Shit.
He was already on the way to her. “Call a damn doctor.”
He headed to the upper floor that housed the bedchambers, immediately bypassing the larger rooms for the smaller ones, reserved for guest use. He opened several doors before Hardy came from around a corner and stopped short with a little bark.
Alec looked to the dog. “Where is she?”
As if he understood, Hardy turned tail and disappeared around the corner once more. When Alec followed, he found the dog standing at attention, face to a mahogany door, tail wagging and sighing little, urgent cries.
“Good boy.” Alec pet him absently. “I’ll deal with you later. We’re going to discuss your shifting loyalty.”
But first, he set his hand to the door handle and turned.
Inside, the room was pitch black.
“Lily?” he said, moving quickly toward the bed, heart pounding. It was early and she was already dead asleep—perhaps she was hurt.
Or worse.
He said her name again in the darkness, concern flooding him. “Lily.”
No answer. No movement from the bed.
He fumbled for a flint on the table and felt to reach the candlestick there, dropping the little box from his hand as the flame burst into being, and turning to the bed.
Lily wasn’t there.
Neither were the bedsheets.
That was when he noticed the open window, and the string of sheets running over the sill and across the floor to the leg of the oak bed.
She had escaped.
Absconded in the night.
If, of course, she’d made it the three stories without killing herself in the process. He rushed to the window and leaned out into the dark garden beyond, looking down to the ground with no small amount of terror that he’d find her broken body below.
All he found was a dangling rope of bedclothes, swaying in the wind.
Cursing, he surveyed the rest of the grounds, hoping to find that she was practicing some kind of military maneuver instead of actually escaping Dog House in the dead of night to go God knew where with God knew whom.
The thought gave him pause.
Had she enjoyed Stanhope’s company so much that she’d decided to leave?
Was it possible they were eloping?
It was preposterous, of course. Alec wanted her married. He wouldn’t withhold his consent. But still, he couldn’t stop himself from conjuring the image of the largely nefarious things she and the perfect aristocrat might do once absconded into the night.
If Stanhope kissed her, Alec would remove teeth.
And that’s when he saw her.
The back of her, barely there in the darkness, scaling the garden wall as though she’d been stone climbing for all her life.
In men’s clothing.
“Where is she going?” he said aloud to the dark and still and dogs.
None of the trio answered, not even when Alec tested the strength of her handmade rope and, without hesitation, followed her into the night.
He was down the surprisingly well-constructed rope, across the garden, and over the wall in three minutes—quickly enough for him to see her, hair tucked up into a men’s cap and breeches revealing far more than they should, duck into a nearby alley.
He nearly got her.
But as he came out on the far end of the pathway, it was to find the door to a hack a dozen yards away closing with a perfunctory click. He’d missed her by seconds.
Turning, he hailed a hack of his own, climbing up onto the block with the driver instead of into the carriage behind.
“Oy! Don’ care who y’are, sir. Ya ride in the carriage.”
Alec ignored the words. “Follow that hack.”
The driver was not green, thankfully, and he snapped the reins without hesitation, even as he said, “Followin’ costs ya double.”
“I’ll pay you triple. But don’t you dare lose them.”
He would not lose her. He would keep her safe if it killed him.
The driver continued with renewed vigor, trailing Lily’s hack as they wove through Mayfair, south and east, the streets becoming narrower and grittier.
Where in hell was she headed?
Stanhope held a venerable title, with an ancient row house in Mayfair. He was also a gentleman. There was no way he would have summoned Lily in this direction on her own.
Perhaps she wasn’t on her own.
Perhaps he was inside the carriage with her, doing God knew what.
Alec knew, as well. Knew the feel of her. The taste of her. Remembered every moment he’d spent with her in his own carriage two nights before.
If Stanhope was doing anything like that, he’d murder him.
He growled aloud at the thought, knowing he had no right to think it.
This carriage was far too slow. “Give me the reins.”
The driver shot him a look. “No, sir.”
“I’ll pay you five times what you’re asking.”
“I’m not lettin’ you drive, mi’lord.”
“Fifty pounds.” The reins went slack. The horses slowed. Madness threatened. “I’ll give you fifty pounds if you let me drive.”
It was enough to buy another gig. A nicer one than this hack.
“Who are we followin’?” The coachman asked in shock.
Alec took the reins and with a mighty, “Hyah!” they were off, the horses seeming to understand that they were driven by a man with power, skill, and a desperate desire.
They careened through the streets, wheels rattling on the cobblestones, cool wind on Alec’s face, easing the frustration that had lurked—grown—since he arrived in London days earlier. He wanted a race. He wanted his curricle and matched horses and the wild roads of Scotland in the dead of night, terrifying and freeing and his alone.
Instead, he had the tight turns of London, chasing after a woman he wanted more than anything to keep safe.
He loathed London.
“Who are we followin’?” The coachman shouted above the clatter of wheels, clutching the driving box in panic.
Alec flicked the reins again. “No one important.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” the man asked with a laugh, “but fifty quid ain’t no one important.”
Alec ignored the words. Of course she was important.
She was slowly becoming everything.
The coach crossed into Soho, storefronts suddenly ablaze with lights, prostitutes and their clients spilling onto the streets, pubs and gaming hells tempting passersby.
“Where the hell is she going?” he said as he tempered the horses, his frustration threatening once more.