“Mara, my beautiful love and mother of our child,” he began, “I realize you’re not feeling like yourself, but I would implore you not to dwell on the less savory parts of our past and instead focus on what promises to be a wonderful—”
“Ambrose! I am not talking aboutus.”
“You’re not?”
“No. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“I’m still trying to figure out how you package cats,” he said honestly.
Mara rolled her eyes, then patted his cheek. “Men,” she muttered, sliding off his lap and adjusting the fall of her skirts over her round belly. “Abigail is clearly in distress and sent this letter as a cry for help.”
“Help fromwhom?” The Duke of Southwick threw up his arms in bewilderment. “The inhumane cat traveling agency?”
“Ambrose, please take this seriously.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“Lord Stephen Highborn, the Earl of Lancaster.”
Ambrose blinked. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“Heis Abigail’s husband,” Mara said grimly. “And I fear that if he’s found her, which I suspect that he has, then our good doctor is in grave danger.”
Chapter Ten
“How much farther?”Abigail asked tersely, her gaze pinned to the carriage window and the snow-covered fields beyond it. By her best calculations, she and Stephen had been silent traveling companions for better part of three hours. London, and her beloved cats, were already far behind while an ambiguous fate awaited her some unknown distance ahead.
After telling her they were traveling to his country estate, Stephen had given her just enough time to dash off a letter to Mara before he’d taken her portmanteau (already packed in preparation for her impending departure to Southwick Castle) and handed it off to the driver of his black town coach, a carriage so large that it had barely fit down the narrow street in front of her home. How she hadn’t seen or heard it coming was a testament to how deep she’d fallen into the well of past thoughts. But while the coach may have been cumbersome in the city, it set a fair pace once they were on the open road, each rotation of the large wheels a stomach-sinking reminder of the dire predicament she had suddenly found herself in.
Absconded with was one way to describe it.
Kidnapped another.
Of course, the law wouldn’t view it that way. A man—particularly a powerful, wealthy, titled man with innumerableresources—could notkidnaphis own wife. And yet, that was precisely what the Earl of Lancaster had done.
Worst of all, he’d left Susan and company behind.
“We will reach our destination before the sun has set.” Stephen did not bother to glance up from the paper he was reading when he spoke. Turning the page with a flick of his wrist, he crossed his legs at the knee and angled his body away from her in a cool rebuff that could not have been more obvious.
Tucking her nose into the wool scarf she’d hastily grabbed before being more or less forced out of her own house, Abigail pursed her lips as she sank farther into her corner of the carriage while wishing she’d had the foresight to also bring a book for the journey. Or a journal. Anything to occupy her mind other than the unpleasant imaginings of what might happen to her when they pulled up in front of Summerwind House.
In the letters they’d exchanged, Stephen had described the sprawling manor in great detail and with quite a degree of affection. She knew it was of a classical Greek revival design, with stately columns in the front and an intricate hedgerow maze in the back that Stephen had used to hide from his nanny when he was young. She knew that it had over a hundred rooms, including seventeen bedchambers and a glass-domed orangery with citrus trees imported from the Mediterranean. She knew the parlor was painted blue. She knew the long, straight stone drive was lined with English oaks that had been planted by his great-great-great-grandfather. And she also knew Summerwind House was the sole reason Stephen had pursued her in the first place because he’d told her as much.
“I cannot wait for you to see the manor I hold in such high regard,” he’d written in his neat, crisp penmanship that slanted just a touch too far to the right. “Since it was released into my sole ownership following our elopement, I have begun extensive renovations. Summerwind House is a grand olddame. I look forward to bringing back her luster, and to the day you might walk her halls.”
By what he had said—and what he hadn’t—it was evident that if the pursuit of a medical degree was her motivation for the marriage, then the country house she was now being brought to was Stephen’s. Why it was of such importance remained a mystery, as did what he would do with her upon their arrival.
“I should like to know your plan,” she said, raising her head.
Stephen turned another page. “What plan is that?”
“Your plan for me,” she clarified. “For us. I want to know why you are bringing me to Summerwind House.”
“I believe you’ll find the majority of landed gentry take it upon themselves to visit their estates over the holidays. Parliament will resume session the end of January, at which time we will return to London.”
“January?” Her palms bit into the burgundy seat as she shot to the edge of it. “I cannot leave my practice, or my cats, for such a length of time! That’s nearly five weeks!”
Stephen’s gaze, as icy as weather outside, snapped upward with such ferocity that an audible gasp spilled from her lips. “You complain of five weeks, when you had me running in circles for twelvemonths? Do not sit there and lecture me on time, Abigail. You’ve no ground on which to stand.”
