The Heiress Queen (Season Series Prequel)

Chapter 34

**A/N: Well, I'm alive but definitely still congested! Sorry about the delay in updating, I had to cancel two days of work and make them up with extra hours, which was decidedly NOT awesome while sick. I'm almost off for the Christmas holidays and I'm hoping to churn out the last chapters while I'm on vacation. Thank you all so much for your patience and well wishes! :D

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He should have gone to check on her.

The thought had crossed Graham's mind at least a dozen times in the past hour, amplified by both his frustration at having underestimated Kentshire's heiress and his anger with Samuel Winters.

The night before, he'd suffered through dance after dance with the remaining debutantes, each more infuriating than the next. He'd done as his father had ordered, locking Isabelle in her room and posting guards at each of the doors, including the service corridor. He knew she wasn't above sneaking out dressed as a maid, but he hadn't anticipated she'd resort to violence. He'd trusted his guards to keep her safe as he'd pretended to enjoy himself at the ball.

But he should have gone to check on her.

He could still hear her voice begging, pleading, crying his name as the guards dragged her away. He'd dug his nails into his palms to keep himself rooted to the spot, that invisible pull between them yanking taut. But he hadn't moved. He was under orders to attend the ball as if nothing was the matter, so he had.

But he hadn't gone to check on her. He'd buried the truth behind his reasoning, that he didn't want to find out whether she would allow him into her suite after he'd allowed her to be dragged away. He didn't want to see how badly he'd damaged whatever fragile trust had grown between them.

Because of his cowardice, it was only as the stars winked out in the murky grey pre-dawn light that he'd discovered her flight. His cousins had screamed for the guard, awakened from their sleep as something crashed in Isabelle's bedchamber. There, the palace guards had discovered one of their own, a tipped-over wardrobe and a splintered closet door attesting to his imprisonment. The guard hadn't seen his assailants, but he remembered Isabelle's maid distracting him before he was attacked.

Of course, by the time the palace guard had thought to awaken Graham, Isabelle's maid had fled as well, telling the guardhouse that she was posting a letter for her mistress before vanishing into the city.

Graham's fist hit the desk before him, Isabelle's sapphire ring bouncing along the wood as he gritted his teeth. From the moment they'd discovered the guard barricaded in Isabelle's closet, the clues had laid themselves out like a well-drawn map, taunting him. Her jewelry box had been emptied of everything, save for her farce of an engagement ring. Her horse was missing. Outside the stables, one of the guards had discovered her sapphire ring and earbob from the night before, both half-buried in the thin dusting of morning snow.

Upon questioning, the evening shift gate guards had reported that Sam Winters had left the palace with his valet sometime before midnight, while the morning shift had reported that Cedric MacGibbon, Winters' valet, had left the palace grounds shortly after dawn. No one had any record of the valet re-entering the palace grounds, which meant that Sam Winters had left with someone else in the dead of night.

Graham had instantly known who that someone else was, even though his guards had only barely pieced it together when they roused him. He was of half a mind to strangle them all for their incompetence, but the brunt of his wrath was squarely aimed north. Sam Winters was the one he wanted to punish. Sam Winters, who had given him his word that he'd leave Isabelle in Highcastle. Now the pair of them had at least an eight hour head start towards the northern roads that were not even remotely safe for Kentshire's heiress.