Page 129 of Courting the Wrong Duke

Nelly followed, keeping her voice low. “I found the carriage.”

Rosalind stopped with the glass halfway to her lips. “What?”

“The one your father left White’s in.”

For a moment, Rosalind could only stare at her. “Nelly, how could you possibly have found it?”

“I was belowstairs speaking with one of the maids when another servant mentioned the carriages. I asked whether I might step outside for some air, and there is another carriage kept with the others.” Nelly glanced uneasily toward the house. “One I had not seen when we came.”

Rosalind lowered the glass. “What does that have to do with Papa?”

“It matches the description.”

The sounds of the garden seemed to recede.

Rosalind heard the distant laughter of the dowager and Lady Whitcombe, the faint tap of a battledore striking the shuttlecock, the rustle of leaves overhead, but all of it seemed suddenly very far away.

“What description?”

“The one the servants gave me. Dark bodywork. Gilt along the doors. The lamps, the wheels, even the unusual brass fittings one of the footmen remembered.” Nelly swallowed. “I asked whose it was.”

Rosalind already knew the answer. She knew before Nelly said it.

“It belongs to this household.”

The glass trembled in Rosalind’s hand.

No.

She looked toward Aldermere House.

The elegant windows gleamed in the afternoon sun. Only minutes ago, the house had seemed warm and welcoming, filled with stories of William as a boy and a mother who had taken Rosalind by the arm and spoken to her of love and marriage.

Now it looked entirely different.

“Are you certain?” Rosalind asked.

“I asked twice,” Nelly said. “One of the grooms confirmed it belongs to His Grace.”

The glass trembled in Rosalind’s hand.

Algernon’s carriage.

Her father had climbed willingly into Algernon’s carriage on the night he disappeared, likely without a moment’s suspicion. Why would he have suspected anything? Edmund had known the duke since childhood.

He had protected him, counseled him, helped him overcome his stutter and even intervened when his own father treated him cruelly. If Algernon had sent for him, Papa would have gone without question.

And then he had vanished.

Suddenly, everything Rosalind had been struggling to reconcile no longer seemed separate. Algernon had claimed to leave London, yet she had seen him in the gardens that very night.

Augusta had offered a rumor about another woman that no servant, maid, or coachman appeared to have heard. The auction clerk had disappeared before they could question him.

And now the carriage that had taken her father away belonged to the duke.

Rosalind set down her lemonade before her unsteady fingers lost their grip on it. “Could there be another carriage matching the description?”

“It is possible,” Nelly admitted, “but the details were quite particular. The dark bodywork, the gilt upon the doors, the brass fittings. It all matches.”