CHAPTER 28
“Lord Ramsbury, please. You are not taking me to the manor. Please, turn us around.”
Selina had known it within minutes of being on the back of the horse. She had hoped she was wrong and that the relentless rain was merely distorting the landscape, but passing the gates and ending up on the country roads had confirmed it.
At least fifty times now, she had begged Lord Ramsbury to return her to Ashbrook. At least fifty times, he had ignored her.
“Please, just take me back,” she urged. “I won’t say a word of what you have done if you just take me back.”
His arm tightened around her waist, squeezing until her lungs struggled to expand.
“You are going to where you should be,” he finally spoke, his voice eerily soft and much too close to her ear. “I knew you feltthe same way when I saw you walking alone. It will all be over soon, my dear. I promise.”
“Lord Ramsbury, please…” Tears pricked her eyes. “I do not want to go anywhere with you.”
He made a shushing sound. “Quiet, my darling. I should hate to have to silence you in a different way.”
Fear clamped her lips shut, for if the squeeze of his arm could make her feel like she was suffocating, what could he do if he was actively trying to harm her?
All she could do was stare through the veil of the rain and pray with all of her heart that someone at the manor would notice her absence. Even then, would they know it was the Marquess who took her?
They will think I have run away, as I planned to do.
She cursed herself for not going directly to Philip instead and confronting him about what she had heard. Because of that one mistake, she feared she might have just ruined her life forever, for whatever Lord Ramsbury had planned, it could not be good.
It wasn’t long before the housekeeper dragged a sleepy, bedraggled Mary out to the entrance hall. She wore a nightdress and a housecoat, her eyes bloodshot as if she had been imbibing.
“Are you really going to throw me out in the dark and cold?” Mary asked sourly.
It did not seem that the housekeeper had informed her ofwhyshe had been awoken at such an hour.
“What did you do?” Philip couldn’t contain the ire in his voice.
Mary frowned. “What?”
“What did you do to Selina? What have you said to her?”
The maid’s eyes flickered. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Philip knew guilt when he saw it. His former lover wasn’t innocent. Something devious lurked behind her brown eyes, which couldn’t quite look at him.
“I can’t find her, and I have reason to suspect you might have something to do with it,” he shot back.
His grandmother rose shakily from the chaise to put a calming hand on his arm. It would not stop him from throwing Mary out in the dark and cold if she had done something to deserve it.
“I did nothing but tell her the truth,” Mary said, with a defiant tilt of her chin. “She deserved to know that you are just marrying her out of spite, that you mean to leave her childless, that you will grow bored of her, as you have grown bored of every otherwoman. What lady would tie herself to that? I gave her a choice, and it would appear she has made it if she can’t be found here.”
Philip bristled with rage, his mind flooded with images of Selina out there in the driving rain, cold and shivering, stumbling blindly, putting herself in danger.
“Did you see her leave?” he asked, his voice ice-cold.
Mary sniffed. “Perhaps I did.”
“Did. You. See. Her. Leave?” Philip took a step toward her, his fists clenched.
The maid started. “I… Well, yes, I saw her leave. She needed some fresh air. She is probably sheltering somewhere in the gardens, entirely unharmed.”
“She had better be,” Philip spat.
