Read Online Regency 09 - Redemption by Jaimey Grant - Free Book Online Page B

pleasure,
satisfy her every curious whim.
    For the first time in his
life, Dare wished the past undone. Worse than that, he wished he
were Miles.
    Rising, Dare dressed. His
movements were precise, done without thought, mechanical. In less
than an hour, he was packed.
    Less than five minutes after that,
he was gone.

 

Chapter Nine

    The Prestwich household rose just
after dawn as was their habit, to prepare the day’s bread and begin
the many other chores required to ensure the sufficient running of
a house.
    It was a day like any other. Except
for the fact that when West scratched at Mr. Darius’s chamber, he
received no response.
    It had become routine for the
butler to serve Dare in whatever capacity he could. The young man’s
search for a valet had not gone well and while West openly
disapproved of many of the young man’s activities and attitudes, he
also secretly liked Dare.
    And so he stood outside the young
master’s door, a perplexed frown marring his normally rigid
countenance. He entered the chamber, an action he would never have
performed without permission had he not been so uneasy about the
preternatural silence.
    He was actually less than surprised
when he saw the tangled bedclothes, empty wardrobe… and two letters
propped up on the washstand.

    Bri sat up in bed, nibbling dry
toast and trying very hard to keep her stomach firmly in place. She
hadn’t had morning sickness with any of her other pregnancies; why
would she have it with this latest?
    Annoyed, her command to enter was
terse when there came a scratching at her door. West entered,
holding two sheets of folded parchment in one hand.
    “ My lady, these were left by Mr.
Darius.”
    Bri’s eyebrows threatened to
disappear into her curly red hair. Reaching out a hand, she
demanded, “Where is he?”
    “ I’m sure I don’t know, my
lady.”
    Her ladyship scowled. “You know
everything, West. How could Dare’s precipitate flight get past
you?”
    “ I’m sure I don’t
know.”
    Lady Prestwich
shook her head at his evasive answer, opening the note
labeled Bri . She
quickly scanned the contents, swearing in such a way that even
West, who had heard some rather colorful language from his unusual
mistress, winced.
    Without a thought to the
impropriety of reading someone else’s correspondence, Bri also read
the other note. Instead of swearing, her face went unnaturally
pale.
    “ Dear God, how could he?” she
breathed.
    She gasped suddenly, groping for
the edge of the bed. West, a little out of his element in the
lady’s bedchamber, nevertheless realized she was trying to get to
the chamberpot. He reached it before her and held it out as she
emptied the nonexistent contents of her stomach.
    In that moment, seeing his beloved
mistress in such agony, West was quite sure he could have
cheerfully strangled Mr. Darius Prestwich.

    Lady Prestwich spent the rest of
that day contemplating ways of murdering Dare that would cause him
as much pain as humanly possibly.
    She also wondered how the devil she
was going to tell her husband while preventing him from doing much
the same thing. She was quite sure she’d never be able to convince
him.
    Her thoughts went to Miles and she
couldn’t help but wonder why Dare had not left a note for his twin.
But then, they didn’t behave as the few twins she knew; they seemed
constantly at each other’s throats and not in the brotherly fashion
that most siblings were. Their rivalry seemed
almost…bitter.
    But mostly her
thoughts centered on Lady Genevieve Northwicke. She knew the young
lady well enough to know that her headstrong curiosity was probably
as much or more to blame for her predicament than Dare was—not that
she didn’t place the bulk of the responsibility squarely upon
the gentleman’s shoulders.
    Bri sighed, her shoulders slumping.
Could she have been so very wrong about Dare? She had loved him
from the first moment she met him, seeing in him a kindred spirit.
He was injured inside, hurting,