Engaging the Enemy (The Wild Randalls 1)

A slow smile spread across her butlers face. “I will ensure no lasting damage is done. It will depend on whether the lad will be reasonable.”

Mercy shook her head. Men. Why were they so eager to do things the hard way? She’d never understand them. She doubted she should try. The only two males she had to worry about were Edwin and Leopold. They were more than enough of a challenge for now.

Mercy hurried upstairs and along to the family wing, mind whirring with plans and hopes for the future ahead. She slipped inside Edwin’s room, expecting to hear his greeting, but was met with utter silence. Although she searched every room in the family wing—including her husband’s and Leopold’s bedchamber—she found no trace of them.

She headed downstairs to the kitchens, wondering if Blythe had taken Edwin there for something more to eat. It was out of the ordinary for Blythe to visit the kitchen, but it had been that sort of a day. Her heart pounded, however, when she saw no sign of Edwin or Blythe at the end of the long table in the cavernous kitchens.

Cook wiped his flour covered hands on a cloth and came forward. “Can I help you, Your Grace?”

Mercy swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m looking for the duke and Lady Venables. Have you seen them?”

“No, I’ve not.”

Mercy turned around in a circle to peer into each doorway, hoping they were approaching from another direction. Blythe knew the danger was caught and captured upstairs. There was no need to hide now. But they had vanished into thin air as if they were still in danger. They couldn’t be gone. They just couldn’t. There must have been something they had overlooked.

Mercy took a step backward. There was no other reason for Blythe to be so hard to find. Panic gripped her. Tobias must have an accomplice in the abbey. They must have taken her son and Blythe away from her while she and Leopold had been distracted by Tobias’ return.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Leopold paced the drawing room, glancing occasionally at his youngest brother with competing feelings of alarm and joy. He wanted to embrace him, welcome him home properly but it was unsafe to loosen his bindings. He would hurt Edwin if he was released.

And then Leopold would kill him.

“I cannot believe you told the duchess about me,” Allen growled.

“You try keeping secrets from her,” Leopold muttered. “She’s a force of nature.”

Allen scowled. “Will you be needing me much longer? I’ve got duties out in the stables that need attendance.”

“No.” Leopold held up his pistol—he’d taken it from Mercy’s pocket as he’d helped her to a chair—and turned it this way and that. “I can manage him if he becomes difficult.”

Allen’s frown grew. “You’re not cold-blooded enough. Neither is he, by the way. He wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

“How can you be so sure?” Leopold asked.

“He’s been full of piss and wind since he was a boy. He and my sainted brother, Edwin, had that in common. Some things never change.”

Tobias looked as safe as a pirate standing before an open chest of gold bullion. His hair was long and unkempt, skin deeply tanned. Clothing aged and untended with a definite seaman’s aroma. Leopold’s nose twitched. But did those things make him dangerous? His eyes were the same ones he remembered, golden brown in a tanned and scarred face. Once they had been trusting, if slightly mischievous. Life had not been kind to Tobias and Leopold’s heart ached for what appeared lost.

Allen left and they were alone.

Tobias tried his bonds one more time. “Untie me and we can end this. You deserve to be duke.”

“I deserve nothing of the sort you idiot,” he growled. “I cannot untie you. You cannot be allowed free inside the abbey. I don’t trust you.”

Tobias scowled. “But you trust them. She might look like Christmas morning, but for all you know she could be bringing reinforcements.”

“Mercy wouldn’t harm you. And she’s had other punishments for me and plenty of time for it.”

Tobias rolled his eyes. “She got you hooked all right, but wasn’t talking about the duchess. It’s the other one I’d be watching.”

“Other one? Lady Venables?”

Tobias shrugged. “If that’s her name. I’ve seen her about. Always talking to herself and the dead. Roams the forest leaving carrots in her wake for little bunnies to feast upon. Mad as a hatter, she is. If I was sleeping here I’d do it with one eye open.”

“Gray rabbits?” A feeling of dread crushed Leopold’s chest. He yan

ked his brother’s chin up and held his gaze. “When did you spy on Lady Venables? When, damn it?”