Chapter 2

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In the meantime, her father was outside staring with open animosity toward the Duke. He knew the Duke was above him and he had to show a certain amount of respect, but he also knew the Duke had just ruined his daughter’s future. He knew how society worked and they were not likely to forgive this little tryst or whatever it had been. He did not blame Anastasia. He assumed she had been duped and charmed by this notorious bachelor.

“What have you to say for yourself, Wetherby?” he asked tersely.

“We were having a conversation, Sir. Nothing more.”

“Do you know what you have done for “just a conversation”? My daughter’s life is ruined! Ruined!”

“I’m sure it isn’t as bad as all that. These people forget things very quickly.”

“Do they? Since when? She was being courted by several eligible suitors, men who would have married her, taken care of her. And you took that away from her!”

His voice rose to a fevered growl.

“She would have been miserable with every single one of those men and as her father, you should know that. I did her a favor here tonite,” the duke shot back.

“A favor? How is it a favor?”

“Now she only has one suitor. Her life will be much easier.”

”One suitor? And who would still have her do you suppose? Shall I go ask around in there and see?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m standing right here.”

“What? What on earth are you talking about?”

“I want to marry your daughter. I assumed that was fairly obvious.”

Whit was beginning to grow impatient with this man. His tone became short, though his intentions honorable.

“You? Marry Anastasia? But…” Thoreau began to stutter. “But you are a duke. She is a mere lady. I would never have thought someone of your stature and importance to take a wife so socially beneath you.”

“So? You do not think your daughter deserves a duke? Am I truly above her? I would be loathe to say that to her, by the way. I would presume to think it is she who is above me.”

Thoreau was rendered speechless. He was not a great man. He did the best he could in life and had carried on his family’s name with respect and decency. But he was never terribly bright and never able to stand up to people of higher standing than he.

“Do you disagree, Thoreau?” Whit asked. “Your daughter, I know, thinks very highly of you. I would hate to think you don’t think the same of her.”

“I love my daughter, your grace. I have loved her since the day she was born. But I’ve also had to deal with the brunt of society’s reaction to her for many years now. She is untamable. Her suitors fawn at first, but then she either does something outlandish to scare them away or refuses their suit and I have to turn their offers down. I’ve turned down more offers than I can count.”

“You won’t turn down mine.” Whit wanted this conversation over and done with. He wanted the deal struck and over so he could go find Anastasia and convince her that she wanted to marry him. He knew he had a hard road ahead, for he had lost her trust. She had given of it so willingly, too. And he had lost it. He had a feeling it would not be so easy to regain. He looked forward to trying, though.

“You know it is up to her. I can’t make her marry you,” Thoreau admitted.

“No, you can’t. But nonetheless I want your blessing. Your permission if I need it. I want to make Anastasia my wife, give her my name and a title and all that entails.”

“You, of course, have my permission, your Grace. As long as she agrees to it.”

“Very well. Good evening, sir.”

The duke nodded his head to Thoreau and headed for the doors. Inside, he found the party had become less of a party and more of a gossip-fest. He could hear whispers everywhere around him as he shoved his way through the throngs. He rudely ignored any and all attempts to chat him up and glared at anyone who looked as though they were about to introduce him to their daughters. His strides were long and quick, his temper at these insipid people growing hotter by the minute. He knew what they were whispering about and he also had a pretty good idea of how much pain it would cause Anastasia. These were, after all, her people. She might have been smarter than all of them combined, and braver and more beautiful as well, but nonetheless they were her society and he felt as though he had robbed her of them.

He would find her and put things right; he would make it up to her. After searching the ballroom for several minutes, he realized that of course she wouldn’t have stayed in the midst of all these people who were whispering about her. He felt silly for even having looked there so long. He left the ballroom and headed toward the stairs. Stopping on the third step, he realized that he could not go upstairs to get her himself. They had committed enough improprieties tonight for a lifetime and he did not need to add barging into her bedroom to the list.

Whit turned back and strolled through the ballroom in search of Anastasia’s father. Before he could find the man, Whit saw a maid somewhat cowering in a corner. She looked frightened and she also looked as though she were trying very hard to make herself disappear. He went straight to her and her eyes grew large as saucers as Clara realized he meant to speak to her.

“Who are you?” he asked her gruffly.

”I-I am Clara, sir, Miss Anastasia’s m-maid.”

