Page 45 of The Duke’s Suspicion

After last night’s events, which the other men were pretending not to discuss in his presence, Tristan could hardly blame her for keeping to herself. All day he had done his best to heed Mr. Remington’s advice to let her be. Oh, he’d poked his head into the library once or twice, and considered enquiring of Sturgess. Guin had volunteered that she’d last seen Miss Burke late morning and kindly sent her maid to her chamber to check on her, but the maid’s knock had gone unanswered. Under ordinary circumstances, Erica’s absence would not have occasioned him a moment’s worry. She did not set her watch by the rest of the world’s clock.

But these were far from ordinary circumstances, and he could not shake his misgivings.

Her nonappearance at dinner went unremarked, and perhaps even unobserved since none of the other ladies were present either. Guin was dining privately with Vivi. Sir Thomas only shrugged when asked after Lady Lydgate, and Tristan declined to enquire of Beresford, though he was as likely to know that lady’s whereabouts as the baronet. Mr. Newsome reported that his wife was overseeing the packing of her trunk, despite the resumption of the rain. Thanks to the changeable weather, Lady Easton Pilkington had succumbed to another headache, and Caroline had insisted upon playing nurse to her mother. Pilkington had looked rather sheepish as he had made that announcement, then explained to Tristan in a quieter voice that his conversation with Caroline would have to wait another day. Tristan had only nodded.

Once they were seated, Tristan ran his gaze around the table at five gentlemen who, if they had possessed any interests in common, had exhausted those subjects a fortnight past. Beneath the table, one booted foot tapped restlessly. For all that their numbers were few, the meal dragged on interminably, course after course. When port at last was served, Beresford sipped at his glass, more abstemious than the parson; if Lady Lydgate was somewhere waiting for him, he seemed to be in no hurry to join her. Pilkington had the nerve to call for coffee.

At last, however, the meal came to an end. Someone suggested billiards, but he was already to the door. “Be my guest,” he said, only glancing over his shoulder. “I’ll join you another night.”

Ridiculous, really, for him to worry. He wasn’t worried about Whitby’s absence, after all, and God knew he was as likely to—

Whitby.

Tristan stopped stock still in the middle of the corridor, closed his eyes, and pulled from the reaches of his mind every word the man had spoken to him since his arrival, every topic they’d discussed. Danger and duty. Rumors and spies. He’d been instantly suspicious of Erica. She’s Irish, Tris. Certainly David Whitby was not the only Englishman who regarded being Irish as crime enough. But surely, surely his oldest friend, his fellow officer, would not have—

Almost before he had opened his eyes, his feet were moving again. Past the empty library, the dark drawing room. He hardly paused. The glasshouse was his destination. He ought to have looked for her there hours ago. Pride had kept him as far from it as the house allowed. Pray God his pride had not been her downfall.

A single candle had been left burning, one flickering flame that sent its hazy glow through the square pane of glass in the unlocked door, deepening the shadows wherever its light was too weak to penetrate.

When he opened the door, the couple seated beneath the orange trees sprang guiltily apart, their hands still clasped as he approached. At last Whitby released Caroline and stood.

“Miss Pilkington.” Tristan bowed and instantly regretted his stiffness. She would misread it as jealousy. “Whitby.”

Instead of fumbling explanations and apologies, silence hung in the room, louder than the rain against the roof. Caroline, too, got to her feet. “I was—I should go back to Mama. She will be in need of another draught. Excuse me.” She started past him, unable to meet his eye.

He wished he could free her, offer his blessing of her choice. But at the moment, Whitby had lost his trust. And Caroline’s father, having twice had his appetite whetted by the prospect of wedding his only daughter to the heir to a dukedom, was unlikely to be satisfied with a mere captain.

Whitby hurried forward to curl possessive fingers around her elbow. “I’ll walk with you.”

“Wait.”

They paused in their flight. Caroline’s eyes stayed focused resolutely on the ground.

“Has either of you seen Miss Burke?”

She looked up then, neither surprised nor, thankfully, hurt by his question. She shook her head. The truth. He felt certain of it. He turned his gaze on Whitby, whose face was a carefully schooled blank. Tristan had worked with him to perfect that expression. “Not recently,” the captain murmured, his pale eyes steady and unreadable.

“Then when?”

A pause. “I can’t quite recall, Your Grace.”

When a man claimed he couldn’t recall, it was almost always a lie.

Tristan could demand an honest answer. But a weak, foolish part of him did not want to press for the truth, only to have his friend respond with a sneer: When? Why, I saw her last night, a little past midnight—as did everyone else. Nor did he wish to risk hearing something even worse.

As Whitby turned and urged Caroline toward the door, Tristan slammed his palm on the table next to him, nearly upsetting some pointy-leaved plant in a clay pot. But the surface beneath his hand wasn’t the tabletop, whose warped, scuffed boards would have felt rough. What lay beneath his fingertips was smooth leather.

He hardly dared look down to confirm his suspicions. It might be any number of things. Vivi had a habit of sneaking novels; she might have brought one to her botany lesson and abandoned it. Sturgess no doubt wrote records or notes in something and might keep such a book at hand. No reason for his mind to leap immediately to…

Erica’s journal.

Last night’s surge of triumph at having it in his hands had long since fled, to be replaced with unease. The beginnings of terror. She’s left it lying around before. The memory brought little reassurance. She had, of course, forgotten her journal once or twice, to memorable effect. But this felt somehow different. Call it a hunch. Gut instinct. A good agent relied more often than he’d like to admit on both. And the sight of that journal lying atop the table, half hidden by greenery, was some kind of sign. A message. As if she’d expected him to look for her here. As if she’d wanted him to find it.

Was it a call for help? Had something happened to her?

Or was it a test?

His fingertips still resting lightly on the cover, he looked slowly around the conservatory. Beyond its windows, all was wet and dark. He could see nothing outside. But the single candle burning nearby would ensure that anyone who chose to look in could easily see him. Leaves and limbs, jagged and smooth, cast eerie shadows around the room. The steam that rose from the vents in the floor stirred the air and brought those shadows to life.