Page 179 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“I know she is.”

The quiet certainty of the answer caught William’s attention.

“That is precisely the problem,” Gabriel continued. “I have discovered that knowing Miss Hartwell can look after herself does absolutely nothing to make me less worried about her.”

Rosalind studied him for a moment, and understanding softened her expression.

“No,” she said quietly. “I suppose it wouldn’t.”

Her hand remained on his arm. “But Isabella is my dearest friend. I am frightened too, and I still believe she can manage whatever made her sound that warning until we reach her. We free Papa, then we find her together.”

Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “I should be looking for her now.”

“And if Isabella warned us because someone dangerous is inside this house, she would be furious to discover you ignored her and went searching alone.”

A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth. “That does sound like her.”

“It does.” Rosalind squeezed his arm once before letting go. “Trust her for a few more minutes.”

Gabriel looked toward the stairs again before reluctantly nodding.

William remembered their conversation at the inn, when Gabriel had insisted he did not want Isabella to surrender the future she imagined for herself simply because he hoped someday she might make room for him in it. Apparently respecting a woman’s independence did nothing to lessen the fear of losing her.

William understood that rather well.

He looked back at Rosalind and realized Isabella was not the only thing troubling her. She kept glancing over her shoulder, and a tension lingered in her face that had not been there when she left the cellar.

“What happened?”

“I became lost.”

William frowned.

“The corridors all looked the same, and I took a wrong turn trying to find the front of the house.” Rosalind wrapped her arms around herself. “There were papers scattered through some of the rooms. Pages covered in writing. At first I thought they were notes or correspondence, but some looked more like exercises.”

“What sort of exercises?”

“I do not know. Pieces of sentences. Syllables. Words copied repeatedly, some of them pinned to the walls.” She glanced toward the stairs again. “The farther I went, the more I found. It looked almost as though someone had been practicing. Learning to read, perhaps, or trying to memorize something.”

A chill crept along William’s spine. “Do you remember any of it?”

“Most made no sense to me.” She hesitated before looking directly at him. “But there was one phrase I kept seeing.”

William waited.

“Why, Father.”

The words seemed to empty the cellar of sound.

His thoughts went immediately to Algernon.

To the boy whose father had despised the way he spoke. Who had been threatened with the loss of everything he had been raised to inherit and sent away because his father could not tolerate a son who needed longer to form his words.

Why, Father.

William looked toward the stairs, suddenly seeing the darkened house above them differently.

“Those rooms,” Edmund said from behind the bars. “I have never seen them.”