Her voice came out a squeak. She looked up at the tall man before her with abject fear in her eyes.

“Where is your mistress, Clara?”

Whit was growing rather suspicious of this woman. Whatever she was trying to hide from him, she was giving herself away.

“I don’t know, sir,” she replied. And just then a fount of tears erupted from her eyes. Clara started bawling loudly, her body racking with sobs. The duke acted quickly, took her by the arm, and escorted her quickly from the room.

Once out of the ballroom, Whit resumed his inquiry, trying with impatience to talk around the stout woman’s blubbering.

“What do you mean you don’t know, woman? She is your charge. It is your job to know where she is. She left the party, that much is obvious. Did she go up to her room?”

He shook her slightly, his hand squeezing into her upper arm. He handled her more roughly than he had intended and her tears continued. She hiccoughed and wiped at her eyes.

”Yes, sir. She did go to her room,” Clara managed to say. Her crying was fast escalating to a shrill howling.

“Ok. Will you please go get her? Tell her that Whit wants to speak with her.”

After a moment’s thought, he added: “And ask her nicely.”

Clara’s eyes grew wide and another onslaught of bawling ensued. She held her handkerchief over her face and sobbed her poor heart out into it. She trembled as she stood before the duke, and it occurred to him that perhaps he should be worried.

“Well?” he said impatiently. “Go get her!”

“I-I can’t!” she stuttered. “She-she’s GONE!”

The last part came out more of a wail and Whit wasn’t sure at first that he had actually heard her properly. It took a second for him to process what the maid had told him.

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

Clara cried even louder and the duke lost his patience.

“WOMAN! Stop this infernal crying and tell me right now what has happened to Anastasia!”

Just then, Thoreau emerged from the party to find the duke yelling at his daughter’s maid.

“Wetherby! What on earth are you doing to poor Clara?”

He stomped over to remove the sobbing woman from the duke’s grasp. He grabbed her other arm, and tugged her away from Whit, who was gritting his teeth.

“I’m trying to find out where your daughter is,” he growled.

“Well, what do you mean, where my daughter is! She’s probably up in her room hiding from the likes of you!” Thoreau shot back.
A crowd was beginning to gather at the door to the ballroom, everybody at the party having heard the commotion. The band had stopped playing and the semblance of propriety long since forgotten. There had been quite the scandal here tonight and people wanted to know what was going on. The two men paid no attention.

“If you would ask her maid, here, she is in fact NOT upstairs.”

“That’s preposterous! Clara! Tell this man that my daughter is safely stowed in her room.”

Thoreau shook Clara, much similar to the way the duke had done, and his eyes shot daggers at her. She cried more and was barely audible when she replied.

“She’s gone, sir,” she whispered.

“GONE?” Thoreau roared.

By now, the partygoers had realized that the party was long since over and it would be in their best interests to depart. A few people stopped by to thank Thoreau for having them, but the rest scurried silently out the door. Conversations erupted as soon as they were clear of the house. Where had she gone? What had really happened between Anastasia and the Duke of Wetherby? It would be hot gossip amongst them for a good while to come.

Thoreau went charging up the stairs, not waiting for the rest of the guests to leave. He burst into Anastasia’s rooms only to find them empty. She had made a mess of things on her way out, it seemed. There were several things strewn about the room and her wardrobe was thrown open, some of her suitcases removed. Clara and Whit followed him into the room. Whit frowned as he surveyed the damage. She had run away, he thought. She had packed some things and run away. Had he not been so frustrated with her at that very moment, he would have admired her courage. And he would have admired her total lack of concern for the fodder she was giving to the gossipers.

Her father looked all around, as though hoping she would pop out from behind a chair somewhere and say: “Got you, Father, didn’t I?” And they would all have a good laugh at his expense. She didn’t pop out from behind a chair, though. Clara was telling the truth; she had gone. But where? Where would she have gone?

He turned to Clara and she flinched. She had been shaken enough for one evening. Thoreau saw the look on her face and realized that she was at as much of a loss as he was. Clara loved Anastasia and would never have condoned her running away like this.

“Clara,” he began calmly. “Do you have any idea where she would have gone? Did she tell you?”

“No, sir. She told me nothing. She came upstairs from the party very upset, sent me away. When I came back to check on her, I found her room like this and she had already gone.”

