Regency Society. Ann Lethbridge

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      ‘Hush then, the medicine will work soon.’

      The soothing hands were stroking her brow, helping her to relax. Roxanne knew there was something she must do or say, but she was sinking back into the darkness and a strange lassitude was binding her limbs and her mind. She fell back against the pillows, her eyes closed.

      ‘She will sleep now,’ the doctor said. ‘We must pray that the fever will leave her and when she wakes she will tell us what we need to know.’

      Roxanne felt that she was dying and feared she would never see Luke again. The words she wanted to say were in her mind, but would not come. She was slipping away, away into a deep dark place. For a moment everything had been so clear, but the drug claimed her senses and she slept.

      ‘She has not been seen in the village and she did not board the stage for London. The coachman and ostlers were quite adamant that they had not seen her. I do not know where to look next.’ Luke ran his fingers through his thick hair in frustration. There was a shadow of beard on his chin and his clothes were less than immaculate. ‘Where could she have gone?’

      ‘She must either have been picked up by a carter or she has walked in another direction,’ the earl said, looking at Luke in concern. He’d hardly slept for the past week, spending every daylight hour out riding or walking in the hope of discovering Roxanne’s whereabouts. ‘She cannot have gone very far on foot, Luke. Perhaps she has found work somewhere, in an inn or a farmhouse.’

      ‘She would not?’ Luke stared at him in horror. ‘I think she had very little money. I gave her jewels, but she left them behind. She is proud and independent and would take nothing we had given her.’ He sank down onto a chair, a look of despair on his face. ‘What can I do, Grandfather?’

      ‘You cannot give up yet,’ his grandfather said. ‘She must be somewhere, either hiding or working.’

      ‘Unless…’ Luke held back the fears that haunted him night and day.

      ‘What?’ The earl’s brows met in a frown. ‘You are hiding something from me, Luke. Tell me the truth or I shall worry more.’

      ‘Someone has been searching for that damned ruby. I don’t know why, but it is important and these people might do anything to recover it.’

      ‘But she no longer has it. You placed it in a bank in London.’

      ‘The men who want it may not know that—they may think Roxanne has it or that, if they hold her captive, we shall give it back to them.’

      The earl looked at him in horror. ‘You think she might have been kidnapped?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Luke said honestly. ‘No one has seen her, but one man did tell me that a closed carriage was seen in the lane near the woods on the day Roxanne disappeared. It is possible that she might have been abducted.’

      ‘Surely we should have been sent a ransom note? They must know she does not have the ruby by now.’

      ‘Perhaps.’ Luke shook his head. ‘I think I shall search again in that direction. I will ask at the inns and farms, too, anywhere that she might have enquired for work. She must be somewhere and I intend to find her.’

      ‘Yes, you must.’ The earl looked anxious. ‘If she was kidnapped her life may be in danger, Luke. We shall offer a reward for her return.’

      ‘Yes, I’ll arrange it before I leave. I may be gone for a while—you will be all right here alone?’

      ‘I have Marshall and a house full of servants,’ the earl grunted. ‘I’m not about to die on you, Luke. Get out there and find our girl or neither of us will know a moment’s peace again.’

      Roxanne’s eyelids fluttered and her eyes opened. She looked up at the woman bending over her. Her perfume was deep and sensual and it had become familiar as Roxanne lay in her fever, because the woman had tended her day and night, caring for her when she was raving and out of her mind.

      She had thought when she was ill that she was her ayah and that she was a child again, growing up in India with her tall strong father and her sickly mother, but now she knew the woman was a stranger.

      ‘Who are you?’ she asked, her voice cracked and hoarse. ‘Where am I?’

      ‘My name is Shulie,’ the woman smiled down at her as she eased herself up against the pillows. ‘You are at the house of my husband, Prince Ranjit.’

      ‘Prince Ranjit…’ Roxanne wrinkled her brow in thought, trying to remember. ‘I think…I believe I used to know a Prince Ranjit. We played together in the gardens of the palace in India. My father…my father was the prince’s tutor.’

      Suddenly, it was as if a curtain had been pulled aside and she remembered everything: her life as a child in India and what had happened when her father had taken her to his sister’s home and left her in her aunt’s charge while he returned to his work.

      ‘My lord has told me that you were his friend,’ Shulie said and smiled at her. ‘I am my lord’s first bride and he trusts me. He gave me the honour of caring for you when you were ill.’

      ‘I was ill? What happened to me?’ Roxanne frowned and then gave a little cry. ‘I was in the woods and someone hit me on the back of the head.’

      ‘The prince was very angry that you were harmed,’ Shulie told her. ‘You must not think that he wanted you to be hurt, memsahib. He remembers his playmate Rose Marie very well and he did not believe that you would withhold the ruby if you knew its importance to our people.’

      ‘That will do, Shulie.’

      The man’s voice made both women glance towards the door. A man of perhaps five and twenty, dressed in rich clothes and wearing a purple-silk turban with a magnificent diamond in its folds, was standing there, watching them. Shulie fell to her knees, bowing her head.

      ‘Forgive me, my lord. I only wished to reassure the memsahib that she was with friends.’

      ‘So, you have returned to us,’ the man said and moved towards the bed. His dark eyes went over her. ‘You look better, but I see that you are still not truly well. Shulie will continue to care for you and we shall talk when you are better.’

      ‘Is it the ruby you seek?’ Roxanne asked, holding the sheets against her defensively as she looked at him. This man was very different to the thin and gangly young prince she’d known and admired as a child. ‘How is your family, sir?’

      ‘My father is sick and we fear his death. Before he dies he wishes to see the eye returned to its rightful place.’

      ‘The eye?’ Roxanne was puzzled. ‘I fear I do not understand, sir.’

      ‘You may think of it as merely a ruby, but to others it is a sacred thing—but I shall tell you the whole story when you are able to leave your bed.’ He turned to Shulie. ‘Bring Miss Rose Marie clean clothes and food. She is to be told nothing more until she is able to hear the story from me.’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’

      Shulie approached the bed as the prince left the room. ‘My lord has spoken. Please СКАЧАТЬ