Ah, if only she knew!He repressed a grimace of pain. “Am I forgiven, then?”
She sniffed faintly and smiled. “Quite. I believe I must thank you for finding a means to calm me when I had so far lost my faculties. I am utterly humbled!”
“I am afraid I hold the claim on that. My failing was not a mere moment of terror, but years of blindness and arrogance. Had I looked to my affairs better, we would not presently be seeking a way of eluding men who are in my own employ.”
“I must confess to some curiosity on that point. I did not intend to ask about what is not my affair—”
“I believe it has become your affair. I have none but myself to blame, for had I not simply assumed my due, had I taken care to know the inner workings of my own house and not remained ignorant to any but my own personal cares, I might have apprehended the danger long ago. I imagine my aunt found the work easy because I made it so. Do you know, Miss Elizabeth, how mortifying such a discovery will be when word begins to circulate? I shall be the laughing stock of….”
“Theton?”
He clenched his teeth and held her gaze steadily. “Of everyone.”
One side of her mouth curved. “It is not only you who have cause to regret poor relations in his own house. I have learned that bitter lesson only recently, and shall perhaps pay for the follies of another with my own future.”
His brow pinched. “Miss Elizabeth, we have been rather close on the matter, but what is your trial? How can such a man as that Collins fellow have any thought of success with one such as yourself?”
She drew a slow sigh. “My mother’s first object, when she found herself in possession of five daughters and no sons, was to marry them off respectably before my father could die or any of their daughters could disgrace the family. It seems that not all of us took to heart that caution about marrying ‘respectably.’ When one falls, four suffer, and when two are humiliated, three are shunned.”
He closed his eyes. “I see.”
She offered a tight little smile, forgiving and entirely false. “It is not your concern. Come, we must see our way out of this place.”
He nodded, all business once more. “I believe I know the way, but you will have to trust me.”
Chapter twenty-six
“My dear!” Aunt Gardiner hurried from her sewing chair, “I had begun to wonder if we would see you at all tonight.”
Kitty rose as well and watched as Mr Gardiner nearly staggered through the door of her aunt’s sitting room, his shoulders rounded in exhaustion and his expression haggard.
“As did I. The import tariffs on my shipment from the East were raised and the whole lot impounded. I was required to haggle with the authorities half the morning over that, but the judgment stood. Now I have no idea how I shall make a profit on any of that silk. What is more, I learned that Bonapartists have captured half my stock of tobacco which was bound from America last week. Egad, but I wish for some tonic which might wash today away as if it had never happened!”
“Never mind that, my dear.” Mrs Gardiner gently petted her husband’s shoulder and led him to a chaise where he could receive a fortifying glass of brandy. “You have risen above worse before.”
“Thank you, my love, although I expect your day was no less unpleasant. And now I suppose I’ve an evening of drudgery to anticipate! Where is our malapropos guest?”
“Oh! Mr Collins has gone off on some errand or other for his patroness. I do not know where. Has Lizzy gone above stairs to rest?”
He swallowed his brandy and looked at her with a polite sort of bafflement. “Lizzy? I expect she was doing her best to stay away from that Collins fellow, but if he departed earlier, why has she not come back down?”
Mrs Gardiner opened her mouth in confusion, but it was Kitty who answered. “Lizzy was not here all day, Uncle. Surely you saw her, for she was to spend the day with you at the warehouse.”
Mr Gardner lifted his glass and stared at the purplish liquid as if it bore some kind of enchantment. “You must forgive me, my dear, but my head is rather fuzzy at present. I heard that Lizzy came to the warehouse and was even accompanied by a manservant, but she did not stay. I was out, of course, and I missed her, but I did receive your note. I had assumed that they crossed paths and thought no more of it. Are you saying that she is not here?”
Mrs Gardiner and Kitty exchanged sunken glances. “No,” they answered in unison.
“Wait just one moment,” Kitty’s eyes widened. “Lizzy took no one with her. Did you say she came with a manservant? She could not have… oh!” Her lips rounded into a little heart shape, and she covered them with her fingertips. “It could not be!”
“Kitty, as you can see, I am in no mood for a mystery. Have you any notion of your sister’s whereabouts? Is there cause for alarm? I cannot think Lizzy would do anything unfortunate or foolish, but could someone have harmed her? I must send for a constable!”
“Uncle, the only footman Lizzy saw today, I believe, was that fellow we dragged off the streets in Mayfair last night. I know she encountered him again while we were out walking. You do not suppose she has taken up with him?”
“So long as she is safe, I would be happy to believe almost anything!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “Mayfair, you say? I must call for the carriage. Which street? How shall I know where to begin?”
“Mayfair… my dear!” Mrs Gardiner caught his forearm. “There was a rather curious note which arrived for you earlier from Grosvenor Square. That is only one or two streets over, is it not? I thought little of it at the time, but perhaps it contains information tending to that very point. Oh! How foolish I was to leave it unread if it might pertain to Lizzy! I shall never forgive myself if something has happened.”
She secured the note and presented it to her husband, who read it with all the panic which must attend the discovery of a young lady’s disappearance. “I do not understand a word of this, and neither, I think, did its author. Lizzy gone to Vauxhall Gardens, alone but for the presence of some unknown gentleman? This must be some sort of a prank!”
