tried not to tear his hair as he watched Sara’s face as she read, then re-read the note, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She was beautiful even with her hair tousled and her face shiny with sleep.
‘Where was the note?’ Sara asked.
‘In the sitting room. I woke up thirsty, realised I had left the water carafe on the table last night and found the note was propped up against it. Normally I would have slept another hour and a half, perhaps two. It was simply luck that I had forgotten to take the carafe into my room.’
‘So, her Gregory is alive and has come for her and they have run away to marry,’ Sara summarised as she looked up from the note. ‘But why did you come here? I would have expected you to be giving chase.’
‘Because if I were her I would go to ground here, in Sandbay, until her wretched brother had gone galloping off in pursuit to the Border and then I would follow at a safe distance.’
‘That would take strong nerves and a degree of cunning.’
‘Which is why I thought they might be here,’ he confessed. She was the most intelligent woman he knew, one of the most intelligent people, come to that, and she had the nerve to take risks and to think around corners.
Sara regarded him through narrowed eyes and then gave a gasp of laughter. ‘Thank you for the compliment, if that was what it was. They are not here, but Gregory cannot have been in Sandbay long and finding his lodgings might give us a clue.’
‘How do you know how long he has been here?’ he demanded, his suspicions resurfacing.
‘Marguerite’s mood at the concert. Looking back, I can see she was happy, truly happy, not putting a brave face on things as I thought at the time. She must have seen him that day, I think. Oh, what an idiot I am—of course, the man in the library.’ She jumped to her feet and began to pace, her skirts swishing around her, untied ribbons fluttering.
‘One of my customers was upset yesterday because a man with a severely scarred face was in the circulating library. When I went in later and spoke to Mr Makepeace he said that Marguerite had been tearful the day before when she saw this person—and yet she did not mention it to either of us, did she?’ When Lucian shook his head, she nodded. ‘I thought so and it would have been very natural for her to speak of it. She was weeping because it was Gregory and he had been injured, not in revulsion at the sight of a maimed stranger as Mr Makepeace thought, or simply because of heightened sensibilities.
‘I went into the reading room myself, through curiosity, I have to admit, but could only see him against the light, which was no doubt intentional. From where he was sitting he could have heard anyone come in and, if you had entered and he recognised your voice, he would have been able to hide behind his newspaper. I think only one side of his face was injured—my customer referred to him as a Janus—and that also explains something odd that James Makepeace said. “So tragic, under the circumstances.” You told me Gregory was very handsome and James would have thought the disfigurement even worse if it marred such a face. He was wearing an eyepatch.’ She came to a halt in front of him, her face alight with triumph at having worked it all out.
‘He will have trouble disguising that eyepatch, it will make him easier to track down.’ At last something positive.
‘I can discover where he was lodging—but only if you promise me that you are not going to harm him,’ Sara offered.
A moment’s thought brought him to the same conclusion that her reasoning had. ‘I have no need to negotiate on that.’ Lucian ignored the way her brows drew together in a frown. He rather suspected that Sara Harcourt would rarely approve of anything he said that related to his sister. ‘He would have registered with the circulating library if he wanted to use it and I imagine Makepeace knows the town well enough to spot a false address. I will ask him. Where does he live? Over the library?’
For a moment he thought she would defy him, then Sara got to her feet. ‘Let me change and I will come with you, otherwise you will simply go and find a directory and look it up, you stubborn man.’ She tugged the bell pull and when the maid appeared, her face a picture of barely suppressed amazement and speculation, told her to go and wake the cook. ‘Coffee for both of us as soon as possible, then ask her to fry bacon and make sandwiches.’ As the maid scurried out she shrugged and made shooing gestures towards the door. ‘If you have to give chase, you may as well do it with a packet of sandwiches in your pocket. Now, let me change.’
* * *
Cook, it transpired, had been awakened by the noise and was already making up the range and he had hardly finished a scalding cup of coffee when he heard Sara coming down the stairs. Or, rather, he assumed it was her, but the person who walked into the drawing room and took the second cup from the tray was almost unrecognisable.
The slim figure was dressed in a full-skirted, fitted coat of some dull dark blue brocade, high at the neck and split to the waist front and back. Trousers of the same colour tucked into soft leather boots could be glimpsed beneath the skirts and a tight black turban completely covered the hair.
‘I thought it best to dress for travelling,’ Sara said calmly as he tried not to choke on the coffee, his throat closing with a mixture of outrage and desire. ‘This what my mother and I wore to ride in India and we still use it at home in the country. We have to check here first, of course, but if Gregory and Marguerite have fled and you are determined to follow and stop them, she is going to need a female chaperon if we are to contain the scandal. It will obviously be a hard, fast journey.’
Over my dead body, clashed with, That makes some sense. ‘I hardly think that if you are seen dressed like that—’ Lucian began, working out why he actually felt pleasure at the thought of Sara’s company. Which was inexplicable. This was a crisis, a nightmare and most definitely not a pleasure outing.
‘I have a small portmanteau. I assure you, if I am seen with your sister by anyone likely to recognise us I will be dressed with the utmost propriety, but I refuse to go haring about the countryside in stays and trailing skirts.’
A plump woman looked into the room. ‘Shall I begin breakfast now, my lady?’
‘No, thank you, Cook, we have no time. Make bacon sandwiches, pack a flask of cold tea, anything else that you think will be useful and we’ll be back soon.’
‘Anything else that will fit in a curricle,’ Lucian interjected. It seemed he was doomed to have Sara’s company if they did not find the eloping couple in some Sandbay lodging house, but he was damned if he was going in pursuit encumbered with a load of luggage.
The clock struck six and he reined in his impatience. If Farnsworth and Marguerite were on the road, then they had the Lord knew how long a start and fretting over half an hour was not going to help.
‘James lives next door to the library, luckily.’ Sara swung a cloak around her shoulders and pulled up the hood.
* * *
It took ten minutes to reach the librarian’s door which opened, after determined knocking, to reveal a flustered manservant and the admission that Mr Makepeace was in, but most certainly not At Home.
Lucian set his foot against the door and leaned until they were both in the hallway. ‘Kindly give him my card and say that if he cannot join us in five minutes then I will join him.’
In the event Makepeace came down in his robe, his nightcap askew on his head, his face a picture of confusion when he saw Lucian’s companion.
