“Leavey!” Charles called out. “It's Billington. I came to—”

There was a noise behind him. Charles turned but saw nothing. “Leavey?”

No answer.

His ankle started to throb, as if to remind him that he was injured and unable to run.

Another noise.

Charles swung around, but this time all he saw was a rifle barrel swinging down toward his head.

And then he saw nothing.

Chapter 22

Ellie wasn't sure just what made her start to worry. She'd never considered herself a fanciful person, but she didn't like the way the sky suddenly clouded over. It made her skin prickle with an irrational fear, and she suddenly felt an intense need to see Charles.

But when she went down to his study, he wasn't there. Her heart skipped a beat, and then she saw that Charles's cane was also missing. Surely if he'd been abducted, his captors wouldn't have taken his cane.

He must have gone off investigating, the blasted man.

But when she realized that more than three hours had gone by since the last time she'd seen him, she started getting a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She began to search the house, but none of the servants had seen him. Neither had Helen or Claire. In fact, the only person who seemed to have any idea of his whereabouts was Judith.

“I saw him out the window,” the little girl said.

“You did?” Ellie asked, practically sagging with relief. “Where was he going?”

“To the stables. He was limping.”

“Oh, thank you, Judith,” Ellie said, giving her a quick hug. She dashed out of the room and down the stairs. Charles had probably just gone to the stables to try to figure out who had tampered with his saddle. She wished he'd left her a note, but she was so relieved to know where he was that she felt no anger at his oversight.

When she reached her destination, however, there was no sign of her husband. Leavey was supervising several stablehands who were mucking out the stalls, but none of them seemed to know the earl's whereabouts.

“Are you certain you haven't seen him?” Ellie asked for the third time. “Miss Judith insisted she saw him enter the stables.”

“It must have been when we were exercising the horses,” Leavey replied.

“When was that?”

“Several hours ago.”

Ellie sighed impatiently. Where was Charles? And then her eye caught upon something strange. Something red.

“What's this?” she whispered, kneeling down. She picked up a small handful of straw.

“What is it, my lady?” Leavey asked.

“It's blood,” she said, her voice shaking. “On the straw.”

“Are you certain?”

She smelled it and nodded. “Oh, dear Lord.” She looked back up at Leavey, her face going white in an instant. “They've taken him. Dear Lord, someone's taken him.”

Charles's first thought upon regaining consciousness was that he was never going to drink again. He'd been hungover before, but never had he felt this brand of skull-pounding agony. Then it occurred to him that it was the middle of the day, and he hadn't been drinking and—