Page 2 of Bound By her Earl

Emily looked, too. Even at her height, though, there was no sight of Grace’s shining blonde head. “I don’t see her.

“Well, heaven knows she won’t be able to see us, tucked back here as we are,” Diana claimed, grabbing Emily’s hand. Emily grabbed Frances as Diana led them. They moved easily to the center of the ballroom as the pause between sets sent the rest of the attendees filtering towards the room’s edges.

Even Emily went to her toes to search, not that the height helped much. She was already taller than half the gentlemen here. But itfeltas though it should help, somehow. Yet…nothing. A frown crossed her face.

“Do you see her, Diana?” Frances asked.

Before Diana could answer, a man spoke. “Excuse me.” The three girls whirled. “Have you seen Lady Grace?” asked the unassuming man, whose name Emily could not immediately place. “She and I are due for the next dance, but I’m afraid I cannot locate her…”

Something about the broad smile on Diana’s face made Emily’s confusion turn to worry.

“Oh, Mr. Cartwright—” Ah, yes, that was it. “—I amsosorry,” Diana said earnestly. “Grace stepped on her hem and has had to hie to the ladies’ retiring room. She bid us to make her apologies and asked if you would be so kind as to dance with Miss Rutley for this set, instead.”

Emily tried not to look surprised by this.

“Of course,” Mr. Cartwright said kindly. “Miss Rutley, if you would do me the honor?”

“Of course,” she said. She looked back at her friends as he led her to the dance floor. Diana and Frances had bent their heads together and were whispering furiously, their faces masked in dismay.

Emily might have enjoyed doing the Allemande with Mr. Cartwright—who was soft spoken, occasionally funny, and rather handsome once she looked past his spectacles—were she not so worried. It was silly to worry over Grace’s absence for a mere handful of minutes, but Emily was quite accustomed to worrying. Raising her sisters since their childhood had renderedthe habit ingrained. As it was, she barely executed a proper curtsey to poor Mr. Cartwright before she bolted for the edge of the ballroom.

“Did you find her?” Emily demanded when she found Diana and Frances. She knew the question was pointless; they would not look so vexed if they had located Grace.

Diana worried at her lip. “I saw her earlier. Two dances ago now, I think? She was with the Duke of Hawkins.”

Frances looked horrified. “Him? He’s old enough to be her father.”

The Duke’s age, however, was not what bothered Emily. “He’s also rather…forceful,” she said, thinking of the way the Duke looked at Grace, which had always struck her as being aggressive, somehow. “He hovers around Grace quite a lot and isn’t terribly gracious about it when she pays attention to other people.”

She hated to even suggest what she was suggesting. Diana immediately gathered the implication.

“You don’t think he would…?” she broke off, aghast.

“No,” Emily assured her, despite feeling no such assurance herself. “But perhaps he pressured her to accompany him for a walk?”

Frances bit her lip. “Maybe we should check the gardens?”

Emily felt instantly sick. Going unchaperoned into a garden was practically asking for one’s reputation to be obliterated, and she’d spent years carefully honing her sense of propriety, so she could make an advantageous marriage that would help her set her sisters up for happy lives.

But for Grace, she would do it.

“I think we should,” Diana agreed though even she sounded hesitant. “We shan’t go far from the house. Just far enough to call for her.”

“Surely anyone who…took her for a walk would release her once he knew we were looking,” Emily said, her voice less convincing that she’d hoped.

Still, they went. The strange turn of the evening was too much for Emily to wrap her mind around, so she focused on the fervent hope that nobody would note their odd behavior. When she made fleeting eye contact with a dowager, the older woman raised her eyebrows curiously, and Emily felt herself flush to her hairline. She offered the woman a nervous smile, hoping she’d chalk the trio off as merely overwhelmed by the close heat of the room. Itwashot inside in a way that made the cool night air feel like a slap.

“Are you sure?” Frances asked as Diana led them towards the stairs that led down from the empty veranda.

Her words were cut off by a scream, sharp and terrified. All thoughts of propriety, of reputation, fled Emily’s mind as she bolted towards the sound, nearly turning her ankle when hard stone gave way to the soft lawn.

“Grace?” she called, her voice too frightened and breathy to travel far. They’d scarcely gone a few paces into the garden, and she already felt disoriented, the pounding of her heart in her ears making it nigh on impossible to hear anything. Even if she could hear, however, the scream had faded, gone as quickly as it had arrived.

Frances and Diana nearly crashed into her when she stopped; her height had served her well, for once, and she’d long outpaced them.

“I’m going back for help,” Diana panted. She spun on her heel and raced back toward the house without even pausing to ask if the others wished to risk being found in the garden. Whatever was happening out here was far more important than idle gossip.

Frances slipped her hand into Emily’s.

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