“With a man she met only the day before she fled with him,” Alexander said, his voice unusually harsh.

Abigail moaned again.

“Perhaps she knew him, Alex,” Elizabeth said.

“Does that make the situation any more acceptable?” he asked.

“Alex.” Abigail was gripping the edge of the table and gazing steadily at him from a face that was even paler than it had been before but was set in stubborn lines now. “I will not allow anyone to stand in judgment upon my mother, not even you. You may be the head of the Westcott family, but strictly speaking, Mama is not and never has been a Westcott. And even if she were . . . Oh, even if she were, I agree with Joel.”

Joel gripped her shoulder again and Elizabeth patted her hand.

“I am sorry, Abigail,” Alexander said, running the fingers of one hand through his hair. “You are perfectly right. So is Joel. I am sorry. Wren would say I am reverting to my natural self. I always want to manage and protect those close to me, especially the women. Wren has been good for me, though I often need reminding. But let us go and find your mother.”

“Where?” she asked.

They decided upon the road to London and wasted a day and a half traveling east, stopping at every likely inn and tavern and even a few unlikely ones to ask if anyone had seen a shiny new black carriage with yellow trim and a fair-haired lady of middle years and a tall, dark gentleman. But though several people had seen carriages of a different color or design or trim conveying a gentleman and a lady—or, in one instance, two ladies and a child—none of them were helpful.

“Someone must have seen them,” Joel said when they stopped for a change of horses and a late luncheon. “It is impossible that they could have traveled so far in total invisibility.”

“I have been reaching the same conclusion,” Elizabeth said. “They did not come this way.”

There was always the chance, of course, that someone at the very next village or town would remember, but they had been playing that game all morning.

“It was my suggestion that we come this way,” Alexander said. “Now it is my suggestion that we go back and take a different road. Does anyone disagree?”

No one did.

It took them less time to return to the town where Viola had last been seen, but even so it seemed an endless journey. This time when they arrived there, though, they had better luck. The ostler whose day off had coincided with their last stop there was on duty again, and he recalled the coachman of the new rig saying that they were headed for the west country. The coachman had made a particular point of it because he had hoped they were not going to London, a noisy, filthy, smelly place he had been to only once and hoped never to go to again.

And so Alexander’s carriage set off at last in the right direction, though west country was a vague enough description of a destination. It could be Somerset or Devonshire or Cornwall or Wales, or even Gloucestershire. They had to proceed, as they had before, by stopping far more frequently than they would have liked, asking about the carriage and its occupants. At least this time, though, their questions bore results. By gradual degrees they arrived in Devonshire.

“We could have traveled just as fast,” Joel said in some frustration one afternoon, “if we had boarded a snail in Bath and told it to move at its briskest pace.”

“But we would have been a bit crowded riding on its back,” Elizabeth said, a twinkle in her eye.

“And the shell would have made a hard seat,” Alexander added. “As far as I know, there are no springs beneath snail shells.”

“I have never seen any for hire in Bath, anyway” Abigail said. “You would have had to go hunting for one, Joel.”

But in truth it was hard to retain their sense of humor when they seemed to have been traveling forever and still did not know when or whether they would reach their journey’s end—or what they would discover when or if they got there.

She has run away with a man, Abigail kept thinking. Whatever will Camille think? And Harry if he ever finds out? Harry would kill the man.

Twice over.

* * *

• • •

The carriage from Redcliffe was several days behind the Earl of Riverdale’s to start with, though it did gradually narrow the gap. At first the search was slow and André regretted not having insisted upon bringing his brother’s carriage or at least his coachman. He did not find it as easy as he expected to recognize the place where he had left Marcel. Most villages looked essentially alike to him, and he had not observed scenery and landmarks with the sort of attention he would have paid them if he had known he would have to find his way back. When they finally reached the right one, however, he recognized it with some relief and knocked on the front panel to signal the coachman to stop outside the inn at the end of the street.

The Marquess of Dorchester was no longer there, of course, and never had been there under that name. But the innkeeper recognized André and was able to inform him that Mr. Lamarr had indeed stayed there—and had left the next morning with Miss Kingsley.

André wished he had settled the ladies, and perhaps Bertrand too, in the dining room before he asked his questions.

“What?” Jane Morrow said. “And who, may I ask, is Miss Kingsley? Bertrand, take your sister into one of these rooms behind us if you will. She will be ready for some refreshment.”

But it was too late to shield them from looming scandal. Neither twin moved.

“She is an acquaintance of his,” André explained. “And of mine. A perfectly respectable lady, Jane. I daresay she gave him a ride to somewhere where he could hire a carriage for his own use since I had taken his.”

Jane was not about to question her brother-in-law’s ramshackle brother while the innkeeper was an interested spectator—or in the hearing of her niece and nephew. But her mind reeled. Why exactly had Dorchester sent his brother and his carriage out of the way? And who exactly was this woman André insisted was respectable? Was it respectable to take a man who was not one’s husband up into one’s carriage? And had they both spent the night at the inn? In separate rooms? Oh, she ought to have locked the twins in their rooms at home and embarked on this journey with Charles and André.

The innkeeper was able to direct them to the town where Miss Kingsley’s hired carriage had been bound.

“But where did he go from there?” Estelle asked of no one in particular. “Why did he not come home, as he had promised he would?”

Jane could think of one excellent reason, but she held her peace.

André rubbed the side of his nose with one finger and held his peace too.

“I daresay something happened to make him change his mind, Stell,” Bertrand said. “Maybe we will find out what that is when we reach that town.”

Jane Morrow looked at André with narrowed eyes while the twins climbed into the carriage again. “You knew about that woman,” she said quietly enough not to be overheard by her nephew and niece. “You ought not to have brought them here. I suppose it did not occur to you that it was highly improper to do so. You are no better than your brother.”

“Oh, I say,” he said indignantly. “I did not bring them here. I had no wish to come here at all. It stood to reason that Marcel would be long gone. They brought me.”

“We really have no choice now,” she said, raising her voice to address the twins inside the carriage, “but to return home and wait for your father there. He will come in his own good time. He always does.”