Page 35 of Duke with a Deception
He bowed to her elegantly, but his eyes remained hard, fixated upon her brother.
Everett returned her husband’s look with a glare of polite dislike. “Kingham.”
They eyed each other in the way she imagined a pair of lions might circle each other as they prepared to fight over their territory in the wild plains.
“Why are you here?” King bit out bluntly.
“To inform Verity that her charge has run away.”
King’s brows furrowed. “Her charge?”
“He’s speaking of Emma,” Verity explained urgently. “She’s been missing for hours from my brother’s town house already. She could have gone anywhere. We need to start searching for her at once.”
“Naturally,” he agreed smoothly, coming to stand at her side in a proprietary fashion. “Only let me know what you need, my dear, and it shall be done.”
Gratitude rushed over her. She had surmised that he wasn’t as pleased with the idea of Emma coming to live with them when they returned from their honeymoon as she hoped. She hadn’t been certain he would be as eager as she to begin the search for Emma. But then, Verity ought to have known he would be. When had her beloved ever let her down?
Never, she was sure of it. Even in the moments she couldn’t recall, the pieces of memory that had been taken from her as sure as if a thief had stolen them, she felt to her marrow King had always been steadfastly loyal to her.
“Thank you,” she told him.
“I already have half a dozen people in the street looking for her,” Everett said grimly, turning Verity’s attention back to him. “So far, there seems to be no hint of the child anywhere.”
“I shall bring a dozen more,” King vowed, placing a reassuring hand on Verity’s arm. The scent of him, his cologne mingling with shaving soap, washed over her, equally comforting.
She longed to burrow into his arms. To rest her head on his chest and listen to the beat of his heart. The thought that Emma could be forever lost left her feeling ill.
“There’s no time to waste on petty squabbling,” Verity reminded them. “We need to make haste and find Emma.”
“Where have you already searched?” King asked her brother.
“The streets surrounding the town house.”
King nodded. “We’ll branch outward, then. I’ll send a few men and conveyances through the streets beyond. With so many of us searching, we’ll find the girl. How far can a small child have gone in a few hours?”
“Hopefully not far,” Verity answered, worry turning the breakfast she’d eaten into a sick stew inside her stomach.
But as the day waned on, it became increasingly apparent that a small child could journey much farther than any of them had supposed.
As the hours passed,King grew increasingly suspicious that the girl they so frantically searched for wasn’t responsible for the stealth and speed with which she had disappeared. Along with Riverdale’s grooms and footmen, the men King had brought with him diligently searched the nearby streets on foot and by horseback. Verity and King traveled in a barouche, the better to spy her. Riverdale and his duchess were in a phaeton.
They had yet to see a hint of little Emma.
A sense of foreboding creeped over him as the barouche swayed around a turn onto a street they had already searched four times without luck. Those who peddled in innocents were known to slink along even the most exclusive streets, completely unnoticed by the people around them. And if she had managed to wander beyond the charmed squares filled with aristocratic town houses and into one of London’s seamier neighborhoods, he shuddered to think what would become of her.
“After this pass, we will stop and reconvene at your brother’s town house,” he told Verity, anticipating her displeasure at a halt in the search before she turned her distraught face to him.
Verity clutched his sleeve. “We cannot afford to stop, King. She’s still out there somewhere. We have to find her.”
“We’ve been through these streets again and again,” he reminded her, keeping his voice gentle.
He knew how much the child meant to Verity. He hated seeing the distress the girl’s disappearance caused her.
“I didn’t abandon her in a burning building, and I shan’t abandon her now,” Verity vowed, adamant.
She was so determined, such a sweet do-gooder. Her resilience and refusal to surrender were commendable, but he was more jaded and cynical than she was. Life had systematically stripped him of the ability to believe that the world was a just place.
“We won’t give up,” he reassured her. “But we need to make certain there isn’t something we’re missing, some place we’ve neglected to search for her. Some of our time and attention may be better served directed elsewhere.”
