Bridgewater opened the door to his bedchamber and his heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t performing penance—unless leaving without telling him was the penance she’d been assigned. He ran to her room and didn’t find her there either. He lit a candle and looked at the rows of bottles and boxes on her vanity, trying to assure himself that she’d never leave without the bits of herbs and paper she carried with her everywhere. But there was something that prickled at his brain about the way the wardrobe stood with one door open and the bed lay unmade. She might have gone to the river to swim, but in the middle of the night?
He decided he’d walk the banks. Tom the servant was supposed to be gathering the priest and boy, and they met in the middle of the stairs.
Tom shook his head. “Neither of them can be found.”
Bridgewater went up a step, thought better of it, and then continued his descent.
“His lordship would like to see you,” Tom said.
“His lordship can wait. I’m taking a walk.”
“He’s waiting in the reception room. Shall I tell him you’ll see him on your return?”
Bridgewater didn’t answer. He just waited by the front door until Tom unlocked it and slipped into the warm night. As he walked past the topiary and down the garden path, he wrestled with the problems before him. If Undine was gone, her absence would be publicly embarrassing as well as privately distressing. Simon would ask questions Bridgewater didn’t want to answer. A search party would have to be formed.
All of this in the midst of a secret maneuver to help the treaty negotiations along.
Damn you, Undine.
He reached the river and looked upriver and downriver. The murky black rushed over the bank. The notes of primrose and heather mixed with the stench of rotting fish. He decided to walk downriver first. Even a naiad must prefer to follow the current.
Half a dozen steps later, he nearly tripped on something. He stooped to pick it up. It was the brown burlap of Father Kent’s habit.
Had he vanished too? Would every religious man disappear in a puff of smoke until there wasn’t a single goddamned one of them between Newcastle and Inverness? The world would be a damned sight better off for it, he thought.
That’s what he told his heart, but his mind told him that no curate just disappears, and that it was far too coincidental for this curate to disappear at the exact same moment Undine did. Undine had been talking to the boy. He was in on it too. The three of them—
Bridgewater put a hand on his heart. His heart raced, his cheeks flushed, and he started to feel nauseated. You’ve been betrayed.
Then, a worse thought occurred—far worse. What if they’d fallen in love? Was it possible the intimacy of the confessional had transformed into passion? Were they even now fornicating somewhere in the woods or garden? He listened for their animal sounds but heard nothing. He could barely breathe.
He heard a noise and turned. Simon stood at the top of the rise, his wispy hair blowing in the breeze like pennant flags on a naval ship. Bridgewater trudged up to meet him.
“Where’s your wife?” Simon said.
“Walking.”
“With the priest?”
“Aye.”
Simon made a skeptical noise. “We leave in the morning?”
“Aye. I’m to meet with Silverbridge in Caddonfoot after breakfast. Then I’ll be back to accompany you to York.”
“Bloody goddamned wrist. I feel like taking a knife and cutting the thing off myself. What about our plan?”
“Everything is in place.”
“Everything except your wife.”
Bridgewater ignored the comment. “The servants will take their carriage back to Coldstream. They’re leaving before dawn.”
“Do they know?”
“Aye. I’ve just given the instruction. Now, the men I’ve hired—”
“Clansmen?” Simon asked.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re clansmen or not so long as they look like clansmen.”
“And who will report it?”
“The driver—Tom. He knows what will happen, and he’ll be the only one to survive, so he can tell the story.”
“You told the clansmen to do it as close to Edinburgh as possible? We want the news to travel quickly.”
“Aye.” Bridgewater felt as if he were being catechized by his old history tutor, the man who made him miserable for four long years.
“Well done. This will turn the tide on the vote. I promise you.”
Four servants dead. A waste. But he reminded himself many more people would die if the treaty wasn’t signed. With a treaty in hand, England could suppress the clans quietly and efficiently. “Remember,” Bridgewater said, “nothing is to be said to anyone—certainly not anyone in the army. This is not an army matter.”
“If you weren’t so bloody concerned with a promotion, you might have proposed the idea to the army yourself. They’d have probably made you a general on the spot.”
Bridgewater gritted his teeth.
“What do you intend to do if your wife doesn’t return?” Simon asked.
“I’ll decide that when it happens.”
“Are you not concerned?” said Simon, who appeared to be taking some pleasure in Bridgewater’s discomfort. “I could send my men out to look for her.” He waited expectantly for an answer.
The thought of having one of Simon’s men finding Undine in the arms of that man and then reporting it to his master… Bridgewater shifted uncomfortably, weighing the unholy mortification against the chance to have Undine back under his control.
Simon lifted a lecherous brow. “Perhaps you’re afraid of what you’ll find?”
“Watch your tongue, man.”
“You fool! Why are you so blind? The woman has no affection for you. She can barely look at you. I thought to myself, the man must want to plow her fields more than life itself—’tis the only reason I can imagine for putting up with her serpent’s tongue and sideways glares. But my servant says you didn’t even take her to your bed after you married her. Are you incapable of the act? Is she a blind to make you appear a functioning man? Or do you prefer the company of men?”
Bridgewater’s head began to hum—so loud he had to put his hands over his ears. He felt dizzy, thought he might retch. The world seemed to be spinning, only the ground before him hadn’t moved.
“Christ Almighty, John, conduct yourself like a man.”
The spinning grew worse. The sky turned red. Simon’s face looked like a gargoyle, and then he was as big as an oak. Bridgewater fell to his knees and began to howl.
Thwack.
He flew over backward, head ringing from the blow.
“Get up,” Simon growled.
Bridgewater sucked in the clean, cool air. The night resolved itself into crisp shades of black and gray. He could feel his anger rise—anger at Simon, aye, but more at that witch. The white witch. He closed his eyes. Had he actually taken her for his wife? Had she tricked him? Had she seduced him into marrying her with her powders and poisons?
He sat up. The ceremony—swift and unfeeling—came back to him with pointed clarity. He could feel her chilly hand as he slipped on the ring. Oh God, what had he told her? What had she seen? He’d be ruined.
He climbed to his feet and let out a breath filled with cold fury. “Find her.”