He took the stairs at once, eager to get to Inès. More anxiety he could not abide. Pitt in a desperate way. His own wife leaving him without explanation. Now his family…
“What is the urgency here?” he asked as he stood just inside the parlor door and faced his mother and sisters.
Before him, his mother, Fee, and Jessica shot to their feet.
“She is gone,” said his mother with tears in her eyes.
“We went to beg her to stay.” Fee wrung her hands, beside herself with anguish.
“I told her she made a mistake to leave you,” Jessica insisted as she came toward him and took his hands in hers.
Evan rallied his bravado in the face of his family’s kindness.
Jessica looked as if she would melt to the floor in a sad puddle. “I told her the one thing I know is true.”
The lump in his throat prevented him from remarking on that.
She ran her fingers through the shock of hair fallen on his brow. “I told her nothing in this world is more important than preserving the love of the most important person in your life.”
He lifted his chin. “And?”
“She agreed.”
“But she left,” said Fee, “minutes later.”
“How?” he asked.
“By the kitchen door down the alley.”
“Walking?” He was beside himself with fear for her.
Fee gripped her hands together, fighting for her own calm in this storm of emotion. “We begged her to allow Davis to hail a hack. She refused. How can she go off alone into the world,walking?”
Evan knew his darling wife had done many things much more dangerous than that for years. Alone. “What does she have with her?”
“She wears her new pelisse,” his mother said.
Heavy wool, then. She will be warm.“What else?” He surveyed the three of them.
“She carried a valise. Not her new one that you gave her for your honeymoon.”
“The smaller one,” he murmured. He recalled the one she had used when she’d had her belongings moved here. “Good. Easily carried. She wore a hat?”
“Yes,” said Fee.
“Gloves, too,” added Jessica.
His mother came forward to cup his cheek. “We had Davis send a footman down the alley. He hurried but he did not find her. She had disappeared.”
“You must do something,” Jessica demanded of him.
“I have. Long ago.”
The three women blinked at him, confused. “What?” they asked in unison.
“From the day we were married, I had two men shadowing her every move.”
“What do you mean?” His mother was appalled.
