Adrian nodded, needing to believe it. However, as he did, another clap of thunder shook the very foundations of the manor, and when a crack of lightning followed, the sky split in two so that Adrian almost expected fire to start falling.
“She will be fine,” he said. “She will be…”
The next few hours passed in painful agony.
Adrian returned to his office, determined to focus on his work because he needed to believe that Ophelia would return home at any moment. What was more, he needed to believe that he did not care.
Was that not the entire point of this last week? Had he not set himself to avoiding her so that he would eventually forget her… so that those feelings which had come would fade and leave as if they had never been?
He did not want to care about Ophelia. He did not want to worry about her or give the impression that he did. He needed her to think of him as an emotionless void of nothingness, herhusband, yes, but not an anchor of safety that she might rely upon. Their marriage was for convenience only…
But the hours wore on, the storm worsened, and Ophelia did not return.
Adrian sat at his desk. His leg trembled. His mind brought forth images of such agony and sorrow that it was all he could do to stay seated. He pictured Ophelia’s carriage broken down. He pictured her caught in the storm. He pictured her looking down the road, wondering if her husband would come and save her, while knowing that he never would.
That was what hurt the most. That she likely would not even dream that he might come for her and the baby. With how he had treated her this week, she probably thought that he had not even noticed her missing.
It was just as sundown started to approach that Adrian came to a decision.
The lies were getting harder to believe. The self-disgust was suffocating. His wife was in danger; she needed him, and if he had to go back on everything he had spent the last week trying to make himself believe to save her… so be it.
Adrian stormed from his office and made his way downstairs. Then, he turned sharply and headed toward the back of the manor.
“Your Grace!” Mr. Watley hurried after him. “What happened?”
“Her Grace isn’t home yet,” he said without slowing. “Which means that something has happened to her.”
“Perhaps she is merely waylaid?” Mr. Watley offered. “The driver might have pulled the carriage over until the storm passed.”
“Perhaps,” Adrian agreed. “But if there is even a chance that she is in danger, I will not sit here and do nothing.”
Mr. Watley did not argue, nor did he look as if he meant to. Rather, he hurried in front of Adrian, reaching the door before he got there. Then he threw it open, which let the storm inside as if it were trying to warn them both away.
Adrian threw up a hand to shield his eyes from the rain and the wind. He stepped outside and turned back. “I will be back shortly, Mr. Watley. Have a fire ready, dry clothes, and towels. Anything you think Her Grace and Harriet will need.”
“It will be done, Your Grace,” he said. “Oh, and be careful.”
“Do not concern yourself with me, Mr. Watley,” Adrian said. “Her Grace and her safety are what matters.”
He meant those words too. While Adrian was still determined to keep a distance from his wife, he would not leave her in danger.As for what might come next, assuming that he found her in time… well, that was a worry for another time.
Adrian charged into the storm; his mind set to saving his wife. He cared for her, and there was no point in denying that. He just prayed that he was not too late.
CHAPTER 21
Harriet would not stop crying. It was loud. Terror felt in each shriek. Ordinarily, such a sound would be like a knife through Ophelia’s chest so that all she would be able to think about was what she might be able to do to calm the baby’s suffering.
As things were, Harriet’s tears were not at the top of Ophelia’s priorities.
“There, there…” She rocked the baby back and forth because it was all that she could think of doing. Nothing was going to silence the poor girl. At least not anytime soon. “I’m here; there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
If only that were true…
Despite how loudly Harriet cried, the noise heard was drowned out somewhat by the storm that raged beyond the confines of the carriage. The rain fell so heavily that it was deafening. Thethunder and lightning rocked the sky and shook the earth. And the wind beat and battered at the carriage so that the wood creaked and groaned, the very real sense that at any moment it might be torn to pieces.
Ophelia wanted to feel brave. If not for her own sake, so that Harriet might get a sense of it. But bravery could only take a person so far, and eventually common sense made such aspirations null and void.
They really shouldn’t have left her father’s estate.