Page 91 of A Duchess Bound
Dorothy’s head snapped to him. Her brother’s eyes were wide and his jaw tight.
“What is the matter?” Dorothy asked.
“Bridget,” he said, his voice tight. “She has been caught in a scandal. We must find her at once.”
CHAPTER 32
“Do you know where she is?” Gerard asked.
Leedway shook his head. The man’s shoulders were set with tension, so distressed at his sister’s plight that he did not even request that Gerard leave them, so he and Dorothy could discuss Lady Bridget in confidence.
“How bad is it?” Dorothy asked, her wild eyes sweeping over the crowded ballroom. “What happened?”
“She was found unchaperoned with a lord,” Leedway said, lowering his voice.
“Which lord?”
Leedway finally seemed to realize that Gerard was there and perhaps someone who was not a part of their family and therefore, someone who should not have been a part of this conversation.
“If it is a scandal, I will learn about it soon enough,” Gerard said. “I will help you if you will only let me.”
Leedway raked a rough hand through his hair. He looked anxiously about, as though he anticipated a crowd of gossipmongers to descend upon them without warning.
“Let him help,” Dorothy said.
Leedway looked aside at Dorothy, his shoulders set tensely. For a heartbeat, indecision flickered in his eyes. Then, as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut, Leedway seemed to slump and fold in on himself. “Lord Fourton,” Leedway said. “Do you know him?”
“Passingly,” Gerard said. “He is not a respectable man.”
“This is all my fault!” Dorothy exclaimed. “If I had been watching Bridget tonight, she would not have sneaked away with him!”
“No,” Leedway said. “No, do not think that!”
“But she is young!” Dorothy exclaimed. “It is her first Season, and…”
“And we must find her,” Leedway interrupted. “I heard that she was in the library, but by the time I entered, she had already gone. I thought that she might have sought you out.”
“I have not seen her,” Dorothy said.
Gerard did not recall seeing the young lady either, but it was feasible that he might have overlooked her presence, for his own thoughts had been so consumed by the elder Leedway sister.
“Have you looked in the gardens?” Gerard asked.
The gardens were, of course, where many sought to hide away from transgressions committed at balls. He knew that Bridget had a particular fondness for them, though, as he had encountered her there once before.
“It is worth looking there, yes,” Leedway said.
He hurried away without waiting to see if anyone would follow. Dorothy swept behind him. Her face pinched with worry and guilt, and Gerard’s own chest ached. While he did not know what it was to care for a sibling, he had seen with his own eyes the tenderness with which Dorothy cared for Lady Bridget. She was distressed—her brother, too—and seeing the evidence of how the siblings all loved one another stirred within Gerard feelings that he was not yet ready to name.
“Is it true?” a sly, female voice asked.
The speaker was Lady Hart. She and Lady Amelia clustered together at the edge of the ballroom. While Lady Hart’s expression was one of shameless curiosity, Lady Amelia seemed only anxious, fidgeting with her skirts.
Leedway swept past them, continuing down the corridor that led into the gardens, but Dorothy stumbled to an ungraceful halt. She looked at the women with wide eyes, a blush coming quickly over her face. “Is what true?”
“About Lady Bridget and Lord Fourton,” Lady Hart said. “I just overheard Lord Beaumont speaking about it.”
“N—no,” Dorothy said. “It cannot be true. I am—am certain that it is a misunderstanding.”
