Page 23 of Fatal By Design
“We don’t know,” Audrey answered. “She is missing.”
Cartwright surged forward, his alarm seemingly genuine. “Missing? What happened? How do you know this?”
“Her carriage was set upon yesterday, her driver killed,” Hugh explained. “Then, shortly after, her maid’s body was pulled from a river not far from where Lady Redding was abducted.”
Cartwright swiped his hat from his head, revealing a crop of waved raven hair. “Abducted? Saints alive… We must go. We must find her.”
With his eyes wide with panic, Hugh began to doubt that the man was acting. But he also wasn’t telling them everything.
“The last letter you received from Lady Redding…what did it say?”
“What does that matter?” Cartwright’s temper climbed alongside his worry. “If Millie is missing, I must find her. Where was her carriage when it was attacked?”
“Kent. Near an estate called Greenbriar,” Audrey answered. “But we must know what her last letter said to you. That she would come here? That she would marry you? Even after the baron and our mother refused the match?”
“To hell with the baron and baroness!” His voice ricocheted through the family plot, startling a clutch of birds in the tree limbs. Sudden quiet followed their trilling and flapping wings. Cartwright closed his eyes, visibly calming with a long exhalation. “I’m sorry. I cannot conceal my rancor for them.”
“We’ve just learned of their rejection of your proposal for my sister fifteen years ago,” Audrey said, sympathy gentling her voice. “We also found your letters to Millie at Reddingate. Our intent wasn’t to trespass, but to find out why she would have set out for Greenbriar rather than Haverfield, as she told her staff.”
He gripped the brim of his hat and shook his head. “I don’t know. My last letter to her was a request to meet me here, today. She replied saying she would. That she did not care what her mother or uncle said this time. She no longer had to bend to their will.”
“The Viscount Redding has been dead for four years,” Hugh said, not satisfied by Cartwright’s answers so far. “Why wait for so long to propose to her again?”
Cartwright hardened, his dark brown eyes filling with contempt. “I have been in India for well over a decade. There was nothing here in England for me, not after I lost Millie. By the time I learned of the viscount’s death, it had already been three years. For a short while, I worried she had remarried. Presumed she had. But then, I wrote to her, on the off chance, and...she said she had not.”
Hugh relaxed somewhat. Cartwright was in love with Lady Redding, there was no doubt of that. The subtle shifts of his expression when he spoke of her revealed it; an affection he couldn’t conceal. However, all they had were his letters to Millie, and only his word on what her replies had been. If she had not felt the same way, or if she had not agreed to meet him here to announce their engagement, that might explain why she had been traveling in the opposite direction. To get away from him.
“She still cared for you?” Audrey asked, encouraging him to continue.
“She did. Millie believed I must have married, moved on. But I’ve only ever loved her.”
Wonderment filled Audrey’s eyes and parted her lips as she simply stared at Cartwright. Hugh had never made the viscountess’s acquaintance, but he found he held preconceived notions about her; they weren’t too far from his notions about the baron and Lady Edgerton. But perhaps Cartwright knew Millie in ways Audrey did not.
“Your grandfather is Lord Montague,” Hugh said as he saw more movement from the corner of his eye. It was only Greer, coming into the family plot, likely having heard Cartwright’s shouting. Audrey signaled to her that all was well.
“I have the misfortune of calling him grandfather, yes,” he scowled. “The man despises me as deeply as I despise him. I haven’t seen or spoken to him in as long as I’ve been overseas.”
“How would he feel about your betrothal to Lady Redding now?”
Cartwright scoffed. “I don’t care what he would feel. I have made my fortune, free of my grandfather’s estates, on my own terms. I have no need for him or his approval.”
“Is there anyone who would object to your marriage?” Hugh asked. “Any other family members?”
The man sighed heavily, his impatience brimming. Hugh could understand; if someone were to tell him Audrey was missing, he would not want to stand around answering questions.
“My cousin, Mr. Robert Henley. I do not think he would care one way or another, but he is the only other family I have. His father, my uncle, died years ago. I’m sure grandfather would much rather Henley be his heir, rather than me. He at least looks the part.”
White, Hugh assumed him to mean. Hugh did not know of Mr. Henley but would ask Thornton tomorrow as soon as they arrived at Greenbriar.
“In one of your last letters,” Audrey said, and by her pinched look of concentration, Hugh could tell she was piecing something together in her mind. “You asked Millie if she still had something. What was it?”
When Cartwright hesitated to answer, she cocked her head, her black bonnet dusted silver with the misty rainfall. “A ring perhaps?” she prodded.
The abductors had demanded the ring, according to Audrey’s vision. With all that they’d learned about a past rejected proposal and a new one on the horizon—from both Cartwright and Lord Westbrook—the mention of a ring didn’t seem so out of the ordinary now.
Cartwright, as garrulous as he’d been so far, was now reticent.
“To find Lady Redding, we need all the information you have,” Hugh reminded him.