Clara sniffed. Her tears had subsided a little bit for now, but the storm was by no means past. She had that shaky look about her, like she would snap at any second. Her lip trembled, but she did not cry.

Thoreau and Whit looked at each other. Thoreau’s face grew red as he stared at the duke.

“This is your fault, Wetherby!”

An argument ensued where the two men were ready to throttle each other over whose fault it was that she had run away. They shouted back and forth at each other at volumes that would rattle a lesser house. Clara cowered against the wall, worried for her mistress and well aware that this fighting was not going to help solve anything. She wanted to interrupt them, to tell them they were being idiots, but she knew her place. She could never yell at the master of the house, much less a duke.

Just then, she wondered what Miss Anastasia would do were she here. She would never cower. She would stand up to these silly men and put them in their right place. Clara took a deep breath and thought, I’m doing this for my mistress. She squared her shoulders and cleared her throat.

“SIRS!” she shouted. “PLEASE! Miss Anastasia is out there somewhere all alone and lord knows what is going to happen to her if we don’t find her and help her. All this shouting isn’t helping her and if she were here she would take you both to task for the way you are behaving. What difference does it make whose fault it is?? We just have to find her!”

Clara tried to catch her breath as she looked back and forth from one man to the other. They both looked shocked at her outburst, but slowly began to understand the meaning of her words. Danger, they both thought at once. She could be in danger.

“Oh, dear,” said Thoreau. “We need to find her, Wetherby, bring her home.”

“Yes, we do. I’ll go see to my carriage, and we can…”

Slowly it dawned on Whit. Carriage…horses…

“Thoreau!” he exclaimed. “She wouldn’t have left on foot, would she? She would have taken at least a horse, if not a carriage. The stable boy! Come on!”

Whit led the way out of Anastasia’s room and downstairs. Once outside, they went straight for the stables. It was dark inside and the only sound was the breathing of several horses. The two men, trailed closely by Clara, walked in to inspect the situation. They managed to find the stable boy asleep in an empty stall at the end of the row. He was snoring quietly and curled up with a patch of hay.

“Peter!” Thoreau bellowed. “Wake up, for pity’s sake!”

Peter sat up quickly, blinking his eyes several times. No doubt the boy was not at all used to being woken in the late night hours by his master.

“Anastasia. Have you seen her? Has she taken a horse? Carriage?”

”Er, no, sir. I’m the only one’s been down here all night. At least I think so…I usually put down around ten, sir. If she’da come after that I might notta heard anything. Something wrong, sir?” Peter asked, his voice sounding confused and still sleepy.

“Check the stalls, Peter. Let me know if any of the horses are missing.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

Peter stood, wiped the hay off of his clothes and set down the row to check all of the stalls. He limped slightly, as though one of his legs had fallen asleep. Whit and Thoreau watched him as he continued his inspection; they waited most impatiently for any word from him. He peeked over into each stall until he got to the one for Zeus. His eyes grew wide as he realized that Anastasia’s favorite horse, and the best one in the stable, was gone. He looked toward the two men waiting for him and pointed wordlessly to the empty stall. They hurried towards him to see for themselves. Thoreau immediately understood what this meant, but Whit needed to be told.

“Her horse. She took her bloody horse!” Thoreau exclaimed at the look of confusion on Whit’s face.

Realization dawned on him then and his face took on a more sinister look.

“She should know better than to run off in the middle of the night on horseback! The roads are not safe.”

It was true. There had been numerous reports of late regarding the bandits that had taken over several different routes throughout the country. They did not hesitate to steal from anyone who passed, usually striking at late-night riders.

Peter ran quickly around to the back of the stable, his sleeping limb long since forgotten. He threw open the barn door and saw that she had also taken the hansom. He hurried back to inform the master and his guest, panting for breath by the time he returned.

“Sirs,” he gasped. “She’s taken the carriage, sirs. Means she won’t be able to travel quite so quickly as with Zeus alone.”

“Blast!” Thoreau thundered. He had a mind to put it to Wetherby again, but realized he needed the man’s help to get his daughter back. He told Peter to saddle two horses, that they were going to go out and have a look for her. Peter obeyed and had the horses saddled and ready to go the fastest he had ever done. Thoreau nodded his thanks as he mounted the black mare he had been provided and waited impatiently for Wetherby to do the same. Both on their horses, the men took off without a word to each other, Thoreau leading the way into the midnight countryside to find his daughter.