Lady in Red by Eliza Knight

Author:Eliza Knight [Knight, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eliza Knight
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

5

Terrence stood in the street a long time, the red hat in his hands, staring into the crowds of moving people, hoping to spot a glimpse of his wife. He stationed a man at his gate too, in case she walked past. But there’d been no further sign of her. Where was she going that she passed his house each day?

Elizabeth—the woman he’d fallen in love with, courted for months, and then married, thinking he’d been gifted the greatest of happiness—had been Linden’s wife? Terrence had thought her dead. Kidnapped. Abused. Lost to him forever.

And this whole time, she’d been in London and letting him believe a lie. More than one lie, to be exact.

Terrence was still reeling from what Elizabeth had revealed. He’d not heard from Linden in over two years. The dockhand had taken a hefty chest of silver to deliver to a supplier and never returned. Terrence had sent out men to look for him, but Linden had never turned up—and neither did the silver.

But with no trace of his employee, Terrence had concluded, as had the Bow Street Runners, that Linden had taken the coin—worth more than the man would have seen in his lifetime—and run, probably back to Scotland. It wasn’t like Linden to do such a thing, but desperate men did desperate things, and Terrence had no real idea of his social life—as clearly evidenced now.

For months after the incident, Terrence had funded the Runners to scour all of London, and even sent a man to Edinburgh. What he didn’t understand was how Terrence had ended up marrying Linden’s wife—and nobody knew a thing about it!

A staggering pain seized his chest. He wasn’t truly married to her. Not if Linden were still alive. Terrence had to stop thinking of her as his, for she wasn’t. Had she been merely a ruse to keep him blind to the heist Linden had been planning?

And just where in bloody hell was the thief?

“James!” Terrence shouted.

His valet slipped into the room from the hallway leading towards the kitchen. James was always near, his job including many more duties than that expected of a simple valet. “Yes, my lord?”

“Go down to Bow Street and speak with Smith. Tell him to help you pick up his search of

Linden. Tell him we’ve had a lead, and explain to him that my wife—sorry, no—that Linden’s wife was here this morning. Her name is Elizabeth Markum.” It pained him to say her name paired with Linden’s.

It would for the rest of his days, he imagined. Every time he thought of her, heard a similar name, saw the color red, his lying little wife would come to mind. And the heartbreak that came along with it.

James nodded, and Terrence watched from the window as his valet left the house and went through the gate. Soon, he’d have answers, and hopefully, the thief would be in jail.

When Elizabeth had left Terrence, she’d taken the hat and several banknotes supposedly for the milliner’s shop, but other than that, nothing else had been missing.

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