Two years later
Lucien arrived at Caliburn Keep just as the post was being delivered. Knowing that Mr. Gudgeon was occupied with ordering the groomsmen to see to his trunks, he paid the postman himself and riffled through the letters as he walked inside, travelworn and weary.
He’d been searching these past twenty-four months and seventeen days for Lady Avalon. But she had disappeared without a trace.
There had been a few reports of her whereabouts and each one of them a dead end that had kept him running around the Continent like a madman.
For a short time, he’d even been fool enough to worry about her, wondering if she’d been injured during her flight from him, or if, perhaps, the man she worked for had done something despicable to her.
After worry came renewed anger. It burned inside his veins every time he thought of her laughter and smiles, and those eyes that had gazed at him with such tenderness that he’d believed every lie she’d told him.
Though, primarily, he’d been angry at himself for being a fool.
After Morgan’s illness, she had been too frail to leave Italy. So they’d stayed for the remainder of the month. During that time, Lucien had traveled to Venice, holding on to the very last percentage of hope that Meg hadn’t been deceiving him about everything.
But it was all for naught.
It was still hard for him to believe that two elderly women and a cunning adventuress could disappear without a trace. Though, according to every hotel and coaching inn between Italy and France, they had done just that. He had even checked all the harbors to see if they had sailed from Italy. They hadn’t. So they were either still in Italy or—he thought wryly—they’d constructed Icarus wings of wax and flown out.
Merlin’s teeth, he was tired of beating his head against a brick wall. For these past two years, he’d been riding himself ragged, fueled by fury and the need for retribution. But perhaps he should just come to terms with the fact that she was gone—that the book was gone—forever.
And yet, it was simply impossible that she had left no trail. Had completely disappeared off the face of the earth.
Well, not unless she were . . . dead.
He shook his head at once. In fact, every time his logical mind suggested that possibility, he instantly rejected it.
Peculiarly, no matter how incensed he’d been about her betrayal, the very idea that the woman with the laughing eyes, the one who’d beleaguered and challenged him at every turn, was no longer on this mortal plane always caused a heaviness to fall over him.
He kept moving onward, one step in front of the other. Seeing that none of the letters were from his investigators, he laid the stack on his steward’s desk in the anteroom just outside Lucien’s study.
Mr. Collins looked up and instantly stood. “Your Grace. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”
Lucien grunted in a noncommittal fashion as he walked through the door of his paneled study but called over his shoulder, “Any news to report?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary since our last correspondence, sir . . .”
As his steward rattled off the list of tenants who’d paid their rent, the repairs to the ramparts in the south quadrant and other minutiae, Lucien sorted through ledgers and maps, meticulously charting the ground he’d covered in search of her.
“Collins, have you seen the post? Mr. Gudgeon wasn’t in the foyer, and there was nothing on the salver,” Morgan said, her voice drifting in from the outer office as Lucien bent over a map, marking it with cartographic precision.
“Good day, Lady Morgan,” Collins said with a panting, puppylike adoration. “I do enjoy your routine of bringing the post to my desk. It is the highlight of my every day.” He cleared his throat. “However, His Grace, brought in the post just a moment ago. In fact, I was actually—”
“Lucien?” she called and soon swept into his study. “I didn’t know you were back. Ah, I see that your focus remains on finding our legacy.”
She sighed and stepped around his desk to press a kiss to his cheek before walking toward the window to unlock the hinge and let in a warm breeze that chased away the staleness. The corner of his map fluttered before he set the inkwell down on it.
Another familiar face joined the party as Pell sauntered in, a glass of amber liquid carelessly dangling from his fingertips. “Could the rumors be true? Surely not. This cannot be my estimable cousin covered in road dust and rags. You’re looking a bit long in the tooth, old chap.” Pell chucked him on the shoulder and smiled affectionately in greeting, and Lucien nodded in kind. “Three months gone on this last stretch. Thought we’d lost you this time.”
“Nonsense.” Morgan laughed dryly as she thumbed through his travel ledger. “Lucien will never be lost to us. We’ll always find him dutifully looking for our book.”
“Until he decides to give up this dogged hunt and settle down, of course,” Pell said as he collapsed into one of a pair of leather wingback chairs, limbs splayed like a limp starfish.
Mr. Collins strolled in, still recounting his list. “There have also been invitations from society families with marriageable daughters, requesting your attendance at their house parties, along with the usual weekly letter from your great-aunt reminding you of your familial duties and that you are—and I merely provide a direct quote—growing older by the day.” He cleared his throat nervously. “My apologies, sir.”
Lucien gestured with an absent wave of his hand as he marked the map. “Think nothing of it. I feel every bit as old as my age today.”
This entire business had been taxing, wearing him down by degree. There were some days when he swore that the scenery through the carriage window was the same as the days and weeks before, as if he’d been going around in circles.
“And a letter from a woman who claims to be the mother of your daughter. Your usual reply, milord?”
Pell scoffed over the rim of his glass. “Apparently, this one isn’t quite as sharp in the old noggin as all the others. At least they had the sense to claim to have birthed you an illegitimate son as they tried to trap you into their scheme.”
It was true. There were always the futile attempts to ensnare a duke or ensure a sizable income via blackmail. But he’d always possessed far too much control over himself to ever make the mistake of an indiscreet affair, especially one that might result in a child. In fact, in his entire life he’d never lost—
His heart stopped for an instant, and a shiver rolled down his spine.
There had been one time. One time that he’d been so utterly enthralled that the world could have burned to ash and he never would have cared or known, until it was too late.
He shrugged off the chill. Whoever had sent this letter, it was not Lady Avalon. She was far too clever to resort to a debutante’s scheme. So clever that he wondered if he would ever see her again.
“Aye, Collins. Send the usual reply.” Which was, actually, no reply at all. He did not deem these manipulations worthy of paper and ink.
“Oh, Mr. Collins,” Morgan said with an uncharacteristically warm smile. “Might I see that letter? They are always so amusing.”
Lucien put the pen in the inkwell and exhaled in exhaustion as he looked down at two years of work. Two years, and all for nothing.
He stalked to the window. Looking out toward the drawbridge gate, he remembered his decision to open the grounds to tours years ago. At the time, he’d imagined families picnicking here. No harm in that, he’d thought.
Oh, what a fool he’d been. “I see little humor in the games and deceptions. It puts me in mind to take a wife and just be done with all of it.”
“All of it?” his sister asked, her voice barely heard above the crumpled page in her grasp. “What do you mean?”
Pell stood and pushed a whisky into Lucien’s hand. “It means the old chap is finally done with all this madness. It’s about bloody time, too. Let’s be off to London and find you a bride.”
Lucien tossed back the drink, then nodded.
“Well, that’s wonderful news, brother. I’m glad to hear it. Because now I know that I can tell you of a rumor I heard regarding a certain lady of your acquaintance.” When he whipped around to look at her, she merely shrugged. “I was only trying to protect you from another wild-goose chase. As impossible as it might seem, I do worry about you.”
Lucien knew he should just let it go. He knew that it was the right decision to put all this behind him and finally live his life. These pursuits were driving him to madness.
Just one more time, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. This will be the last, I promise . . .
He steeled himself against it. If he used past experience as a rubric, there was a one hundred percent chance of failure.
And yet, he couldn’t explain it, but a fresh surge of adrenaline sprinted through him at the thought of another chance to find Lady Avalon and take back everything she’d stolen from him.
“Tell me the rumor,” he said.