Page 79 of A Rogues & Gentlemen Christmas

Chapter 3

“Wherein a monster tracks his prey.”

Ned jolted out of the trance in which he’d been. The way she’d held his rough hand to her silken cheek was enough to make heat surge beneath his skin and his brain turn to mush… but the violence of the hammering at his door told him she’d been right to be afraid.

He looked at her. Her eyes were wide with terror, her skin as white as the landscape beyond the door, and she trembled before him. Fury rose in his chest and a protective instinct so overwhelming he wanted to murder whoever had frightened her so and caused her such pain. Yet he couldn’t do anything of the sort. He must do nothing to raise suspicion. Not yet. Not until they were wed.

He put a finger to his lips, and she nodded. Ned moved fast, collecting her discarded clothes and tugging at her hand. He led her up the stairs, where he stuffed her clothes into the first drawer that came to hand and lifted the lid of the huge chest that stood at the end of his bed.

To her credit, she understood at once and stepped into it, curling herself into a ball. It broke his heart to make her suffer the indignity, but he promised himself—once she was his wife and no one could take her away from him—he’d make her brother pay. He hesitated for the barest moment to touch a finger to her cheek.

“Trust me,” he said, before closing the lid.

The hammering had grown louder, and Ned hurried back downstairs to where Rufus was snarling, barking, and hurling himself at the door.

“Rufus,” he commanded, snapping his fingers as Rufus reluctantly moved behind him, still growling and baring his teeth.

Ned slid back the bolt and opened the door to find two men on the step. One was clearly her brother. The gold hair and fine bone structure were unmistakable, yet on this man there was little to admire. Perhaps some women might find him handsome, but there was a cruel glint to his eyes, and his lips were thin and inclined to turn down. He held a crop in his hand. A few steps behind him stood another man, perhaps a coachman. He bore a fresh red stripe across his face that looked damned painful.

“What’s all this?” Ned said, having no difficulty in looking belligerent, like a man disturbed in the middle of the night. “What the devil do you mean by hammering on my door at this hour?”

“Forgive me, sir,” said Mr Honeyfield, in a smooth, cultured accent. “It is a rather delicate matter. We believe my sister is lost out here, somewhere on your land, and I’m afraid that she may have come to harm.”

“Your sister?” Ned repeated, staring at him in disgust. “Out here? What kind of man allows his sister to get lost in the countryside on such a night?”

Mr Honeyfield gave a heavy sigh. “I have been asking myself the same question,” he said with a mournful shake of his head. “I foolishly entrusted her safety to my coachman here. She was being transported to an asylum, you see. I’m afraid she’s not of sound mind, a fact that is borne out by the fact she threw herself from a moving carriage. We did not discover her missing until the carriage arrived at its destination and my sister was not in it.”

He sent a look of quiet fury to the coachman, who shrank back another pace.

“Did she not have a maid with her?” Ned asked, not believing a bloody word of it. There was nothing that spoke of an unsound mind in the woman he’d seen, only terror. “Why was she alone, if ye were concerned for her mental state?”

“She can be violent,” Mr Honeyfield said, putting out his hands in a regretful gesture. “Sadly, she attacked her maid as they were about to leave, and the girl refused to come with her, fearing for her life.”

“I see,” Ned replied, believing he saw very well indeed, and the sooner Miss Honeyfield was out of this man’s power the better it would be. “Well, I’m sorry for your trouble, sir, but I’ve seen no one, though I’ll show ye around the barns if ye wish it. I’d not want some poor troubled girl freezing to death on my property.”

“I would, thank you, Mr…?”

“Hardy,” Ned replied, reaching for his coat and shrugging into it.

“If I might observe it, Mr Hardy, you are up late on such a night yourself?”

Ned saw a glint of suspicion in his eyes and shrugged. “It’s been a long day, and I drank more than I ought at dinner. I fell asleep by the fire and woke up hungry as a bear. I was just fixing myself something to eat before bed.”

It was a reasonable enough statement. Ned had done just that countless times since Sarah died, but he could still feel doubt emanating from the man beside him. Ned took him and his henchman about the barns and outbuildings, taking his time and hoping they’d be frozen to the bone and eager for their beds the longer he kept them outside.

“Satisfied?” he asked, opening the door on the henhouse where the birds sent baleful glances at them, dozens of eyes shining like tiny ebony beads among the downy feathers, fluffed up like thistledown against the frigid night air.

Mr Honeyfield gave a heavy sigh and spread his hands in a gesture of defeat as Ned closed the door again. “I must keep looking. She’s my sister after all, the poor disturbed creature. Might I ask you for one last favour before we leave you in peace, Mr Hardy? For it’s a cruel night for man and beast.”

“Ye can ask,” Ned replied uneasily.

“A tot of something to warm us and a moment by your fire before we carry on our search, if you would be so good?”

His eyes were not as blue as his sister’s, but a paler, colder version. They settled on Ned now, assessing and clearly suspicious.

“Certainly,” Ned replied, keeping his voice easy. “I’ve a bottle of something that’ll do the trick.”

He led the way back to the house, forcing himself to appear unconcerned and praying that Miss Honeyfield had not moved from her hiding place.