Page 53 of When She Loved Me
His voice much weaker now, Franklin shook his head and said, “Someone has to be true to her.”
Trevor left him, walked up the stairs and found Nicole’s room. He pushed the door open, and hovered just near the entry, glancing around, wondering if she might have left him a note as Franklin had. He found nothing of the sort. He stepped inside, pulled open the wardrobe to show that it had been emptied of its contents. Her brush and comb were gone from the dressingtable. No personal items sat near the ewer and basin on the short cupboard near the window. He spared only a glance at the perfectly made bed, not of a mind to revisit what they’d done, how she had loved him underneath those covers.
With a foul curse, for his own unrelenting idiocy in all regards to Nicole, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
TREVOR LEFT HYNDMANAbbey that same afternoon, riding away on his thoroughbred at a breakneck speed. He had a pretty good idea where she’d gone and rode now for Audley End. To his surprise, his sharp rapping at the door was greeted only by a young maid, who likely had no idea who he was, but made a deep curtsy before lifting inquiring eyes to him.
“Tell Lady Audley that the Earl of Leven requires some of her time.”
“Oh, I would, milord, but Lady Audley is down in Brighton, at her daughter’s home.”
Trevor frowned, “Since when?”
“For weeks now.” The little maid pulled and yanked at her skirts while she spoke.
“And had her granddaughter, Lady Leven, stopped by in the last few days?”
The girl pulled a face and shook her head.
With only a sparse, “Good day,” Trevor pivoted and walked away, collecting his mount from the post where he’d hitchedhim. More foul language left his lips as he traveled then to London and the Kent residence.
Upon that stoop, the infuriating butler, who knew damn well who he was, asked for his card, as, “The baron is not at home to callers.”
Trevor rolled his eyes, refusing to give the man his card. “Is he home to Leven?” This, leveled upon the hapless man with some sarcasm.
“I should think not.”
Believing that a clamped jaw might indeed become a permanent thing, Trevor growled, “By chance, is his daughter here? Nicole?”
Meeting the earl’s gaze with his own share of disdain, the butler advised, “She is not. We’d heard she’d been left to wallow in the country somewhere.”
He wanted to hit him. God, how he wanted to strike him!
But he turned away from the maddening servant and now found himself at a loss as to where his wife might have gone. His horse was likely exhausted, he knew, precluding any further search for her just now. And the hour grew late. Franklin knew where she was. If he’d been worried that her destination had perhaps been unsafe, he’d have spoken her location, Trevor believed.
As darkness fell on the city, he found his way to his town home, which he’d visited for several days only a few days ago. He sat in his study, having downed one glass of brandy, and currently sipping at another.
Where she might be was the existing issue, but that was followed swiftly and often this day by, how could he possibly make it right with her now?
Every word that Franklin had uttered screamed again in his head. But he didn’t need these to know he’d erred, and grievously. It was the reason he’d returned to the abbey, to tell her he was sorry for—again—having doubted her. He’d planned to come clean about everything, to tell her the whole ‘make a baby’ ruse was just that, a trick to make her love him, or love him again. He’d thought to win her over with their shared passion. He’d ignored so much else in the interim.
Franklin was right, he didn’t deserve her.
But he wanted her. And he needed her.
He lifted his feet off his desk, and swallowed the last of the brandy, when a letter upon his desk, atop a stack of unopened missives, caught his eye. He recognized the handwriting on the address as his mother’s and wondered why she might be writing him. He couldn’t ever remember receiving a letter from her before. He never had, he was sure.
Curiosity momentarily outweighed all those devastating thoughts of Nicole and the sorry state of his marriage. He retrieved the envelope and tore open the seal, pulling out a two sentence note, signed by his mother.
Your wife is here, though I cannot say why. I insist you fetch her, posthaste.
Of course, it made sense as she was, effectively, family, and was for certain in a place Trevor would never have thought to look.
THE DOWAGER’S HOUSE, about forty minutes north of the city, upon a fresh horse, took Trevor not more than thirty minutes to reach. Almost as if she’d advised her staff to be waiting for him, the door to the modest but elegant country house was pulled open, even as he left his tired steed alone in the drive.
He’d visited so rarely, he hadn’t any idea of her butler’s name but asked that his horse be tended while he sought his mother.
“In the parlor, my lord,” advised the butler, a surprisingly young and handsome man. He lifted a hand and pointed away from the wide foyer. “Second door, just there.”
