no care for anyone’s feelings. “While we wait, as you suggest, what if your cousin decides to kill my daughter?”

A tremor ran through Sev as he was forced to meet the possibility. As he was forced to recognize that a piece of himself would die, too. That nothing would matter to him in the event of Grier’s death—not his life, not his future.

Nothing would ever matter again.

Instead of answering, he turned and motioned to five strapping-looking grooms watching them as if they were street performers putting on a grand show. “You five there.” He snapped off directions to his Aunt Nesha’s rooms in Seven Dials. “Wait there in case my cousin returns. Watch the street for him. I want him and the driver that conveys him. Do not let the driver leave, do you understand? If my cousin proves unwillingly to talk, good coin should break the driver’s silence. Come, I’ll put you all in a carriage.”

“And where are you going to be?”

“At my townhouse. I suspect he’ll return there. Better lodgings and finer fare. I’ll be in wait for him and his driver. One way or another, I’ll have him. And Grier’s whereabouts.”

“Don’t think things will go light for you if something befalls my daughter, Maksimi. You’ll not find another bride so easily when everyone hears you’re responsible for killing the last one.”

“Father,” Cleo whispered harshly, her wide eyes horrified at his blunt words. “He didn’t intend for any of this to happen.”

“But it did happen. All because of him.”

Sev stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn around. Rage coursed through him, hot and acrid as the fear he battled inside himself for Grier.

Jack Hadley was completely correct. Sev was at fault here. He should have seen, should have somehow known his cousin was as rotten as his sire.

But Jack was wrong to think Sev would ever try to replace Grier. Grier was more to him than a bridal settlement. She could not be replaced.

Perhaps Grier thought the same thing that Jack did. His stomach churned uncomfortably at the notion. Perhaps she didn’t know what he was just discovering standing in the middle of Jack Hadley’s foyer with gawking servants all around him.

He was in love with Grier Hadley.

He’d fallen totally and irrevocably in love with the most unseemly female of his acquaintance.

For no other reason had he offered her marriage. For no other reason would it break him if something happened to her. If he lost her from his life, he would be lost as well.