Page 2 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
Dominic caught Miss Hartley’s eye above the boy’s head and tilted his chin toward the chairs along the east wall, quieter, away from the orchestra, as far from the crowd’s worst density as the room permitted.
“Shall we find somewhere a little more comfortable, my lord?”
James went with her without argument. Dominic watched them thread through the press of guests.
“Still settling in, I imagine,” Lucien assumed.
“He is,” Dominic said, and Lucien, who was a better friend than he sometimes deserved, let it rest entirely.
“Ashworth settled the Denholm matter finally,” Lucien said. “Three years and a string of useless solicitors, and Fenton resolved it in a fortnight.”
“Fenton always resolves things in a fortnight,” Dominic said. “It is the three years of useless solicitors that are the essential preparation.”
“And Carrington,” Lucien added, with the air of a man saving the better item for second. “Married. Six weeks ago. In considerable haste.”
“Is he pleased with himself?”
“Unreasonably.”
“It never lasts,” Elinor said, without looking up from her glass. “A full season of domestic reality tends to revise that sort of satisfaction rather thoroughly.”
“That’s rather hard on the man,” Lucien said.
“I have attended enough weddings to speak with some authority on the subject.” She said it with perfect serenity. “He will do very well. In a year or two.”
“This will be our only event this season, as it happens,” Lucien said presently. “Estate business at Fairmont, considerably overdue, and Elinor wanted to come. We leave tomorrow.” He said it with mild resignation. “I had hoped this evening might at least give Annabelle the chance to be seen properly before we go.”
“She isn’t in the room?”
“Preparing. She’s to play the pianoforte later.”
Dominic accepted a glass from a passing footman. Elinor was drawn into conversation with an acquaintance across the room. Lucien was claimed by a gentleman from the local magistracy who spotted the gap in conversation and crossed to them at once, his expression brightening as he came.
And Dominic, left momentarily to himself, let his gaze travel across the assembled company as a matter of long habit.
He ended up glancing toward the east wall instead.
The chairs stood empty…and Miss Hartley was not among them. Neither was James.
He set his glass down on the nearest surface and moved.
He tried the withdrawing room first, then a small parlor, then a room where three older women stopped mid-sentence at his appearance and resumed the moment he left.
He kept his pace measured throughout, fast enough to cover the ground, steady enough not to attract notice. The Duke of Silverford conducting an open search through another duke’s townhouse was exactly the sort of incident that traveled.
He found Miss Hartley in the corridor beyond the main ballroom, speaking in urgent, lowered tones to two footmen. She turned at his approach. Her mouth opened before she had the words. Her eyes went to the footmen and back.
“Your Grace?—”
“Where is he?”
“The footmen have been checking each room—I believe he has simply found somewhere quieter—” She stopped. He said nothing. The two footmen became deeply occupied with the floor. “He slipped away, Your Grace. The room grew very crowded, and when I turned to look—” Another stop. “He slipped away.”
“How long ago?”
The pause before she answered was, itself, the answer. “Ten minutes, approximately.”
He addressed the footmen without raising his voice. “Every room on this floor. Now.”
