Kendal gave a low curse of displeasure. “I take it he’s here?”
Morrey tilted his head in agreement.
Kendal heaved a sigh and pushed up from his chair. “We’ll have to continue this chat another time,” he said with feigned regret to Downing.
The younger man gave a single nod and lifted his glass to his lips.
With that, Kendal went downstairs, where Gullsville paced near the door.
“What could possibly be so important that you would track me down?” Kendal did not mask his irritation.
“Speak with me in my carriage.” Gullsville indicated the hackney parked on the street.
If it weren’t for Kendal’s loyalty to Marguerite, he would walk away and leave the man wringing his hands. Instead, Kendal slid the man an icy glare and climbed inside the carriage.
There was a slight odor of sweat in the interior, as always seemed the case with hired hacks.
Gullsville took the seat opposite Kendal and snapped the door shut, sealing them inside along with the stale air. “I need your help.”
“I’m not giving you any more money,” Kendal said with finality.
“It’s not that.” Gullsville glanced down at his hands. When he looked up, his chin quivered with emotion, and his eyes were wet.
Well, this was a new low. “Good God, man, what is it?”
“It’s my Sophia.” Gullsville swiped at his eyes with the flat of his hand. “She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Kendal asked.
“That’s the thing of it. I’ve no idea.” Gullsville shook his head, his lips pressing together once more as though trying to squelch his tears. “But she left without her maid.”
Kendal winced at that. Wherever she had gone, she’d ruined her reputation.
“Two days ago,” Gullsville added.
Which meant whatever plan she’d put into motion was likely already underway.
“Why have you come to me?” Kendal asked warily.
“I need you to find her for me.” Gullsville shifted in his seat, and his bulk set the carriage swaying. “You’re resourceful. You figure out what others can’t. If anyone could find my Sophia, it would be you.”
“But even if I can find her, it’s not just the task of locating her…” Kendal said. And it wouldn’t be. She couldn’t return home with him and no maid.
She would need to return with a husband.
“That’s exactly it,” Gullsville said slowly. “Which is also why I need you.”
“Why don’t you send Mongerton after her?” Kendal demanded, throwing the rumor in Gullsville’s face. News of the gaming hell owner’s boasts that he was marrying a young, pretty daughter of a peer had set the gossip circles on fire. Those rumors had made their way to Kendal, given his attachment to her in the ton’s fascination.
Gullsville didn’t bother to deny it. “She wouldn’t return if I sent him after her.”
Kendal studied the other man’s heavily lined face. “That’s why she left, isn’t it?” He scoffed in disgust. “You were going to sell her into marriage to pay for your gambling debts.”
Gullsville had the decency to look away, shamefaced. “Lady Bursbury said Sophia visited Bursbury Place seeking out Lord Oakhurst, but he and Lady Oakhurst had already left for the country. You know how they are.”
Indeed, Kendal did. Oakhurst had been one of his primary sources when running whisky. It was something they’d both done with the Earl of Benton. Oakhurst had never much cared for society. Neither had Benton for that matter, and they both escaped London every chance they had.
Which meant there was only one reason Kendal could hazard why Sophia was seeking out Lord Oakhurst, and it turned his blood to ice.
Suddenly, Kendal had an idea of exactly where Lady Sophia had gone.
“She took her aunt’s black mourning gowns,” Gullsville was saying. “And her maid said her jewelry is missing as well.”
Any doubt at Lady Sophia’s intentions fled Kendal’s thoughts. He knew exactly where she’d gone. And he’d been the one to put the idea into her head.
Except that, though he’d shared how to set up a distillery, where to go, how to do it, he’d failed to explain the dangers involved. The excisemen, the wilderness of the Scottish Highlands.
Damn it.
“I need you to go,” Gullsville said. “And if you won’t…” His words trailed off, something like a threat.
“And if I won’t?” Kendal pressed as his chest tightened.
“Then you will leave me no choice but to tell the ton about Marguerite.”
An explosion of rage detonated in Kendal’s mind. He sat forward, his entire body tense, ready to grab the bastard by the cravat and slam his fist into the blighter’s round nose. “How dare you?”
Gullsville didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he glared into Kendal’s face. “To save my daughter’s reputation. The same as I did for Marguerite all those years ago.”
“Something you’ll never let us forget.” Kendal curled his hand into a fist. “And hold it over our heads when you require our compliance.”
Gullsville’s jaw worked, but he didn’t bother to say anything more.
Kendal sat back hard in his seat, his mind working to process the lot of it.
Marriage.
He suppressed a shudder at the word. His parents union had been such that he’d never wanted to wed. And his mother…
Marguerite’s sweet face came into view in his mind’s eye. The way she’d looked when he found her in that rundown inn. She was so defeated, so dejected. He couldn’t bear ever seeing her thus again.
“If I do this, our debts are settled,” Kendal said. “You never approach Marguerite or me again. You do not tell anyone what you know about her, now or ever, and you do not seek restitution, as this will even our scores.”
Gullsville nodded so vigorously, his fleshy jowls jiggled. “You have my word.”
“Very well,” Kendal ground out. “I’ll do it.
“You mean, you’ll…”
“Yes,” Kendal snapped. “I’ll find her. And I’ll marry her.”
Sophia had never been on her own before. Not really. Certainly not like this.
The journey had taken four days of hard riding by carriage and a necklace of her aunt’s that she had never particularly cared for as the clasp had always scratched at the back of her neck. But she’d finally arrived in Scotland.
The Highlands were still a ways off, but her arrival at Gretna Green marked a victory. There was irony in the location where she found herself, a place for lovers to flee the bonds of society and wed quickly. For her, it was a place to escape marriage. To discover her own way.
Alone.
The word rang out in her mind as she waited in the carriage for the driver to secure a room for her at the inn, and a shudder rippled through her. She had not anticipated how much she would miss the company of friends and family. The bulk of her life, she had been surrounded by people. Her brother and sister, her father, her family at Bursbury Place. And since she’d come out, she had a wealth of friends.
Now, there was no one.
She waited in the stuffy cabin, her patience whittling away to nothing as the endless minutes ticked on. The four walls around her began to press in on her, squeezing the air from her lungs. Sweat prickled on her brow and a panicked flutter took up residence in her heart.