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“You’re tired,” he said. “Well make a longer stop next time.”
“There will be time enough to rest when we’ve found them,” she murmured. “If you traveled alone, you would not wish any delays.”
“Don’t be obstinate, Lilith,” he answered briskly. “You won’t be of any use to your niece if you collapse at her feet. In any case, we must endeavour to spare Sims. To enact the role of coachman is beneath his dignity, you know. In his view, coachmen are common servants. A tiger, on the other hand, is a professional—an artist, if you will.”
This elicited a weak smile, and Julian felt a queer tugging at his heart as he recollected warmer smiles, and the rich, haunting sound of her laughter. He slumped back into his corner.
***
Emma Wellwicke was at the breakfast table, perusing a letter. Her husband had written it while in Spain, four months before, but it had arrived only this morning. While the letter was old, the sentiments Colonel Wellwicke expressed were eternal, and sufficiently heartening to take the lady’s mind off present domestic anxieties.
Emma looked up at the sound of light footsteps. Then her mouth dropped open. “Cecily!” she gasped.
“Good morning,” said Cecily. She dropped a light kiss upon the thunderstruck Emma’s forehead. “Aunt is not down yet? How odd. Normally, she is up with the servants. Was she very late at Lady Jersey’s?”
“Cecily!”
Miss Glenwood, who’d immediately headed for the sideboard, paused and peered at the companion’s round face. “Good heavens, Emma, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. I do hope you’ve not had bad news in that letter.”
“Cecily Glenwood, where have you been?” Mrs. Wellwicke demanded.
“In my bed, of course,” was the puzzled response. “Where else should I be?”
“Where else? Where else? On the Great North Road, I should think. Where your poor aunt is at this moment, searching for you, and worried half to death.”
Cecily pulled out the chair next to Emma and sat down. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“Cecily Glenwood—”
“Oh, dear.”
“Where were you last night? And don’t say ‘in my bed’ because you weren’t. Your aunt and I turned the house upside down. Now the poor woman is racing off to Scotland after you.”
“Good gracious! You don’t mean to say my aunt went alone?”
“She left with Lord Brandon. To prevent an elopement.” In a few curt sentences, Mrs. Wellwicke described the previous nights excitement, closing with the demand, “Where were you?”
“Oh, dear. I shall explain everything, Emma. What a dreadful muddle! But first, don’t you think we’d better send someone to bring them back?”
Half an hour later, Harris was tearing his way out of London, and Mrs. Wellwicke and Cecily had retired to the sitting room.
“Yes, I did promise to go away with Lord Robert,” Cecily was confessing calmly. “But when it came to the point, I couldn’t do it. I only crept out to tell him so, but he was ever so stubborn. We argued—oh, for hours, I think. I expect he’s still very cross with me. He said he was going to get drunk. I expect he’s at his cousin’s, sleeping off the aftereffects, poor man. Still, I’d rather have him on my conscience than Aunt Lilith, as I told him. I just couldn’t pay her back so cruelly, after all she’s done for me, even if she doesn’t understand—”
“She might have understood,” Emma reproved, “if you’d done her the courtesy of telling the truth, instead of sneaking about behind her back.”
“Yes, of course you’re right. But you see, I’m so dreadfully fond of Lord Robert, and she seemed to take him in such dislike. Well, I’m lamentably ignorant. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have been so confused. But it’s very confusing to be in love. Everyone says so.” Cecily sighed. “Poor Aunt. Even she’s confused, and she’s so much older and more sophisticated. Still, we mustn’t be overanxious. I’m certain Lord Brandon is taking very good care of her.”
Mrs. Wellwicke studied the innocent, blue-eyed countenance in silence for a moment. Then she rose and left the room, wondering why she felt so very certain that Cecily had not quite explained everything.
Julian had at length persuaded his companion to take some refreshment when they stopped, but he could not persuade her to rest. So long as Sims declared himself perfectly satisfied with a quarter hour’s nap snatched here and there, Lilith refused to admit she wanted any naps at all.
