The Earl of Riverdale’s carriage made excellent progress after it left Bath and arrived without incident at the town where Viola had last been seen. They did not have the name of the inn at which the hired coachman had set down his passengers, it was true, but it did not take them long to find it. They were there by the middle of the evening.
The innkeeper remembered the two passengers concerned, a lady and a gentleman. He did not remember their name, however, if he had ever heard it. They had not taken a room and therefore had not signed the register. The reason he remembered was that the gentleman had made inquiries about the hire of a carriage, and there had been one here, a perfectly decent one. Far more decent than the one in which they had arrived, that was for sure. But the gentleman had gone off into the town anyway to look for something better and had come back with a spanking new carriage and horses—and even a coachman to drive it. The gentleman’s wife had remained at the inn, drinking coffee in the private parlor. The innkeeper had no idea where they had gone once they left. Perhaps one of the ostlers who had been on duty then would remember, or perhaps the maid who had served the lady had heard something. But she was off duty now.
The group from Bath took rooms for the night, and after an early breakfast the following morning Joel and Alexander went into the town while Abigail and Elizabeth had another cup of coffee in the private parlor and questioned the serving girl, who had been sent in by the innkeeper. She was looking pale and saucer eyed as she curtsied.
“Yes, I do remember her, my lady,” she said, addressing herself to Elizabeth. “She was waiting for the gentleman to return. But I do not remember their name. I don’t think she said.”
“She left no message?” Elizabeth asked hopefully.
If the girl hesitated for a moment, neither of her two listeners noticed or made anything of it. “No, my lady,” she said while her hands twisted the sides of her apron—the new one that had cost her so dearly out of her wages. “But she wouldn’t have left one with me anyway. I only brought the coffee. You could ask at the desk.”
“She did not arrive home that day or any day since,” Abigail explained, “and we are worried about her.”
“If you are worried about her, miss,” the maid asked, frowning, “how is it you do not know her name?”
“I do know it,” Abigail said. “She is my mother. It is the gentleman whose name we do not know.”
“Ohhh,” the girl said as understanding dawned—and with it gossip for the kitchen when she returned there.
“I daresay he was either her brother or her cousin,” Elizabeth said with a swift glance at Abigail, who had flushed and was biting her lip. “Both live not far from here. And it would be so typical of either one of them not to think of letting us know.”
“Yes, it would,” Abigail added. “Especially Uncle Ernest. I am sure you are right, Cousin Elizabeth.”
The girl withdrew to the kitchen, but she did not after all share the juicy piece of gossip she had just acquired. She was feeling even more sick than she had felt when she discovered that the letters with which the lady had entrusted her had turned to pulp in the laundry tub. Obviously they had been important letters. That terribly haughty, frightening-looking gentleman who had been with the lady was not her husband, as she and everyone else had assumed, and the maid did not for a moment believe the brother-or-cousin story. Why would he have wanted a new carriage and horses if he lived close by, after all? No, the lady had been running away with him, whoever he was. Though she had written to someone—to two persons actually—probably so they would not worry about her.
It did not take Joel and Alexander long to discover where the mysterious gentleman had bought his carriage and horses. He had offered employment to his new coachman at the same place. But even the seller of the carriage did not know the gentleman’s name or where he had been intending to go with the carriage. No one at the inn knew the answer to either question either, though none of the ostlers thought to mention the one who was absent because it was his day off. No one could recall even the direction the carriage had taken when it left the inn.
“North, south, east, or west,” Alexander said when he and Joel had returned to the parlor. “We can take our pick.”
“And all points in between,” Elizabeth added while her brother grimaced.
“Who was he?” Abigail set her elbows on the table and cupped her hands over her face. “Who is he? And why was she with him? Where were they going? Why did she not write? Why has she not written since?”
They were rhetorical questions. She did not expect an answer. None of them would have had any to offer even if she had. Joel patted her shoulder while he exchanged grim glances with Alexander.
“London seems the most likely destination,” Alexander suggested.
“Oh, do you think so, Alex?” Elizabeth was frowning in thought. “It would seem to me the most unlikely place Viola would agree to go. She has shunned it for two years, except for that brief visit earlier this year for your wedding. And she could not leave fast enough afterward even though we all tried to persuade her to stay longer.”
“Where, then?” he asked.
But she had no better suggestion to offer.
“She was the same in Bath after Jacob’s christening,” Joel said. “She could not leave fast enough. She has been smothered in love ever since . . . since Anna was summoned to London and everything changed for so many of us.”
“Smothered?” Abigail lowered her hands and turned a pale, frowning face on her brother-in-law.
“Yes, I think it is the right word,” he said. “All anyone has been able to think to do is reach out to her, and to you and Camille too, Abby, with assurances that you are all still loved and still an integral part of the Westcott family. Perhaps I can see a bit more clearly than any of you because I came from the outside quite recently. You did not all react the same way. Camille steeled her nerve and marched off to the orphanage to teach where Anna had taught, determined to remake herself and her world. Anna steeled her nerve and stepped into the world of the ton, so alien to a girl who grew up in an orphanage. She even had the courage to fall in love with Avery and marry him. I am not sure about you, Abby. But unlike Camille and Anna, your mother has not charged forward to best these changes. She has kept herself to herself. She has been stifled. I have seen it. The whole family has been concerned about her, but everyone’s answer has been simply to love her more.”
“Which has stifled her instead,” Abigail said quietly.
“Love is not enough?” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “Oh, how wretchedly complex life is. It ought to be simple. Love ought to solve all problems. But of course it does not. The trouble is . . . what else is there except love?”
“There is giving her some space,” Joel said.
“Space,” Alexander repeated, pouring himself lukewarm coffee from the pot, which was still on the table. “You mean anywhere in the world that is not Hinsford or Bath, Joel?”
Abigail moaned and set a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, we certainly need to find her, for our own peace of mind,” Joel said. “But once we do and can assure ourselves beyond any doubt that she is safe and where she wishes to be, then we ought to allow her to remain there untroubled. Don’t you all agree?”