“I’ll ask Edward to make a few discreet inquiries,” Aunt Eunice said, snapping shut her fan.
Lady Mansfield pursed her lips. “I’ll ask my husband to do the same.” She glanced at Ashley and Georgia. “In the meantime, say nothing to no one until we get to the bottom of this. I’m sure everything is fine and there is a logical explanation. There are at least a dozen different entertainments they could have attended tonight. Or they could have simply gone to their club. Or even stayed home.”
That there might indeed be a logical explanation didn’t keep Ashley from worrying. One explanation could be that David had run afoul of Big Bob and Little Lenny. Maggie was still careful to wear a bonnet with a wide brim when she went out on errands with Sally, to help keep from being recognized should anyone from her old life see her.
Another explanation could be that Mr. Barrett was hosting another house party for his former music students. Now that David was indulging in his musical side once more, he would want to attend. She could never resent him developing his incredible talents even further … but couldn’t he have at least said goodbye if he was leaving town for a house party?
Her emotions swung from one extreme to another.
Anger that he could abandon her so blithely.
Heartbreak at missing someone she loved and considered a friend, someone she’d thought she would spend her life with, if she’d correctly understood the song he performed.
Fear that something dreadful had befallen him. That something dreadful had happened and she wasn’t there to help him this time. She couldn’t confide her fears to Westbrook as she had during David’s fever, since he too was missing.
It took everything she had to maintain a polite, cheerful façade for the world as time passed with no word from David. She poured herself into plans for the school. There were only a few weeks before Uncle Edward and Aunt Eunice would set sail for Jamaica again. Rather than try to hide her preoccupation, Ashley decided to let Sally and Maggie in on her plans during their nightly reading lesson.
“You’re opening a school of your own?” Sally’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline before she quickly reverted to an expression of polite interest.
“And you want us to work for you there?” Maggie glanced around the room. “Away from London?”
“Only if you want. If you wish to stay in London, I will write you a sterling reference and help you find a suitable position. If you decide to come with me, your duties will change. I won’t be attending a lot of balls and other entertainments, and naturally will dress very simply as a headmistress. I’m hoping to find a location near the seashore.”
“So far away?” Sally looked downcast.
“I’ve never been to the sea,” Maggie said slowly. “Does it smell like the Thames at low tide?”
“It can smell fishy.” Ashley thought back to the evenings and her days off when she would walk along the shore at Torquay. She loved to slip off her shoes and stockings and curl her toes into the warm sand. Hike up her skirts in the summer if no one was around, and let the waves tickle her bare ankles. “Naturally the school will need to be a little farther inland, not right on the waterfront. But we’ll have lots of fresh air. The fog won’t be yellow from burning coal.”
“No yellow fog? Count me in!” Maggie clapped her hands twice, then with a guilty expression clasped her hands together at her waist and cast her eyes down.
Sally kept her lips pursed, deep in thought.
* * *
“You’re going where?” Georgia looked as horrified as if Ashley had just kicked Tuffy, though they were sitting on a sofa at Lady Hartwell’s soirée the next night. There still had been no word from Ravencroft, Westbrook, or the other three men. They had simply vanished.
“My uncle’s solicitor found three properties that look promising, in Dorset and on the border with Devon. I wanted you to know why I’m leaving tomorrow. I haven’t told anyone else outside of our household about the school yet.” She had a flashback to her conversation with David. “Well, I did mention it to Ravencroft when he inquired about my search for employment.”
“Uncle David knows that you’re leaving London?”
“He knows about the idea of the school. I had not yet narrowed my search to any particular properties when we discussed it.”
Georgia heaved a great sigh and looked down at her skirt. She absently picked at a few stray hairs that could belong to either Smokey or Tuffy. “You will be sure to write and let me know where you are going? And that you have arrived safely?”
Ashley rested her hand on Georgia’s forearm. “I’m not going alone. In fact we are taking two carriages, as Aunt Eunice insists on accompanying Uncle Edward and me, and of course that entails maids and his valet. I will be quite safe.”
“But so far away.” Ashley barely heard her soft-spoken words.
“Hastings isn’t that far, nor is Bognor. Even Lyme Regis is only a journey of two or three days.”
“I just wish…” Georgia blinked back tears. “I was so sure.”
Me too, Ashley thought as she embraced her friend, her own throat clogged and aching.
* * *
They left London at dawn, making sure one of their stops for a meal and to change horses was in Tunbridge Wells. They strolled along the famous Walk to a coffee house where they could partake of the famed chalybeate spring water, before climbing back into the carriage and continuing on.
