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“This one should do, ma’am.” The maid held up a pink muslin.
“Fine.” Arabella snatched it from her. “Let’s get on with it.”
She made quick work of the water in the basin and was tearing off her day dress before she even towelled her face dry. The maid helped her into Grace’s dress, but she frowned at the reflection in the mirror.
“I look rather different in this dress than I am sure you do,” Arabella said.
Her bosom strained the thin material, and so did her hips. The buttons wouldn’t do up in the back. Grace had a coltish elegance that Arabella decidedly did not have. Sighing, she took the shawl that Grace offered her and wrapped it around her shoulders to cover the worst of it. “I’m ready.”
They left the bedchamber and slipped down the stairs. Arabella was relieved to discover that she had been right in her assumption that as a houseguest, Grace could access another entrance to the ballroom, without going through the main door where the butler announced everyone’s name.
Arabella saw Caroline at once. Even in a room of a hundred people, she could pick out the tinkle of her laugh.
“Good luck,” Grace said, and squeezed her hand.
“Thank you.” She straightened her shoulders and set out for the Reeves.
“Arabella! I didn’t expect to see you.” Caroline’s face brightened when she saw her, and Arabella felt a pulse of gratification when her eyes strayed down to where Grace’s dress pulled tight against her body. She looked at Arabella as if she was the most beautiful woman in the room, despite her too-small dress and her barely presentable hair, and Arabella’s heart finally settled back into place from where it had tumbled out of her chest when they last saw each other.
“I need to speak with you at once.” Arabella nodded to Jacob. “Alone, if you will.”
Jacob looked taken aback, no doubt at her tone. She had never spoken to any of the Reeves so crisply.
“Of course.” He left them.
“Bell—”
Arabella cut her short. “I don’t know how much time we have. Where are your sisters?”
“Susan is there with Lady Margaret. Betsy was here with me a few minutes ago, but I’m not sure where she is now. Why?”
“I overheard Mr. Taylor today at the post office. He was saying…well, I am worried that he might take advantage of one of your sisters to force her hand in marriage.”
“No!” Caroline gasped.
“I’m afraid so. You were right from the beginning not to trust him, Caroline. You were right about everything.” She explained how Mr. Taylor had fleeced Jacob and was planning to take the biggest dowry he could from the Reeves.
“We need to find Betsy,” Caroline said, looking around wildly.
They drew Jacob and Susan to the side of the room first and Arabella told them what she suspected. Jacob was in a towering rage, and Susan paled.
Arabella took Susan’s hand. “It’s going to work out and we will find your sister, but we need your help.”
Caroline drew in a deep breath. It was past time that she trusted her family in a crisis, and they needed all the help they could get. “Arabella and I will search the house, and you two should look around the terrace and the garden. You know the estate well enough from visiting over the years.”
“I will find the wretch and tear him limb from limb,” Jacob vowed, his voice seething with rage.
He strode outside with Susan beside him.
“You take this side of the ballroom and I’ll take the other,” Arabella said, “and we shall meet in the middle.”
Caroline nodded, and they fanned out.
Arabella scanned dozens of guests and peeped behind curtains and into alcoves but didn’t see Betsy. She met up with Caroline in the center of the ballroom. Caroline shook her head.
“Where could she have gone?” Arabella asked.
“You know her as well as I do,” Caroline said. “Betsy could be anywhere.”
