Page 75 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
“Dinnae tempt me, lass.” Oscar flashed a grin that was sure to infuriate Maddie and hopped down from the carriage.
With that, Grace and Oscar edged their way down the shadowed driveway. They stayed out of the glow of the guiding lanterns and moved toward the beautiful outline of the Horndean School for Ladies.
But knowing what awaited them, the quaint turrets, slate roof, and whitewashed walls conjured a far eerier feeling in Grace’s chest. The building was like a stranger to her adjusting eyes.
“Doesnae look like anyone’s home to me,” Oscar whispered, nodding at the school.
No candles or lanterns flickered in the windows. The students would all be in their beds, sleeping soundly. But Ellie and her kidnappershadto be here somewhere. Grace couldn’t be wrong, could she?
She halted and trailed her keen gaze across the landscape in front of her, searching as she had done in Ellie’s bedchamber for something amiss.
Her eyes caught a glow, faint but out of place. It came from the chapel. That hall should have been locked up at this hour. Miss Sutton had insisted on it after a few of the girls had been caught having a midnight picnic there two years ago and had almost burned it to the ground when a lantern was knocked over.
But Miss Sutton isn’t here to do her nightly patrol…
“Over there,” Grace whispered as she led him toward the glow that she knew was meant for her.
With her heart pounding so loudly that she was certain her brother would be able to hear it, she approached the chapel doors. One was ajar, as if inviting her inside.
“Stay here,” she whispered to Oscar. “I will see if I can reason with him first. If I call for you,thencome to my aid.”
Oscar shrugged before perching on the low wall of the chapel porch. “Call for me when ye realize Ellieisnaethere too, eh?”
She ignored him and sucked in a deep breath before stepping into the chapel. In the low, flickering lights of the chapel, the first thing she saw was the little girl, fast asleep on the dais at the far end of the chapel with her kitten curled up in her arms.
The second thing she saw was… not her brother.
“And there she is, right on time,” a silky, vile voice said. He applauded her slowly. “I knew you would find my little note, clever girl that you are.”
Grace’s stomach lurched. “Yournote?”
“Ah, yes, you must allow me to apologize for the deceit, my love,” the Earl of Huston said while rising from the front pew. “It was not hard to imitate your brother’s hand. It was the only way I could ensure that you came to me, my shapely dove.”
“Where is my brother?”
Lord Huston smirked. “On his hasty way to London to inform your father of yourterriblemischief. I promised him that I would ensure you did not end up a barbarian’s wife. He left the method up to me.”
Grace thought back to what Miss Sutton had said about her brother’s surprise arrival at Horndean. She had mentioned how there’d been two other men with him, recently diverted from a hunting trip.
“You were with him,” she rasped. “It wasn’t Lord Stanforth and Mr. Fensom.”
The Earl chuckled to himself. “I have spent the past couple of years becoming well acquainted with your brother, biding my time. When he told me about the hunting trip, I could not resist suggesting that we surprise you in Scotland and bring you back to London with us.”
His grin widened. “At first, he was reluctant, but when I told him that I meant to propose, he could not have been more overjoyed. I believe he called it ‘a fine end to all the trouble my sister has caused.’ So, imagine our shock when we heard that you were already due to be married in a few days,” he added, tutting.
Standing in the aisle, trembling with fear and fury, Grace felt the past three years evaporate, leaving her exactly where she had started. Lord Huston once again thought he could just have her, and, once again, her fist itched to break his wretched nose.
“How did you steal her away?” she asked thickly, wondering if Ellie was asleep at all, or if the worst harm had already befallen her.
“Children are rather stupid,” he replied, shrugging. “I spoke to her this afternoon, in those… charming gardens, and she told me everything about where you were and the wedding. The dear thinggushedabout how she was looking forward to putting flowers in your hair. That is what she was picking when I spoke to her.”
Grace’s heart cracked. She felt sickened that the child’s affection for her had led her into so much danger.
“I told her I was your brother,” Lord Huston continued, clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice, “and that you had prepared a surprise for her that night, so we could all get to know one another before the wedding. I told her to wait for my signal—something to call her nursemaid away—and to come down to the gardens to await the surprise. She walked right out of that castle with me, though shedidstruggle once she realized there would not be a surprise after all, so I gave her a dose of something to make her sleep. She is perfectly fine. I doubt she will remember a thing.”
There were a thousand names Grace wanted to spit at the evil man and a thousand blows she wanted to rain down upon him, but so long as Ellie was closer to him than she was to her, she knew she had to stay calm. She needed to think carefully to avoid this awful deed from becoming a tragedy.
“Then let us talk,” she said, mustering her courage. “Give me the girl, let me put her in the carriage, and we can talk.”
