Nobody answered the dowager. The duke said, “Let us depart in all haste. We will get to the bottom of this no matter how many houses we must visit.”
They hurried away, leaving the dowager staring after them in her absurd fur coat.
*
The world cameback to Leland by degrees. At first, he dozed and touched wakefulness and dozed again, unconcerned about where he might be or why. Then he got the vague idea that he was on a sofa. It was not like him to fall asleep in his drawing room. He would not like his staff to find him in such a situation. But then, it was really too hardto get up. He could not seem to make his muscles work. He could not keep his eyes open, so he stretched and went back to sleep.
Suddenly, he was shaken awake. St. John leaned over him. “You’ve got to go, get up, my carriage will take you home.”
St. John pulled him up sitting, his butler grabbed underneath his opposite arm.
“What…” Leland said, grasping at wispy ideas and thoughts.
“Come on now,” St. John said. “I don’t know why you went to sleep in my drawing room but you have to go home.”
“Wait…you—”
“I, nothing!” St. John said. “It’s not my problem you are indulging in…whatever it is you are indulging in.”
“I did not…you…”
He was hauled to his feet and the two men dragged him toward the door. They dropped him in the hall and Leland could hear the butler’s heavy breathing in his ear as they picked him up again.
What was St. John doing?
Out on the pavement, the butler got the carriage door open. As they attempted to get him into it, Leland heard the clip-clopping of a carriage coming to a stop and then a rather familiar and lovely voice.
“Lord Manderbey!” Lady Winsome cried.
*
Winsome felt aterror in her heart. It was as if one of her novels had sprung to life. She was certain Lord Manderbey was in danger and now the villain had made his escape from the ballroom. Thank heavens she had her sisters and her father by her side.
They had raced out of Lady Darlington’s house, all six of them flying by Lady Marchfield who was just coming in the doors. As was usual for their aunt, she was dressed in something queenly, though Winsome could not pin the costume down to any particular monarch.
As Lady Marchfield caught sight of them looking as if they were fleeing the evidence of a crime, she cried, “Roland! What have you done this time?”
“Set more curtains on fire,” the duke called over his shoulder, knowing his reputation for setting curtains ablaze, accidental or otherwise, irked his sister to the ends of the earth.
Lady Marchfield hurried toward the ballroom, presumably to put out a fire that never was.
They burst through the doors and onto the pavement. Winsome fretted over how long it would take to fetch their carriage. The duke had a better idea. Lady Wilton was just arriving with her friend Lady Layton.
“Lady Wilton,” the duke said, “we are in the midst of an emergency and must borrow your carriage.”
The lady, startled but the sort who always liked to be in the midst of the action, said, “Of course. Ought I to come with you?”
“No, no,” the duke said, pushing past her, “we will be quite the crowd as it is.”
That turned out to be very accurate and they only managed it by Serenity sitting on Felicity’s lap.
As they barreled toward Lord St. John’s house, the coachman having been instructed to make all haste, Winsome wrung her hands. Nothing could happen to Lord Manderbey. If Lord St. John had harmed one single hair on his head, she would wring his neck. Or if she could not manage that, she would ask Mrs. Right to do something terrible to him.
Thankfully, Lord St. John’s house was not far off. Winsome leaned out the window as they approached and saw Lord St. John and his butler attempting to force Lord Manderbey into a carriage.
“Papa, he looks hurt and they are kidnapping him!”
“They’re trying to hide him,” the duke said. “St. John would have guessed we might turn up. Shame I didn’t collect my pistol.”