It was not until late morning, when the clouds began mounding into black thunderheads, that either of these two would consent to be reasonable. Sims had no taste for driving through thunderstorms, and Lilith, at this point, could scarce sit upright.
They reached a large inn just as the first heavy drops began to fall. As soon as the coach had rattled to a stop, Lord Brandon sprang out.
Lilith had declined his hand every other time. This time, when he saw her stumble to the carriage door, he ignored her protests and swung her down.
Her feet had no sooner touched the ground than her knees gave way.
“I knew it,” he muttered as he lifted her in his arms. “Obstinate, pigheaded—”
“Put me down.”
“Be quiet, or I shall drop you into the trough.”
He carried her into the inn, shouted for a room, and began trudging up the stairs, the landlord scurrying after.
The latter had discerned no recognisable marking on the carriage, and this imperious guest had not deigned to mention his name. Nonetheless, Mine Host knew nobility when he saw it and the voice of authority when he heard it. In minutes, Mrs. Davenant was tucked into the hostelry’s most luxurious chamber, surrounded by servants whose sole aim in life, apparently, was to make the lady comfortable.
While Lilith rested, Julian made the rounds of the inn, questioning everybody everywhere, from taproom to stables. Though he dropped coins wherever he went, he could obtain no word of the eloping couple.
The storm exploded into a fury of fiery flashes and deafening thunder. The inn quickly filled with soaked travellers, all of whom the marquess questioned. No one had noticed the distinctive black curricle. No one had glimpsed the young pair. It was as though they’d vanished.
Lord Brandon sat alone in a corner of the public dining room, nursing a mug of ale and thinking. More than ever, he was convinced he was on the wrong trail. The trouble was, he had no idea what the right one might be. At length, he decided to leave it to Lilith. If she wished to continue to Scotland, they would do so. If not—well, he would do as she wished. After all, the elopement promised only minor problems for Robert. It was the girl who’d most to lose. As always.
The women always paid dearly, he reflected. He should not have allowed Lilith to come. She would pay as well, to have been gone overnight with neither maid nor companion—and with him, of all men.
Yet how his heart had leapt when she’d insisted on accompanying him. How he’d wanted her company, even despising him as she did. Even cold and silent, shut off to him as irrevocably as if she’d been sealed in the vault beside her husband.
Lord Brandon pushed the mug away and stood up. He might as well take advantage of the bed he’d procured for himself, since the storm offered no sign of slackening. While sleep was the furthest thing from his mind, he could at least lie down. He had not slept in days. The strain would tell eventually if he was not careful.
His chamber was at the opposite end of the hall from Lilith’s. As he reached her door, he paused. Even as he was telling himself to keep on to his room, his hand covered the doorknob.
It opened easily. Julian frowned. She should have locked it. He’d better wake her and tell her.
Noiselessly, he moved to the bed. She lay, fully dressed but shoeless, on top of the bedclothes. She slept soundly, her breathing slow and even. Better to let her sleep, he thought. He would have the door locked from outside.
Yet he stood, watching her. The thick, curling hair streamed over the pillow in fire-tinted waves. One tangled strand had
fallen over her eye. He reached out and gently brushed it away.
She seemed so young and vulnerable, curled up on her side, one hand tucked under the pillow, the other across her breast. “My beautiful girl,” he murmured. He kissed her forehead.
It was only a feather touch, but the long, sooty lashes swept up, and he found himself gazing into dazed, blue-grey eyes.
“Julian,” she breathed sleepily. Then she blinked. “Oh. What is it? What time is it? Did I sleep?” She pulled herself upright, her eyes wary now.
“It doesn’t matter what time it is,” he answered unsteadily. “We can’t leave until the storm abates.”
A resounding boom shook the window.
“As you can hear,” he went on, “it’s raging like all the furies of Hades.”
“Then they must have stopped as well.”
“No doubt. Only...” He hesitated.
“What is it? Have you heard anything?”
