Page 100 of A Winter Scandal

“Where is Jocelyn?” Gabriel asked. “What did you do to her? Where did you send her?”

“I did nothing! I swear it!” Ian waved his hands wildly. “Please, you must believe me. It’s true: I loved Jocelyn. I tried not to, but I could not help myself. She was so beautiful and fresh, so full of vivacity.”

“Which you promptly drained from her!” Gabriel glared. “A man who loved her would have come to me and asked for her hand, the way Rawdon did. My God, I trusted you! And all the while, you were dishonoring my sister!”

“I wanted to marry Jocelyn! I did! If I had known she was carrying my child, I would have married her. I swear to you. But she didn’t tell me. I didn’t know. That must have been why she accepted Rawdon’s proposal. I tried to talk to her after that, but she just cried and sent me away. She said she had to do it. I never heard from her after that. I was in despair.”

“I ought to break your bloody neck.”

“Gabriel, I promise you—I knew nothing about her leaving. I was as lost and confused as you were. I assumed—” Ian stopped and again cast an uneasy glance at Lord Rawdon, looming on one side of him. “I thought that Rawdon must have found out about Jocelyn and me. That he threatened her, sent her away somewhere to avoid the scandal. I thought …” Ian’s voice dropped. “I thought he had killed her to keep her from shaming him and his name.”

“Not everyone thinks like a coward as you do,” Rawdon told him.

Ian did not look at him, only at Gabriel. “I don’t know where Jocelyn went or why. And I know nothing about her coming back here or about that baby. I don’t even know if it’s mine.”

“I remember now,” Myles said suddenly, straightening. “You had blond hair when you were a child, didn’t you, Ian? It just got darker as you got older. Blue eyes like Matthew’s.”

“We don’t know that,” Ian said in a cajoling tone. “That is why I was talking to Hannah. I was trying to find out where Jocelyn was and—”

“Oh! So this is where everyone is!” said a bright female voice from the doorway.

“Sweet Lord,” Myles muttered under his breath as they all turned to find Emily standing at the edge of the room, smiling at them.

“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth in consternation. “Ian! Dearest, what happened?” Lines formed between her brows and she looked from one man to another. “What is going on here?”

“Um …” The men glanced at each other.

Thea, turning her gaze from Ian to Gabriel, stiffened, gasping, “Gabriel! She’s gone. The maid is gone!”

“The maid?” Emily asked. “What maid?”

“The devil take it!” Gabriel whirled and looked around the empty room. “Now we’ve lost her.” He spared one short, hard glance for Ian. “I want you out of my house tonight. I don’t want to see your face again. Ever.” He turned. “Excuse me, Lady Wofford.”

Gabriel hurried out of the room, with Myles and Rawdon right after him, leaving a stunned Lady Wofford with her husband. Thea followed at a more sedate pace. As she strode back toward the party, Thea heard a sharp cry of “No!” from Emily, followed by a crash of something breakable and the sharp staccato of a woman’s heels. Apparently her cousin had gotten little succor from his wife.

Thea turned into the wide central hallway of the house and glanced about, debating where to search for the missing maid. She could see the three men had spread out through the rooms of guests, looking for the maid.

It did not seem to Thea, however, that the girl would try to hide among the guests. Hannah’s instinct, surely, would be to flee. She might fear that Ian would come after her again even though she had already revealed his secrets. Thea was unsure why the maid had not simply come to Gabriel from the beginning, but her pattern so far was to run and hide. And that, Thea thought, meant running out into the night.

Hurrying into the small cloakroom, she grabbed up her own cloak and headed toward the back of the house. Her hope was that Hannah would not have simply fled into the cold, but would first have gone upstairs to her room to get her coat—and probably the rest of her things, as well. Instinct, Thea surmised, would send the maid up to and back down from her room by way of the servants’ stairs in the rear, and she would exit by one of the rear doors.

Thea slipped down the back hallway behind one of the servants carrying a tray. At the end of the hallway, where the servant turned left into the kitchen, was a short hall leading to the back staircase. At the base of it was a door to the outside. Just as Thea reached the hallway, she saw a woman in a cloak slipping out the back door. Excitement surged in Thea.

Turning, she grabbed a servant who was walking toward her with a full tray. “Quick, fetch Lord Morecombe! Quickly! It’s terribly important! Tell him she’s gone outside!”

Not waiting to see if the servant obeyed her, Thea darted out the door after Hannah. Fortunately, torches had been planted festively at intervals all around the house, so that the evening was not completely dark. Thea saw the maid slip around the corner of the house ahead of her, and she took off running after her. She did not want to yell and thus spur the girl into running faster.

But Hannah was well in front of her, almost to the front of the house by the time Thea rounded the corner after her. Hannah was hurrying, almost trotting now as she reached the front garden and started up the path to the street. Just as Hannah reached the road, a man stepped out of the shrubbery and grabbed the girl from behind, clamping his hand over her mouth before she could scream.

“No! Let go of her!” Thea shouted, and started toward them. “Gabriel! Help! Help!”

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Thea saw a flicker of movement. Startled, she half-turned just as a heavy stick crashed down on her, knocking her to the ground.

Nineteen

Because Thea had turned, the stick slammed into her shoulder rather than her head, so even though the blow threw her to the earth, it did not knock her out. Thea hit the ground and rolled, twisting back to grab at her attacker. Thea was shocked to realize that she was reaching for a woman’s skirts rather than a man’s ankles, but she did not stop to think about it, just latched onto the woman’s legs through the skirts and pulled as hard as she could. The woman hit her again and again with the stick, her blows landing with thuds on Thea’s back, but Thea held on grimly, crawling forward to wrap her arms more tightly around her attacker’s legs.

The woman let out a high shriek and began to kick and pull away from Thea in a panic. It was her undoing, for she fell heavily to the ground. She tried to crawl away, but Thea sprang forward and gripped her by the shoulders, wrestling her around. The woman let out another shriek and whirled, striking out wildly, and for the first time Thea saw her face.