Tempting the Scoundrel by Kendrick Katrina

Author:Kendrick, Katrina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Alex was not in her room, and there were no guards at her door.

Thorne tried to calm his surge of panic. Whelan’s return left him frayed at the edges; nightmares of that old, dark cellar had plagued his sleep. They had been so real, that distinctive cheroot stench had burned all the way down his throat until he felt as if he would choke on it. Thorne had gasped awake and barely made it to the water closet to vomit. He’d returned to his bed and pressed his forehead to his knees, and gulped deep, deep breaths.

When Fiona and Lottie had found him that way, he’d been too sharp with them. Lottie—bless her—had patted his shoulder, took her sister’s hand, and left.

Hours later, Thorne had cleaned himself up, dressed, and went to check on his wife.

Empty room. Scattered papers. Her mess, or someone else’s?

Thorne pounded down the hall, finally spotting one of his men. “Clements,” he said sharply, aware that he must have looked half-mad. At that moment, he didn’t bloody well give a damn. “Lady Alexandra isn’t in her room.” The other man sputtered some response that was more like a panicked gargle. “Spit it out, man. Where is she?”

“She’s at the orphanage,” another voice said wryly.

Thorne whirled to see O’Sullivan coming out of his offices. The factotum looked at Clements and dismissed him with a nod.

“Someone is supposed to be guarding her,” Thorne said. “At all times.”

He’d looked all night for some sign of Whelan, but found nothing. He’d gone to Whelan’s favorite pubs, his preferred gin palaces and gaming hells—everywhere except the one place Thorne dared not set foot in: the cellar where he’d spent his nightmares. So he had circled the old neighborhood in the Nichol, sizing up the decrepit building where he’d lost his soul. He’d bought it from the landlord, paid as much as it took, but he left it there to rot. He wished he had burned it to the ground. Salted the earth. Let the pigeons shit on its ashes.

But over the years, all he’d wanted to do was forget.

O’Sullivan removed his spectacles and buffed them clean with his shirt. “If you wished to keep her locked in there, you ought to have told me otherwise. I wasn’t aware she was our prisoner.”

Thorne felt a stirring of irritation. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Don’t threaten Clements like he’s a prison guard and not an employee,” O’Sullivan said sharply, sliding his spectacles up his nose. “Your piece is safe. Left her with Sofia and a gaggle of delighted children.”

Sofia was the only reason O’Sullivan was standing in front of him and not lying dead in a ditch. Thorne remembered the day Whelan lined up all his lads for some nob to make his choice from the lot. Thorne had been fourteen; O’Sullivan had been twelve—and he had a pretty face that attracted the wrong sort.

Whelan had sold O’Sullivan that day.

Thorne spent three years searching for the toff who had bought his friend. As luck would have it, a girl came to him one night in the Nichol and told him.

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