So True a Love (Daughters of His Kingdom 2)

She must have spoken the words aloud because the incoming smack sent a shooting pain through her head.

“I can see you are not yet convinced.” Cyprian grabbed her face with his hand and forced her to look at him, grinding the flesh of her cheeks into her jaw. The moonlight shone off of his teeth as he sneered. “And I know just the way to make sure you’ll never breathe a word.”

***

Cyprian slapped her again and this time her body went completely limp and she tumbled to his feet.

Andrew shoved Cyprian’s shoulders. “What are you doing? The boy and now her? This was not part of the plan!”

Cyprian could only stare at the motionless girl, anger rotting his stomach. Traitor. Not even her innocent eyes could wedge through the tightly cemented bricks he’d laid around his heart. No patriot spy would stop him from this mission. And certainly not a woman.

He moved back and stared, feeling Andrew’s eyes on him.

His threats should be enough to keep her foolish mouth quiet. And if not, he would prove to her he wasn’t a man to be dealt with lightly. Not when Camilla’s life depended on every cent the British paid him.

“Why do I let you do this to me—to her, to anyone?” Andrew glared, his rage glinting off the whites of his eyes.

Cyprian sneered. “Because this is what I want. And I always get what I want.”

Chapter Five

The rapping against the backdoor lurched Nathaniel out of a heavy sleep. He shook his head before trying to read the clock on the dresser. Running a hand over his hair, he squinted. What hour was it?

“Nathaniel! Nathaniel! Get down here now!”

Thomas’s frantic voice breached the closed door and hurled upstairs, grabbing Nathaniel by the collar and shaking the sleep from his eyes.

Nathaniel’s pulse charged. “Coming!”

He was used to frenzied patients fetching him at all hours, but something in Thomas’s tone made his spine stiffen. He put on the first pair of breeches he grabbed from the drawer, yanked a clean shirt over his head, and shoved his feet into a pair of stockings and boots before bounding down the stairs two at a time.

Swinging open the door, he jumped back as Thomas barged in, chest heaving.

“What’s happened?” Nathaniel gripped the cold door handle before he slammed it shut.

Thomas wouldn’t stop moving. “We can’t find Kitty.”

“What?” Nathaniel stopped and time slowed as he tried to comprehend Thomas’s meaning. “I don’t understand. She’s not at home?”

“She is not.” Thomas’s stomping boots echoed between the walls as he paced the length of the study. “Eliza is frantic. We’ve scoured every inch of the house, the barn. What’s worse, we can’t even tell that she ever made it home from the party.” He stopped and pointed a finger at Nathaniel’s chest. “What were you thinking letting her leave alone? I thought you had at least some sense in that self-righteous head of yours.”

Nathaniel’s volume exploded. “I tried to persuade her to allow me to escort her home but she refused to—”

“When have you ever let something like that stop you?” Thomas’s tone grew louder with every word. “She could be anywhere, Nathaniel. She could be hurt!”

A firing squad would have been more welcome at that moment. Why hadn’t he just gone after her? Fool!

“We will find her, Thomas.” Nathaniel yanked his hat and greatcoat off the peg, determination driving into his muscles with every pump of his heart. He pulled open the door. “You head into town. I will go the other way around Shawme Pond and up past Newcomb Tavern. If you find her, bring her to your house immediately. I will do the same.”

Thomas followed him out the door. “Good. Eliza will be waiting.”

“If neither of us has found her within the hour, we’ll organize a larger search party.”

Thomas nodded his assent and dashed up the street into the shadows, calling Kitty’s name.

Guilt pooled into Nathaniel’s lungs like a foaming wave. He raced up the street, his body somehow both numb and violently alert. Calling Kitty’s name, he tried desperately to keep the frantic edge out of his voice. Whatever had happened to keep her from returning home must have been grave. She might be headstrong, but she was too level-headed to hold a grudge and... what? Runaway? Go back to Boston?

Impossible. Boston was sixty miles north and she could never make such a journey alone much less in the dead of night.