*
The inn Ewan’s friends had found was clean and quiet. Lorrie had been pleasantly surprised to discover they had horses tethered nearby. They’d wrapped her in a blanket, helped her mount Ewan’s horse, and taken her straight to the inn. Grantham had secured the best room, while Wraxall had hurried her in through a side door, the blanket pulled over her head like a cloak.
She’d wandered into the room, which was spartan but clean, feeling lost and disoriented. She had no luggage to unpack and put away in the bureau, no letters to write at the little table. The bed looked comfortable enough, but how could she sleep while Ewan and Welly were both out wandering in the cold and the dark?
The dark-haired Mr. Wraxall cleared his throat. He had been kind, but he did not seem to know what to do with her. Not that she blamed him. She didn’t know what to do with herself.
“I will order you supper and warm water. Is there anything else I can do for you at present?”
She shook her head. “No. You have done too much already. Thank you, Mr. Wraxall.”
He inclined his head. “It was my pleasure, my lady. Grantham and I will pay a visit to the constable and the magistrate. I don’t anticipate we shall be away more than an hour at most, but these things do take time. For your own protection, I ask that you stay in your room. I will check on you when I return.”
“And Mr. Mostyn?” She clenched her fingers together. “Will he know where we are staying?”
“If he returns before we do”—his tone indicated he thought this unlikely—“he will have no trouble finding you. Ewan is not the dolt some people think him.”
“He is no dolt at all,” she said.
He gave her a small smile. “I see you know him better than most. You needn’t worry, my lady. Nothing will happen to Mostyn.”
“If it does, I have no one to blame but myself. I don’t know why I insisted he go after Welly. I wasn’t thinking straight. He shouldn’t have listened to me.”
“He would have gone after the dog even if you hadn’t asked. He cares about you. Love has a strange effect on a man—or so I have heard.”
Lorrie felt a lump rise in her throat. “Love? He hasn’t said he loves me. Not even when I…” She broke off, aware she had probably already said too much.
“Do you think he would go after anyone the way he did you?”
“It’s his duty. My father—”
“The duke could hire an army if he wished. Ewan volunteered, and when he came to our club and asked Jasper and me to help, we said yes without hesitating.”
“You are loyal friends,” she said. “He is lucky to have you.”
“We aren’t so loyal that we want to traipse about in the countryside for two days. But any man who knows him can see Ewan is in love with you.”
Lorrie stared at him. Too scared to believe it to be true. She was afraid to hope, afraid happiness might float within her reach and then be snatched away if Ewan’s friends were wrong.
Wraxall inclined his head. “I have stayed too long. I beg you give me leave to see that the men who abducted you are taken into custody.”
“Of course. I await your return, Mr. Wraxall.”
He bowed and left her. Wraxall had very pretty manners to go with his pretty deep blue eyes. But she was thinking of eyes a lighter blue and a man not with raven black hair but cropped blond hair that gave him the appearance of a fierce Viking warrior.
Supper arrived and she ate as much as she could stomach. Her belly twisted with worry about Ewan and Welly. She asked the maid who brought the soap and warm water to leave the food. Ewan and his friends would be hungry. Surely one of them would appreciate the food, especially as it was nearly midnight and the cook would be in bed before long, if she wasn’t already.
When the maid asked if she could lay out a clean change of clothing, Lorrie was forced to admit she hadn’t anything but the clothes on her back.
“If you have an old dress you don’t need anymore, I would be happy to pay for it.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, now,” said the woman who was probably the same age as the duchess but looked ten years older. “I’ll find you something, my lady. It might not be as fine as what you are used to, but it will be clean.”
“Thank you.” Lorrie lifted the clean towels from the chair where the maidservant had laid them. “And thank you for not asking too many questions. I know this is out of the ordinary.”
“It’s none of my affair, my lady. None at all.” She left, walking briskly, no doubt in search of something that would fit Lorrie. Lorrie could only imagine what the woman must have thought. She had arrived in her nightclothes with two men as chaperones. Even if the maid was discreet, there was no way to keep some of the story from making its way to London. She would be quite the scandal, and depending on the way the gossipmongers spun the tale, she supposed she was ruined.
How ironic that now that she did not court scandal or ruination in order to marry Francis Mostyn, she had finally achieved it. No man but the most desperate for her fortune would have her now. And she would not have any of them. She wanted to marry for love. If she couldn’t have Ewan, she wanted no one.
*
He found the fur ball. It was running about the gardens with its tongue lolling out of its mouth, investigating every blade of grass and leafy bush and marking his territory on all of it.
The dog must have thought the evening’s drama a grand adventure. He hadn’t realized he was lost, or he didn’t care. And when Ewan tried to catch the little ball of fluff, he danced and ducked and darted out of Ewan’s reach.
After thirty minutes of playing catch-me-if-you-can with the fuzzy demon, Ewan was hungry and thirsty. The dog probably was too. With a smile, Ewan retrieved a piece of cheese from his pack and offered the dog a small morsel. The dog snatched it and backed away. Ewan offered more and then more, slowly gaining the puppy’s trust until the fur ball was close enough that he could grab it. It gave a surprised yip, but ceased struggling when Ewan fed it another piece of cheese.
Tucking the dog into his pack, he started back toward the village. He had no idea of the time, but he suspected it was close to morning. As he wasn’t far from the gardener’s work shed, he cut through the yard and noted Lorraine’s abductors were no longer tied to the nearest tree. Hopefully that meant Neil and Jasper had been able to find the constable and see the men locked up for the foreseeable future.