Lips twisting, then setting, she went back to the bed, circling the pot shards to sit on the side.
She’d assumed the visitor was Deverell, but what if it wasn’t?
If it wasn’t…the beast was going to come back once he’d dealt with the interruption, and now he knew she was loose in the room. What would he do?
Looking down, she kicked at a pot shard. More to the point, what was she going to do?
Chapter 22
Concealed in the shadows of Lord Lowther’s drawing room, through the partially open door Deverell watched Dalziel, Christian, and Tristan as they waited just inside Lowther’s front hall for his lordship to appear.
The butler had opened the front door to them; given no real choice, he’d reluctantly admitted the three gentlemen he’d seen waiting on the stoop and, rattled by Dalziel’s subtly menacing demand, had rushed off to summon his master. Tristan had silently reopened the front door; like wraiths, Deverell and Gervase had slipped in and taken up their station in the darkened drawing room. Deverell glanced at Gervase, beside him in the shadows; it was their task to search the house, if Phoebe were there to locate and release her while Dalziel and the others kept Lowther engaged.
Over two hours had passed since Phoebe had been strolling in Edith’s garden; their best guess was that she would be held somewhere in this house. Lowther would want to question her, to learn about her involvement with whisking maids away; given her station, it seemed unlikely—unnecessary—for him to have had her taken elsewhere. Not yet.
That Lowther was at home seemed to confirm their assessment.
They waited; silent in the dark, Deverell thanked heaven the discipline of patience was still his. Cold dread had swamped him at the first word of Phoebe’s kidnapping; everything he’d learned since had only intensified the sensation. Given her past, this was surely the worst terror that could have befallen her. He might have eased her trepidation, blunted her ingrained, now instinctive fear and the panic that arose from that, but he had no way of knowing how she would react to the present situation and its implicit threats, how deeply fear might grip her, how badly it might affect her.
How terrified she might be.
The thought of her terrified shook him to the core, unleashed a torrent of emotions and a compulsion to act unlike any he’d felt before, to rescue her, defend her, protect her. Above all, to keep her safe.
While he waited, focused and alert, all attention locked on doing just that, the detached, usually totally cynical part of his brain pointed out the obvious with breathtaking clarity—he felt like this about Phoebe because she was his life. The center of it, the lynchpin; without her, all the rest would fall apart.
He’d imagined he would be the center of her life; instead, she was the fulcrum about which his life revolved. Without her, he’d be lost.
As soon as this was over, as soon as he had her safe, he vowed he would ask and insist that she marry him. No more delays, no more waiting for her to see the obvious on her own; if she hadn’t noticed by now, he’d just have to make the matter plain—and show her why, every single reason why, she simply had to marry him.
Heavy footsteps came quickly down the stairs—more than one man. Lips set, Deverell resisted the urge to peek out; he and Gervase faded back into deeper shadow as the footsteps halted before Dalziel.
“Dalziel?” Lowther already sounded rattled. “What’s this?”
A fractional hesitation—fleeting but there, enough to alert both Deverell and Gervase—then Dalziel murmured, “My apologies for disturbing your nap, my lord.” Another brief but meaningful pause. “It seems you’ve taken a knock on the head.”
“What? Oh, that. It’s nothing—bumped my head on a drawer. Clumsy thing to do, but nothing to worry about.” Lowther paused to draw breath. “Now, what brings you to my door?”
“I fear I need to consult with you on a legal matter. I believe you’re acquainted with Dearne and Trentham?”
“Yes, of course.” Lowther hesitated, then coughed and stepped back. “If you’ll come into my study…?”
Deverell glanced at Gervase as they listened to the four men move down the hall.
“Nap?” Gervase mouthed.
Face set like stone, Deverell pointed upward. From Dalziel’s comments
, Lowther was disheveled and injured; his lordship had been involved in some fight moments before—and he’d come from upstairs.
Lowther’s voice, pitched between petulance and belligerence, faded; a door toward the back of the hall shut.
Deverell waited a heartbeat, then cautiously looked out. The butler, a tall, severe man, stood listening outside what was presumably the study door. As Deverell watched, the man grimaced, then walked off through the swinging doors leading to the rear of the house.
A touch on Gervase’s arm and Deverell was moving through the hall. Swift and silent, he reached the stairs; keeping to the edge of the treads, he climbed without a sound. Gervase followed at his heels.
At the top of the stairs, they paused, glancing around, listening, confirming that as expected at this time of day there were no staff abovestairs. Exchanging a nod, they separated; quickly, thoroughly, methodically, all in complete silence, they searched the first floor. Finding nothing, they went up to the second; from there, they progressed to the attics, treading more warily in case any staff were in their rooms.
They found nothing. And no one.