Val had argued silently with himself all the way from Half Moon Street to his townhouse. Merely thinking that his cousin might have caused his own injuries had felt like such a betrayal that he’d chastised himself for even considering the possibility at all. But he’d read enough of Caro and Kate’s column to know that the most common culprit when a woman went missing was her husband or lover. And as much as he wanted to believe Frank, they weren’t as close now as they’d been in their youth. It was not inconceivable that he might regret a hastily made betrothal when faced with the prospect of being cut off from his allowance. It wasn’t as if he had some profession that would help him earn a living.
Biting his cheek to keep from voicing his relief at the news, Val clapped the doctor on the shoulder instead, then said, “Thank you for coming so quickly, Woolford. Give my best to your wife.”
Once Val heard the sound of the door closing below, he sagged against the wall, grateful his suspicions had been wrong.
When he made his way back up the hall and around the corner, he was startled to find Frank waiting for him just outside the door of the guest room.
“How could you have thought such a thing?” his cousin demanded, his face—as familiar as Val’s own—pale with fatigue. “And why did you not just ask me? You didn’t have to go to some bloody sawbones to see if I was lying or not.”
Val knew better than to make excuses. “Emotions run high in the heat of the moment, Frank. I haven’t been around the two of you together to gauge whether you have that sort of relationship. She’s an actress, after all, and—”
“You’d better stop right there if you don’t wish to feel my fist in your face,” his cousin said coldly. “You’re talking about the woman—the lady—I intend to marry. And you’ll speak of her with respect.”
Val winced, ashamed of his words. As hard as he tried to keep from judging people on the basis of their social standing or professions, he sometimes found himself making snobbish pronouncements that sounded eerily like the sort his brother had been wont to make.
“You’re right.” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I have no excuse for such disrespect to your betrothed. As for my questions to Woolford, I simply needed to make sure there was no chance that you’d done any of that to yourself. Because Kate and Caro and Eversham will be wondering, even if they haven’t yet asked you outright.”
“And you were wondering, too,” Frank said flatly. It was not a question.
“And I was wondering, too,” Val agreed, meeting his cousin’s gaze, uncomfortable though it was. “I don’t know you as well as I once did. And even you must admit that you’ve the devil’s own temper.”
“I’d never take it out on a woman, for pity’s sake,” Frank spat out. “Do you truly have such a low opinion of me, Val? I might have expected it of Piers. He was always quicker to judge than you were. But I thought we were better friends than that.”
The comparison to Piers stung. Much as he’d loved his brother, Val knew all too well how scathing he could be. He regretted that his lack of trust had hurt his cousin, but he couldn’t apologize for his questions to the doctor. If Frank had, indeed, harmed himself and could be implicated in Effie’s disappearance, then Val needed to know—if only so that he could protect him.
Before Val could speak, Frank walked back into the bedchamber and looked around the room. “Where are my clothes?” He was currently wearing one of Val’s robes with an old nightshirt beneath it.
“They’ve been taken down to be laundered, I imagine,” Val said. That seemed like the sort of thing his valet would have taken care of not long after they’d arrived. “I’ll send one of the footmen to your bachelor rooms to collect some clothes and toiletries so you’ll be more comfortable here.”
“I need clothing,” Frank said heatedly, walking carefully toward the bed in a manner similar to that of someone who’d overimbibed and was trying desperately not to show it. When he reached the bed, he grabbed hold of one of the oak posts. “Gonna go.”
Val stared at his cousin’s back. “Go where? You’re weak as a kitten. I don’t think you can make it downstairs on your own, much less to the Albany.”
“I won’t stay a moment longer with a man who thinks me capable of harming the woman I love.” Frank’s tone was mulish. “I’ll be right as rain in a few moments.”
But even as he spoke, he turned to sit on the bed. Or perhaps collapse would be a better way to describe Frank’s fall onto the mattress, Val thought, as he hurried forward to more comfortably situate his cousin on the bed.
“Don’t be a stubborn fool,” he told the other man. “I won’t have you falling unconscious on my doorstep.”
“No more than you’d deserve.” Frank rested his head on the pile of pillows behind him. His earlier anger seemed gone, but Val suspected that was only because he hadn’t the energy for it.
There was a chair beside the bed, and Val sank into it. The emotional turmoil of the afternoon was finally catching up with him. And though Frank was in no condition to demand one of him, he knew he owed him an apology.
“I know you will have a hard time believing me now, Frankie,” he said, using the childhood nickname his cousin had abandoned at Eton, “but I’m sorry for what I said about Effie. What’s more, I’m proud of you.”
“For what?” his cousin asked drowsily.
“For following your heart,” Val said. “For proving yourself to be a more courageous man than I was.”
“What’re you talking ’bout?”
But Frank was losing his battle with fatigue and on his way to falling into sleep.
Val thought back to the night that Caro had broken off their betrothal. She’d overheard his brother’s disparaging remarks about both her and her parents. What she’d also overheard was his own silence in the face of Piers’s insults. He’d had a chance to defend her and he’d failed her. At the time, he’d thought keeping their betrothal a secret was of primary importance, but he knew now he should have told his brother to stop insulting his betrothed. Just as Frank had just done to him, in fact.
Perhaps if Val had told Piers just what a snobbish ass he was, he’d be married to Caroline even now. He’d have become Viscount Wrackham with a viscountess at his side.
But he hadn’t had the courage Frank had. He only hoped his cousin’s loyalty to his beloved would be rewarded with her being returned to him unharmed.
Val was stepping out of the bedchamber and heading to his study when he heard someone at the door below. At the sound of a familiar voice, he hurried downstairs.
“Eversham,” he said as he reached the entrance hall, “what news?”
The grim expression on his friend’s face told Val that whatever he needed to say would go down easier with a whisky, as well as away from where Frank could overhear.
Once they were safely ensconced in Val’s study with drinks in hand, Eversham said, “We found Miss Warrington’s carriage in Whitechapel.”
“And Miss Warrington?” Val asked, dreading the answer for Frank’s sake.