By the time Quinn returned home, it was past five o’clock. Upon entering, Wilkins greeted him with a grave expression.
“My lord, Lady Traherne’s sister, Miss Ophelia Stratham, is awaiting you in the drawing room. She says it is a matter of great urgency.”
Before Quinn could hand over his hat and cane, a white-faced Ophelia appeared in the corridor. Evidently she had been listening for his arrival.
“What is amiss?” he asked.
“It is V-Venetia,” the girl stammered. “She has been taken.”
Quinn felt his heart clench. “What do you mean, taken?”
Ophelia launched into a hurried recitation. “She was leaving our home when a man in a dark cloak forced her into a coach—a footman heard her cry out and opened the front door just in time to see the scuffle—and she left her reticule on the walk, along with a chalk drawing—please, my lord, you must save her—”
By now Ophelia was half sobbing as her words tumbled out.
Quinn grasped her shoulders and demanded she take a deep breath and speak more slowly. With effort he refrained from barking out questions as Ophelia described the sketch of what looked to be a frog and the initial “M.”
“For Montreux,” he muttered, struggling to quell his own panic. “It has to be.”
“I am so afraid for her,” Ophelia wailed.
“Don’t worry, we will find her,” he promised, keeping his own fear to himself. Fury burned hot and bright inside him, as did terror. He could imagine Venetia shot and bleeding, in great pain. The image turned his blood to ice—and yet at the same time, an unnatural calm settled over him. He would find her and rescue her or die trying.
He ordered Wilkins to summon Hawk to the Stratham home on Henrietta Place, while he accompanied Ophelia there. He wanted to see for himself the sketch Venetia had drawn.
There was still enough daylight to make out the chalk drawing, which convinced Quinn that he was right to suspect Montreux.
The knowledge bolstered his resolve. Remarkably, Venetia had had the presence of mind to leave clues, and he needed to make use of them. She was clever and resourceful, and he had to believe she would continue fighting.
He set his coachmen searching for Venetia’s missing guards and carriage, then entered the Stratham house with Ophelia. Inside, the entire household was in chaos, and oddly, Mrs. Stratham seemed even more shaken by Venetia’s abduction than her younger daughter.
Hawk arrived some twenty minutes later and listened intently as Quinn shared what he knew.
“If Montreux means to hold her for ransom,” Hawk mused, “he will contact you at home—”
“I am not waiting helplessly at home,” Quinn insisted.
“I don’t mean for you to. It would be far better if we could determine his whereabouts and take the battle to him. No doubt his price will be your head, and he will be lying in wait for you. But the element of surprise can provide us a significant advantage. Where might he have taken her?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion.”
“It would be some place he knows well and can defend while holding a hostage.”
A jolt of recognition ran through Quinn. “I know of one possibility—a country house where he lived while he was in exile, on the outskirts of London, on the road to Kent. New Cross was the village, I believe.”
Hawk nodded. “Traveling there now will be a gamble, but that seems a good place to begin our search. If that location proves fruitless, we will rethink our options. We’ll set out as soon as I can arrange for reinforcements.”
“Ash is in Kent, but I want Jack with me. We will need all the firepower we can muster.”
Quinn sent a Stratham footman after his cousin, asking Jack to meet them at Hawk’s London home. Just then his coachman returned to report that Venetia’s abandoned carriage had been found in a nearby copse of woods, her driver and two guards trussed inside and barely conscious. Quinn took a valuable few minutes to question them, but learned little about their attackers. With renewed urgency, Quinn went home with Hawk to gather weapons and ammunition and round up the earl’s available men.
On the carriage ride there, Quinn flayed himself for missing the signs. “I should have suspected Montreux sooner. I feel like a blind, bloody fool. It now seems probable he was behind the attempts on my life all along. But I can’t fathom why, unless it was revenge for my father’s actions many years ago, for stealing away Montreux’s bride-to-be, my mother. But why now?”
“With luck, you will have the chance to ask him yourself when we rescue your wife tonight.”
Quinn could only pray Hawk was right.
Fear of losing Venetia ripped through him anew, and he found it ha