Page 76 of The Rakehell of Roth
Kendrick nodded. “Your mother told her.” He scraped a palm over his face. “You have to understand that the laudanum twisted her thoughts. At first, she took it to calm her worries and then more and more. Prudence, God rest her soul, took the same tincture with your mother’s blessing and got her first taste of addiction. I blame myself for allowing that to happen.”
“No,” Winter said, backing away. “You’re wrong. She wouldn’t have done that.”
“I don’t know what she told you, Son, but I have no reason to deceive you.”
Winter’s emotions were an ugly, jumbled mess. The sorrow and sincerity on Kendrick’s face could not be faked. If anything of what the duke had said was true, his mother had manipulated Winter’s feelings so completely that her bitterness and resentment had become his. The duke had become the monster in the story…a poisonous narrativeshehad controlled.
God, he felt sick.
He didn’t have the time to play back every single time his father had reached out and Winter had rejected him out of hand because of what he thought the duke had done, when the truth was, the duchess had borne a child out of wedlock and had turned his own legitimate son against him.
Christ, his bloody head was spinning.
He needed to think. He needed toleave. But he forced himself to sit. Running in the past had not served him well. “Start from the beginning,” he said to the duke.
Kendrick did, and Winter listened while his father spoke. For the first time in his life, he considered a side of the story he’d never imagined—that his mother had been fabricating things all along, that his own innocent feelings might have been manipulated, thathisfather might have been the victim in this whole scene. What felt like ages later, Winter hung his head in his hands, his brain spinning with all he’d learned.
It was too much.
The door crashed open and they all stared at a wild-eyed Clarissa standing at the mouth of the study. “Isobel is gone.”
“Gone?” Winter asked dully.
A furious and worried gaze met his. “We can’t find her anywhere. She was already distraught after seeing the newssheets, so we had the maids prepare a bath to calm her down, but she didn’t take it because she overheard you saying that she’s the worst mistake of your life! How could you be so callous, Winter?” She jammed a finger at his chest, eyes brimming with tears. “She’s distraught and not thinking straight. Violet said she barely spoke before fleeing upstairs, mumbling that she never should have come to London,” she choked out. “She wouldn’t ride back to Chelmsford, would she?”
“She didn’t take her groom, Iz?” he asked.
“Sheis—oh God—” Clarissa cut off, bursting into tears. “She’s gone alone and it’s already dark.”
Grabbing a lamp, Winter bolted to the mews, calling for Randolph. When the old groom came running out from the depths of the stables, his eyes widened. Winter clenched his teeth, worry lashing through him. “Did you see where my wife went?”
“No, my lord. She’d just come back with Miss Clarissa and gone into the house, only to rush out again, calling for her mare. It was a while ago.” He hesitated, and Winter waved his arm for him to continue. “She seemed upset, my lord. Her eyes were red.”
Fuck. He looked around the yard. “Where the hell is my horse!”
“One of the grooms was tending to him, my lord. I’ll get him at once.”
Randolph raced back inside the mews, and Winter paced, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. Where would she have gone? Was Clarissa right in that she would decide to ride to Chelmsford? It was over forty miles—several hours of hard riding—and she loved Hellion too much to run that horse into the ground. How could she be so reckless?
He didn’t realize he’d muttered that last question out loud when Clarissa replied, sniffing. “Because she’s Isobel, and because you hurt her.”
A heavy hand came down to grip his shoulder and he turned to see his father standing there. Amidst murmurs ofYour Gracein the courtyard, the duke turned him about. “Isobel is capable, Son. If she is alone, she won’t have left here unarmed.”
Winter frowned. Armed? His wife?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Clarissa said in a scathing tone that he no doubt deserved. “She owns pocket pistols and has better aim than my brothers.”
Kendrick nodded. “I taught her. The girl is a skilled marksman.”
Winter barely had time to process that his straitlaced, uptight duke of a father had taught his young, impulsive wife to shoot before the butler came running down the stairs to the mews.
“Your Grace?” he said to Kendrick. “It’s a message for the marquess.”
Winter snatched the grimy bit of paper that was scrawled with an address, one he recognized in Covent Garden near Seven Dials. But that wasn’t what made his heart drop to his feet—it was the note at the bottom, written in an untidy scrawl.
Come quickly. Lady Roth has taken a terrible fall.
Chapter Twenty
