Page 82 of The Marriage Method

“Miss Jean.” Nell gave the woman a weak smile. Her right shoulder and upper arm were throbbing. Her head, too, for some odd reason. She had the vague notion that she was about to faint.

Miss Brent’s thin arms were tight about Nell’s waist, supporting her. “Miss Trewlove,” she sobbed.

Effie and Miss Jean hurried to assist the girl. Effie’s arm curved around Nell in an iron-fast grip. Miss Jean’s arm came, too, holding Nell up from the opposite side. Their skirts were crushed against one another in a profusion of petticoats and wire crinolines.

“Don’t you dare swoon, Penelope Trewlove,” Miss Jean commanded her.

“I never swoon.” Nell’s knees sagged beneath her. All three ladies caught her up, preventing her from collapsing right there in the alley.

“What the devil do you have in that bag?” Effie asked Miss Jean as they conveyed Nell toward the street.

“My new iron,” Miss Jean said. “Just bought it at the market, too. That lummox’s head better not have put a dent in it.”

Miss Brent cast a terrified look back at Silas. “Did you kill him?”

“He’s not dead, luv,” Miss Jean said. “He’ll come round soon enough. The three of you best be gone when he does.”

“What about you?” Effie asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Miss Jean said. “He didn’t see me. And if he did—”

“The school,” Nell murmured. “Sewing teacher.”

Miss Jean gave her a dubious look. “What? Me?”

“Safe there,” Nell said. “Girls need you.”

Miss Jean scoffed. “Don’t be daft. You know I can’t read.”

“Doesn’t matter. Tell her, Effie—” Nell broke off, overcome by a wave of nausea. She was vaguely aware of the ladies holding her tighter, bearing more of her weight. Miss Brent was weeping.

The carriage rolled up in front of them. Effie’s servants took in the scene with swift alarm. The footman jumped from his perch and sprinted to join them.

“Mrs. Quincey is a trifle lightheaded,” Effie informed him. “Help me get her into the carriage.”

“I’m perfectly all right,” Nell insisted.

And then she fainted.

21

Miles stood beside the fireplace in the drawing room as Flora Brent gave an account of her abduction to Inspector Garrick. In other circumstances, Miles would be listening to her tale as avidly as the policeman was. But not on this occasion.

No.

His attention was entirely fixed on Nell.

He’d returned home early from the office today, after a brief stop at a jeweler’s shop in Bond Street, to find his alarmingly pale wife seated with unnatural stiffness on the drawing room sofa. She hadn’t been alone. Mrs. Royce was with her, along with Gabriel, Inspector Garrick, and (to Miles’s astonishment) the formerly missing Miss Brent.

“She was on the railway platform at Shoreditch Station,” the girl said from her place beside Nell. “A lady in a fine dress. She came up to me all friendly like while I waited to change trains. She asked where I was going and who my people were.”

Inspector Garrick’s pencil paused over the notepad where he’d been recording Miss Brent’s words. “This was Mrs. Pritchard?”

Like Miles and Gabriel, the policeman remained on his feet. Miles suspected it was a consequence of the profound inadequacy they were all feeling. The three of them, poised for action to no avail. It was the ladies who had faced danger today, not them. In the aftermath, the men were powerless. They could do nothing but loom, and pace, and question.

Nothing but try their damnedest not to explode with anger at the risk the women had taken.

Even famously self-controlled Gabriel appeared as though he was a hair’s breadth away from losing his composure. He stood beside his wife as she perched on a chair near Nell, his arms folded and a muscle ticking rhythmically in his cheek.