Alex was missing in the last chapter.

Ch 49

The candlestick dropped from my hand as I fell to my knees. This is where Alex should have been.

I was confused as to how the note had arrived on my bed. He had not been in the room aside from the morning and if he had left a note I would have known. There was no other time during the day that he had been inside the house. He had returned to his studies with Charles.

Then I remembered Alex and Lisette running through the house like banshees before dinner. He had come down the stairs just ahead her and…the water closet. That was the only time he had been down the hall since early in the morning. He had dropped the note off on his way to the water closet.

Damn it, he was sneaky.

In my haste to open the letter I ripped the page in half. My trembling hands could barely hold the document together, though it didn't much matter.

'I'm sorry'.

Only two words on a piece of paper and nothing more. No trace of where he was or what he was doing. Alex had disappeared yet I could only assume where he had gone. My son had left me for his mother. The words on the page were the same as the ones he had told me the previous day. He was sorry. He knew he was going to leave. I could only wonder how long he had planned this escape from my hellish domain.

"Is he—" Julia came to a sliding stop in the doorway and found her question answered. She was breathing heavy when she sat down on the bed. "Lisette said she didn't know where he went. She thought he had gone into the kitchen for more tea but he never came back."

My despair quickly gave way to rage. I knew in my heart that he would not leave me for her. He would not leave, I told myself a thousand times. Not like this, not after the other night. He had come to stay with me, he had heard me tell him that I loved him and he had said that he loved me as well. He couldn't leave! He couldn't!

No, not like this. That left only one other explanation: he had been stolen from my house.

But how? The vicomte? No, he wouldn't have the stealth. Christine? That seemed more likely, though I couldn't imagine Alex going with her after all he had said. He wanted nothing to do with her.

Maybe he wasn't with them at all.

I turned around and saw Madeline standing in the doorway. She clutched the doorframe with both hands. "Sit down before you faint," I told her. I climbed to my feet and pulled her into a chair where she collapsed and buried her face in her hands. "Where were they playing?"

Madeline looked up at last. "In the library, Monsieur," she replied blankly. She never called me Monsieur. Obviously she was beside herself in anxiety. I hadn't even thought to blame her as I was more concerned with finding my son than reprimanding her for losing him.

"What were they doing?"

Madeline shook her head. "Reading, I think. They were being very quiet so I didn't disturb them."

"Where were you?"

"The kitchen."

"Doing what?"

She looked a little wary when she shrugged. "Nothing. Just reading the paper."

"And the study?"

Madeline moved her hand over her heart. "The door was shut."

"What about Charles and Meg?"

Madeline shrugged. "All I know is that I was in the kitchen with Meg and Charles was in his room writing letters."

"Did he go upstairs?"

"Monsieur, I don't know. Lisette came to the kitchen to look for him. I went to his bedroom. That was the first place I looked. We checked everywhere for him—"

I rose to my feet before she could finish and tucked the note into my waistcoat pocket. If I was going to go out into the night I would need my hair again. Everything sitting on top of my hairpiece ended up shoved to the ground.

"Where are you going?" Julia asked.

"The hotel first," I said. I glanced at her in the mirror as I fit the band over my head and adjusted the hair behind my ears. My forehead still smarted from the pressure but there was nothing I could do about that. There was strength in my illusion, power that I had never found without my mask and hair.

"What do you mean first? Where else are you going?"

I made no reply. I opened the guestroom wardrobe and pulled out my overcoat.

"Let me go with you," she offered.

"Absolutely not," I replied from the hall. I raced up the stairs and glanced around her bedroom.

Julia was on my heels. "You can't just walk up to the hotel—"

"The hell I can't. If they have him I will kill them both. Where is the mask?"

She opened her dresser drawer and handed it to me without question. "You can't just…kill him. It isn't right."

"That's all a matter of perception," I muttered.

Julia grabbed me by the back of my collar and dragged me to a stop by nearly choking me. It was almost impossible to pry her hands away without hurting her but I managed to shake her loose. She reached for my lapels but I stopped her and took both of her wrists in one hand. Nothing would stop her struggling and I ended up walking her backward and leaving her on the bed.

"You're going to get yourself killed!" she shrieked as I sprinted down the stairs.

The tone of her voice more than her words kept me from opening the front door. I stared at my hand gripped around the handle and listened to the stairs creak beneath her as she descended. When I finally turned to face Julia I found Madeline at her side. They clung to one another like children, both of them pleading me in silence to reconsider.

"You're safer here," I reasoned.

"Erik—"

"Damn it, Julia, I told you no."

Madeline stepped forward. "Erik, don't yell at her. We're trying to help you."

Julia spread her hands. Her expression and voice softened accordingly. "Someone should go with you, otherwise you'll be outnumbered."

I rolled my eyes at her. "What good would you do me? You're not going to even the odds by being there. If anything you'll make it worse because I'll have to defend you as well."

For how red her face was she spoke with surprising calm. "If Alex is in there and you go to their hotel ranting and raving they'll call security and have you taken away. But if you go there and are civil you stand a better chance of taking him back."

We were either going to leave together or argue all night long. With a curt nod I waited for her to grab her cloak and mine and follow me down the front steps.

It didn't really matter if she came with me to the hotel. I had a strange feeling he hadn't gone there in the first place.

Julia walked and I limped down the street in silence. My shins burned with every step but I clenched my jaw and pressed forward. The night sky was clouded over thanks to the rain. It still fell in light sheets that were much more an annoyance than hindrance. We both pulled up our hoods up and pushed forward down the street.

He wasn't going to be there. I was almost positive that he wasn't going to be there but I needed to be certain. Christine was done singing. There was nothing to keep her in Paris and I feared that if she had Alexandre with her she would disappear. Communication with Meg and Madeline would be broken and Alex would be gone forever.

If he was where I thought then he was relatively safe.

If he was with Christine and the boy…What I wouldn't have given for a Punjab lasso.

"What?"

I looked at Julia. "What?"

"You said something about a Punjab lasso."

Well hell. I quickened my pace. "I'd like to strangle him," I replied.

"Erik," she warned.

I glanced back at Julia who, despite having two good legs, had fallen behind to my longer strides. "If anything—and I mean anything—has happened to Alex I will kill him without a second thought."

"Forgive me for saying this but why would he hurt a child that may be his own?"

My feet slid to a stop on the damp cobblestones. "He knows Alex doesn't belong to him. He called him a bastard. He knows damn well that isn't his son."

I turned away from Julia. The Wisteria loomed ahead greeting us in grim silence.