Page 83 of The No Good Irresistible Viscount Tipton
“So she is asleep.”
“Why would she remain in bed with her family visiting?”
“She could be ill.”
“Oh.” She absorbed that for a few minutes. For the first time in his life she actually appeared to be ashamed of her behavior. “Will she improve? You have not called her family to her deathbed?”
He had lowered himself to playing one of her endless games. Disgusted, Rayne shredded his bread and tossed the remains on his plate. “No, madam, you were correct. My wife is not here.”
Becoming more confused, especially when Maddy reached over and held her hand, Jocelyn asked the question that was consuming all of them. “Where is she?”
The Bedegraynes still feared she was in the hands of some villain. Rayne was beginning to have his doubts. If she had been kidnapped, would there not have been a ransom note by now? Maybe they had gotten it wrong. The note Devona had received must have contained information about him. Something so vile that it made her flee his protection.
“Tipton, where is your wife?” his mother persisted.
He shook his head and stood up. Whether the information in the note had revealed the truth or lies, his wife had not trusted him. She ran away instead of confronting him and demanding his side of it.
The thought that she might even fear him staggered him. Had he not shown her from the beginning that she could trust him with her worries and problems? Exhaustion rolled beneath the surface of his enforced calm like the waves of a tropical storm. The battering was relentless, and at times he thought he might die from it.
This was grief. He felt as if someone had buried him alive again. His heart was racing; the air felt too hot and thin, and no one could hear his screams. If he could not find Devona, he feared he would feel like this for the rest of his life.
“Tipton, are you still with us?” Sir Thomas asked, his voice more subdued than usual as if he, too, sensed that Rayne had reached the brink of his emotional fortitude.
“We have to find her, Thomas,” Rayne replied. Before the moist earth and airless darkness claimed him again.
