No. Surely his butler was misinformed. Surely Isabella would not leave him. Not like this.
Not after last night?
But the sick sensation twisting his gut told him she would. She was independent, fierce. She was the woman who had been abducted by Fenians, bound, gagged, blindfolded, and then abandoned in an alley in the midst of January, only to calmly walk home. Her bravery was undeniable. So, too, her stubborn streak.
“I beg your pardon, Young.” He cleared his throat, doing his utmost to maintain a mask of indifference on his face. “What do you mean she is not in residence?”
“Precisely that, Your Grace,” intoned his butler. “She left this morning, quite early, with Miss Vinton.”
She left.
She was gone.
And she had taken her damned maid with her, which meant she had no intention of returning.
He felt as if he had just received a blow to the midsection. “Where has she gone, Young?”
His butler’s expression remained carefully imperturbable. “I cannot say, Your Grace. She did not leave her direction. The ladies hired a hack, and two of the footmen aided in loading their luggage.”
Damn it all to hell.
How had he failed to see this coming?
“Where is Lady Calliope, Young?” he asked next.
After all, Callie was friends with Isabella, was she not? It stood to reason that if Isabella had confided in anyone, it would be his sister.
“Lady Calliope is in the dining room, I believe,” his butler informed him, “concluding her breakfast. Your newspaper is awaiting you there as well, Your Grace.”
The Times could go to perdition today for all he cared. He had to find out where Isabella had gone. He had to make her see reason. To bring her back to him. To make her his duchess.
When had he become so desperate for a woman? He passed a hand over his jaw, contemplating that grim question. The answer came swiftly, like a kick in the arse.
Since you fell in love with the most vexing woman in the history of England, you daft prick.
“Your correspondence awaits you there as well,” Young added. “You received an urgent communication from the Home Office about a quarter of an hour ago.”
The Home Office.
Christ.
How could he have forgotten where his duty lay first, with the Special League? His only thoughts had been for Isabella. He had been so caught up in her that somehow, he had banished all thoughts of the outrages which had occurred yesterday from his mind. Bloody hell, he had been sleeping while Rome burned.
Clearly, falling in love had addled his wits.
“Thank you, Young,” he managed, before turning on his heel and stalking off for the dining room.
He found Callie sipping tea and fiddling with the untouched food on her plate.
They exchanged perfunctory morning greetings, and he dismissed the footmen dancing attendance on the sideboard so they could have privacy. His correspondence awaited him, along with his perfectly ironed paper. Everything was ordinary. Typical.
Except for the panic swirling through him.
He scarcely waited for the door to close behind the servants before he turned back to Callie. “Where is she?”
Callie did not bother to ask him who he referred to; either his feelings for Isabella were horribly transparent, or his sister suspected he was irritated that his typewriter had once more disappeared, flitting away like a bird winging into the sky.
She eyed him calmly. “You are overset, Benny. Do sit down and have some breakfast before you start making demands of me.”
He was not in the mood for his sister’s antics today, no matter how much he loved her. He slammed his fist on the table, rattling crockery and silverware and sloshing tea over the rim of her cup. “Overset does not begin to describe the way I feel at the moment, Callie. Do not be coy. Did she tell you where she was going?”
His sister gave him a look of unadulterated disapproval. “I expected better of you, Benny.”
Sweet God, Isabella had not told Callie about what they had done yesterday—twice—had she?
“I beg your pardon?” he bit out, his ears going hot.
It was a hell of a thing to receive a dressing down from his innocent sister over his behavior with a woman. Then again, if the scurrilous rumors from Paris and her time with Aunt Fanchette were to be believed, Callie was not as innocent as she ought to be. It was a notion he struck from his mind, for it mattered not, and thinking of his sister engaged in improper behavior with a man would only make him want to do violence upon the fool who had dared to lay a hand upon her.
“Isabella seemed quite overset when she left,” his sister informed him now, raising a brow, her lips pursed. “I gather you are, once more, the reason for her distress.”
He did not particularly care for the manner in which his sister addressed him. “This is a personal, private matter between myself and Miss Hilgrove. Now tell me where the devil she has gone.”
“So you can find her and cause her more upset? I think not.” Callie calmly sipped her tea, as if she had not a care.
Mayhap his bold, wayward sister did not. But he bloody well did.
He thumped his fist on the table once more. “Damn you, Callie, this is not your battle to fight. Tell me where she has gone.”
“Perhaps this is not my battle, but I do think it my war,” his sister said. “Benny, your behavior concerning her has been unconscionable. Do you deny it?”
He raked a hand through his hair, self-loathing—never far—crashing down on him with renewed fervor. “Of course I do not deny that I have acted in a manner that is…most unbecoming of a gentleman. However, that is neither here nor there. All that matters is that Isabella could be in grave danger at this very moment, and I cannot protect her if I do not know where the devil she has gone.”
By the time he finished his diatribe, his voice had raised, quaking with emotion. If anything happened
