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Chapter four
WEST
“Fuck!” I pulled the door to the ladies’ room so hard, it swung back and slammed off the tiles on the wall behind it. I stormed out, ignoring two middle-aged women giving me death stares and muttering to each other as I exited. I shot a glare in their direction, and they hurried off.
“She’s gone,” I snapped at Davenport, pulling out my phone.
“How the hell...”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s gone. She’s not in there. We need to act now.” I pulled out my phone, fully intending to call the airport security, the police, her father, and possibly even the fucking British embassy in Paris. I needed to get her back now. I stared down at the dark screen, my mind whirling. How? How had they got to her? Davenport and I had been right outside the door. I had overlooked something, missed some detail, and now she could be in the back of a van somewhere, speeding away from the terminal to only gods knew where. I rub my thumb across the screen, trying to swipe away the images in my head of her body, broken and bleeding somewhere dark...
“West, calm down.” Davenport put his hand on my wrist, pulling the phone down. I snatched my arm away, glaring at him.
“I am perfectly calm. I need to—”
“You need to stop and think. You’re reacting, not thinking. Stop thinking about her and think about the job. What did we do wrong? Where did we miss something?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck...” I paced up and down, ignoring the irritated glances of the travellers who scurried to get out of my way as I strode. Sometimes being big had its advantages in crowds. I straightened up and looked around again, hoping against hope I’d see her soft dark hair popping up from behind someone. Frustrated, I stopped and closed my eyes, trying to breathe slowly. “We didn’t,” I said, opening my eyes and looking across at my second. “We didn’t miss anything. We followed protocol precisely.”
Davenport nodded. “We did. Every detail. You checked, and I double-checked. Unless the possible assailants were following us on the off chance we’d get separated, and even then, we’d have seen them. If they knew anything about her, they’d know we’d normally head to the first-class lounge, and it would be much harder to get to her there. So what? They took the risk of following us, somehow sensing she’d decide to use the ladies’ room down here? It’s not plausible, West. The only wildcard in the situation therefore is...”
I tipped my head back, fighting the urge to roar in frustration. “Her.”
“Her. It must be. She planned this. She knows how we operate. She found a way to get away from us.”
I stared at him, my mind calming as I realised he must be right. The choking fear that had bubbled up inside subsided, replaced instead by fury with Lady Victoria and her absolute refusal to think of her own safety. “Did you see her go into the ladies’ room?”
Davenport shook his head. “I saw her heading in that direction, but she was just outside the door when I lost sight of her. You?”
I shook my head. “Same. She was standing next to the door, pushing it open, but I never saw her step through. A group of kids went past—fuck.”
“That’ll be it. She gave us the slip. Clever girl.”
“Too fucking clever for her own good,” I growled.
“We’re not that dumb ourselves. Why would she do this? She was going to stay with Hattie. Why on earth would she try and lose us?”
“Because she’s planning on going somewhere else. We need to search the airport before she gets on a plane to only gods know where,” I said, back in control. I shoved my phone into my pocket and began to stride in the direction of the gates.
“Search the whole terminal? That could take too long. Isn’t there some way we could get the airport police to check the flights for us? She’ll still have to travel under her own name.” Davenport kept pace with me, and the crowds parted before us like the Red Sea.
I shook my head. “No, if we get airport police involved, we’d need a good reason, and any good reason involving a member of the British aristocracy would then involve Interpol. They might track her down, but they wouldn’t give us any information, and we’d be told nothing until they dropped her off at home to Lord Astley-Hawke himself. I don’t fancy finding out exactly what his lordship would have to say to us about that, and we can’t risk being taken off her protection. We need to find her ourselves, and we need to find her quickly.”
“We’ll split up. It’ll be quicker that way. Next time, though, we should get that girl to carry a sign she can hold up over crowds. Spotting her in this chaos is going to be tricky to say the least!”
I nodded and suppressed a small smile. “Text me after every gate.”
Davenport slipped into the crowd, and I turned and went in the opposite direction. He was right. With Lady Victoria being so small, finding her amongst a throng of people was going to be exceedingly difficult, even with my height. By the time I had practically accosted three kids with dark hair, I was beginning to worry someone else might start calling the airport police to have me removed. I shoved my hand through my hair then rubbed it down over my face, suddenly feeling very tired. It was an adrenaline crash after the shock and worry of thinking she had been taken, but knowing she was almost definitely okay didn’t make the hormonal reaction any different.
A glimpse of long dark hair caught my eye, and I changed direction, heading towards the slight figure. My heart leapt as I caught sight of a YSL holdall hanging from her shoulder. I grabbed hold of the bag and swung her around, opening my mouth to demand to know what she was playing at.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” the young woman exclaimed in French. Her dark hair was too fine and her skin was too pale to be Victoria. I backed off immediately as people stopped and started to stare.
I held my hands up. “I am so, so sorry, mademoiselle. Forgive me, I thought you were someone else. But your bag...” I reached out, brushing my fingers over a familiar scuff mark.
“Hands off!” she screeched at me, pulling the bag away.
“That’s not your bag, mademoiselle.”
