Page 22 of Courting the Wrong Duke

Lord Eastmere had behaved exactly as he always had.

His valet stepped back with a satisfied nod. “There, my lord.”

William glanced down at his newly tied cravat before offering an absent smile. “Thank you.”

Once the door had closed behind the man, silence settled over the room once more.

William crossed toward the writing desk beneath the window.

Several letters awaited him, arranged neatly atop the polished surface. Invitations. A note from his solicitor. Correspondence that could easily wait until morning.

One envelope, however, caught his attention.

The seal belonged to Harding & Sons Auctioneers.

William stopped.

The horse sale.

Breaking the seal, he unfolded the single sheet within.

The note thanked him for directing Lord Eastmere to their establishment and confirmed that the earl had arranged to inspect the bay stallion in four days' time. At Lord Eastmere’s request, the horse had been withdrawn from private negotiation until after their meeting.

William read the passage a second time.

Then a third.

Slowly, he lowered the page.

A gentleman intending to disappear did not ask that a horse be held for his inspection.

He did not make appointments for a future he never intended to see.

It was a small detail. Almost laughably ordinary.

Yet it lodged in William's mind with surprising force.

He laid the letter carefully upon the desk and stared out at the rain drifting across Berkeley Square.

Lady Rosalind had insisted her father had not left willingly.

William had believed her.

Lord Eastmere was not the sort of man to abandon his family, nor had their final conversation suggested a gentleman preparing to vanish.

The auctioneer's letter did not alter that conviction.

It only proved it.

William folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope.

Something had happened to Lord Eastmere.

The only question that remained was what.

Chapter 4

The following morning dawned bright enough to make the previous day's rain seem almost imaginary.