Read The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) for Free Online

searched every room.”
    “Where the devil could she be?”
    “Christian!” she motioned urgently to her husband, who quickly left the gathering of naval officers with whom he’d been deep in conversation, his young son in his arms. “We can’t find Lady Nerissa. I checked upstairs. She’s nowhere to be found.”
    “Any chance she wandered into the kitchen? Retired to a drawing room?”
    “I checked. So did Lord Andrew.”
    “Maybe she just went outside to get some fresh air and is sitting in your coach. Stay here and double-check every room. I’ll go out and have a look.”
    Returning the toddler to his wife, Captain Lord strode past a group of guests on his way out, many of them well into their cups and oblivious to the quiet drama that was playing out right under their noses. Andrew rushed to the kitchens and found them empty save for a pair of weary servants sitting at a table playing cards and awaiting any further requests from their employers. No, they had not seen a tall, pale-haired young lady wearing pearls and blue-green silk.
    Andrew hurried out of the kitchen in time to see Captain Lord coming back in, his face grave. He met his wife and Andrew near the door.
    “She’s not in the coach,” he said, and Andrew felt the prickle of fear in the base of his spine become downright terror.
    * * *
    Her arm hurt. Her shoulder hurt.
    But above all, her head hurt.
    It was the pain that finally prodded her awake.
    Nerissa opened her eyes and lay there in the dimly lit darkness for a long moment, wondering where she was. Her confusion over her whereabouts only increased when her surroundings proved to be most unfamiliar. This was not her bedroom at De Montforte House in London. It was not the bedroom of the London townhouse where she and Andrew had gone to demonstrate his new explosive. In fact, it was not a room at all, though it was indeed a room—of sorts.
    Most rooms did not move. This one did, slightly; she could feel her body swaying gently from side to side on the small bed-of-sorts on which she lay, and she remembered, then, the terrifying fall down the stairs.
    I must be dreaming. Or hallucinating.
    She moved her arm—the one that did not hurt—and pinched herself. Ouch.
    This was no dream.
    Gingerly, she pushed herself up on her good arm, pressed two fingers to her aching forehead and saw, by the glow of a lantern that made his features sharp and distinct, Mrs. Lord’s rude, odious, unmannerly, uncouth, and thoroughly awful Irish brother standing a few feet away, leaning a hip against a small table and watching her.
    Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
    “Sleeping Beauty awakes,” he murmured, and a coiled tenseness went out of him, as though on a great breath of relief. He lifted a tin mug to his lips.
    She was decently covered, still clad in her teal silk gown but even so, she snatched at a folded blanket from the foot of the bed and pulled it up over herself as she recoiled in horror and confusion. What had happened? Where was Andrew? Where was Captain Lord, Sir Elliott, everyone else? Where was she ? And why was this man gazing at her from over the top of his mug with a gleam in his eye, a thoughtful watchfulness that prickled her skin and made her want to get up and flee?
    As if reading her mind, he lowered the mug and said, “Ye fell down the stairs earlier this evenin’, lass. So I brought ye here.”
    “Here?” She frowned. “Where is ‘here?’”
    “About three miles east of Margate.” At her blank look he added, “We’re at sea.”
    “What?” This made no sense at all, though it certainly explained the swaying of her surroundings, the sounds of wood creaking, easing and straining, and the heady scent of salt that filled the air. At sea. Which meant she was on a ship. A ship? “I don’t understand…my brother Andrew would never have allowed this… What have you done with him? Why am I here?”
    He toasted her with the mug. “Ah, well, I’m an enterprisin’ sort. Saw