Page 2 of Stolen and Seduced By the Duke

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The following morning, Pierce went directly to Augusta's chambers after breakfast, intending to ensure she had slept.

He opened the door and stopped immediately because the room was empty, the bed untouched, and the silence was wrong. His gaze swept across the chamber, taking in the wardrobe with its open doors, the empty dressing table, and the shelves where her personal belongings had once stood.

"Everything is gone." Pierce crossed the room swiftly, opening drawers and cupboards as a growing sense of dread tightened his chest, until he understood that Augusta had not merely left the room.

She has left Ravenfield Manor.

Pierce stood motionless for one terrible moment, his mismatched eyes fixed upon the empty wardrobe, before his expression hardened into something cold and resolute.

"Find Augusta," he ordered when the first servant appeared at the doorway, his voice carrying through the corridor with unmistakable authority. "Search every road, every inn, every house where she might have gone, and do not return until you have answers."

Augusta is carrying my child, and she is somewhere beyond my protection.

CHAPTER 1

Margaret Wilmore stepped down from the carriage before Lempster House with considerably less grace than the footman had anticipated. She gathered her skirts in one hand, gave the driver a distracted nod, and marched towards the familiar front doors with her dark eyes narrowed against the brisk London air.

At twenty-three, she had become accustomed to doing these on her own terms, yet returning home without anyone particularly expecting her was not one of them.

The doors opened before she reached them, and she swept inside without waiting to be announced. A footman began to speak, but Margaret raised one hand and continued towards the drawing room with such purpose that he wisely decided against interfering. She pushed open the door and found her father sitting beside the fireplace, a book open in his hand and an expression upon his face that suggested he had just seen a ghost.

Bernard Wilmore, Earl of Lempster, stared at her for several seconds before blinking rapidly.

"Margaret?" he asked, lowering the book. "You have returned."

"Yes, Papa," she replied, dropping her travelling gloves upon a nearby table with more force than necessary. "I have returned, as you may observe with your own eyes." Her father looked at her as though she had performed some astonishing feat of magic, which immediately irritated her.

"I had no notion you would be returning," Bernard admitted.

Margaret's eyes narrowed. There was something in his voice that she did not like, something too careful and too nervous for a man greeting his youngest daughter after a holiday in the country with her sister.

Margaret folded her arms. "That is precisely what concerns me."

Bernard shifted his weight, and she noticed the movement immediately. "You sent me away to the countryside without explanation, Papa, and now you appear positively astonished that I have returned to my own home." She stepped closer, studying him with the suspicion of a woman who had spent too many years watching people conceal things behind polite smiles.

"So I should like to know why I was unexpectedly sent away with Camelia, and I should particularly like to know what you have been hiding from me."

"Margaret, I assure you…" Bernard began, but she lifted a finger.

"No, Papa. Do not assure me. You are dreadful at lying and so is Camelia. You two are up to something, and I must know."

Her father looked mildly wounded, and Margaret softened for half a second before remembering that he was behaving suspiciously.

"You are an excellent father, but a dreadful liar. Your left eyebrow twitches whenever you attempt to deceive one of us."

Bernard immediately touched his eyebrow, which caused Margaret to stare at him in disbelief. "You see? You have just proved my point."

"I did not mean to deceive you," he protested, lowering his hand.

"Then tell me the truth."

Bernard sighed and sank into a chair, and Margaret's amusement vanished when she saw how genuinely troubled he looked. Her father was a gentle man, sometimes so gentle that Margaret had privately wondered whether London society had been built specifically to take advantage of him. He adored his daughters, but that affection often made him vulnerable, particularly when someone spoke to him with sufficient confidence. Margaret knew that expression on his face; it was the expression he wore whenever he believed he had failed one of them.

"We have been trying to resolve a matter," he said carefully, clasping his hands together. "Your sisters and I thought we could manage it without troubling you."

Margaret stared at him. "That sounds ominous already."