Page 84 of The Haunted Duke

“Yes, of course. I shall go to be there for our dear Caroline,” Nora answered as she rose from her chair.

Evander unleashed a breath of relief as he sent a silent prayer of thanks to God and rose with her.

“Very good,” he replied. “This will not take long.”

It would not, if Evander had anything to do with it. With the help of Mr. Forks and Mr. Ridge, they had finally found the base of the trafficking operation Augustus had been involved with: an old, unassuming mill that sat on the edge of southern London’s shore. He had no proof yet, but Evander was certain that was where his letters—and the person writing them—had come from.

“I shall have Patty fetch Aggie,” Nora stated, already walking out of the parlor. “So I may get dressed faster.”

“I will send another maid to assist you, Mother,” Evander countered. “Aggie will need to assist Helena.”

He had sought out his mother first, only because he had not yet found the words to tell his wife what was happening. Difficult as the conversation with his mother had been, he suspected Helena would put up an even greater fight, insisting on helping him herself, and he wanted the privacy to reason with her alone.

“Helena is not here, my darling,” Nora said.

Evander froze. Even his heart seemed to pause in its beating. He spared a glance toward Damien and Adrian, who appeared equally concerned.

“What do you mean she is not here?” he asked, forcing his rising panic to stay out of his voice. “Where is she?”

“She left quite early this morning,” Nora answered. “Though why, I am not certain. That maid of hers would not tell me. I am assuming it had something to do with her family, though, as she has no other place to be.”

Evander moved, not wasting another second in conversation, and raced past his slow-paced mother toward the stairs. As he reached her room, he flung the door open, startling Helena’s maid Aggie as he did so.

“Your Grace!” Aggie exclaimed, stumbling back from him.

“Where is my wife?” he demanded.

Aggie’s face paled as she shook her head.

“With you… Your letter… I do not understand!” she stammered.

Something sharp twisted in Evander’s gut as Aggie struggled to make out her words, and that beast he had been so good at leashing lately snapped its tether.

“What are you saying, Aggie? I wrote no letter, and she is clearly not with me,” he snarled, stalking toward her. “Where is my wife?”

Aggie flung herself to Helena’s writing desk and, with trembling hands, picked up a piece of paper. She pressed it into his hands before she fell to her knees and began to beg for forgiveness.

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” she sobbed, clutching at the hem of his coat. “She made me swear not to wake anyone. She said you needed her, that it could not wait, and I let her go alone. I should never have let her go alone—”

Evander could not hear her, though. The rushing of his blood was too loud in his ears to make out any other sound as he read over those three familiarly scripted lines over and over again. He knew that handwriting. Had an entire drawer full of it.

“Which way?” he demanded, hauling Aggie up by the arm. “Which way did the carriage go?”

“The north road, Your Grace, toward the old mill. I heard the driver say so myself—”

He bellowed Adrian and Damien’s names as he raced back down the stairs. Trusting that his friends would follow him, he yanked open the front door, swung himself back up onto his horse, and took off toward the mill.

The ride was a blur of pounding hooves and dark countryside, far too slow for his liking, until finally the mill’s crooked shape appeared against the night sky.

“Evander, wait!” Damien shouted, his horse thundering up alongside him as they crested the last hill. “We do not know what is waiting for us in there. We need a plan before we…”

It was not his friends’ shouted pleas to stop that made Evander go stock-still in front of the mill. It was the heat. The flames. It was the threat of fire being brandished upon him again that had given him pause.

The mill was on fire. Black, choking smoke billowed from the age-weathered wood. Licks of fire several feet high crackled and popped as such wood turned black and ashen.

Before him, the fire raged, and for one terrible second, he was in two places at once. In the past, chained and screaming as ropes soaked in alcohol were set alight against his skin. And in the present, where if he did not move, if he let the past hold him a moment longer, Helena would burn in his place. Helena would feel that pain that clung to him like smoke clings to lungs.

Then a scream erupted into the air. A scream belonging to a voice he knew and loved, and Evander moved, allowing that beast inside of him to swallow that fire and pain awaiting him, and charged into the flames.