Lucy bit her lip and ventured another question, this one even more muted and shy than the other.
“And General Wallace?”
Just three words, and they had the power to bring a conversation Charlotte had been trying to forget crashing back into her mind.
It had been two weeks since the initial news of Hester’s disappearance, and the general had come over for tea. Lucy came to fetch Charlotte from the garden, where she’d laid aside her copy of Alice Montgomery’s adventures and was penning a letter to someone in northern England in search of Hester’s whereabouts.
“Your General’s here to see you,” Lucy had said with that teasing chatter she always adopted when discussing Lionel.
Charlotte had looked up, unable to banish a feeling of growing annoyance at the frequency of the man’s visits. “You can show him back in a few minutes. I’m finishing something important here.”
“Something more important than me?” There was his voice, rich and serious, and it had jerked her back to reality at once.
“I didn’t know you were there,” she’d stuttered.
“I followed your sister out; I couldn’t wait to see you.” He’d cleared his throat, shifted from foot to foot until Lucy finally took the hint and scampered off to leave the couple alone. When at last he spoke again his words had been strained. “Lady Charlotte, I feel I’ve hardly seen you these past few weeks.”
“I’ve been occupied in the search for my cousin.”
“Yes, the matter of missing Hester Russell.” She’d hated the way he waved his hand like he was dismissing an annoying fly that kept reoccurring in his sphere. “It has taken so much of your time as of late.”
“As it is taking up no one else’s time, I thought the sacrifice of a few of my own hours was well worth it.”
“You are offended.” His voice had barely masked his frustration.
She’d sighed, stood up from the garden bench, and laid her letter to the side. “It seems I am easily offended as of late.”
“I just feel as though I rarely see you, and when I do there is much standing between us.”
There was always much standing between us, even before this latest development. She’d swallowed hard. “That’s not what I want.”
He’d turned his hat in his hands, studying the brim as though it alone offered him the answers to the riddle that was Charlotte Livingston’s heart. “I came here today to discuss the matter of our impending marriage. The engagement was announced almost a month ago today, and I cannot see any reason why we should not move forward with the ceremony and marriage summarily.
There is no reason to have a long engagement, not when we know that we are well suited and we live in close enough proximity to avoid difficulty with planning the logistics. It is my understanding that young ladies such as yourself indulge in frequent trips to town to choose a wedding tailor; visits to the village to determine a venue; questions with the parson to ensure the ceremony is standard. You have done none of these things.”
“What are you saying?”
“Is there any reason you can think of to delay our wedding?”
Charlotte had wracked her brain and was for a moment frozen by the one thought she knew she couldn’t say aloud: because I do not want to be with you. It was a childish thought, she knew, the kind of whimsy that dairy maids could entertain but was denied to women of wealth and status. In the end, her eyes had fallen on the letter and she’d blurted out, “I want to marry you, really I do, but not now. Not until I have found Hester and done away with all the mystery surrounding her disappearance.”
“How does that in any way relate to our wedding?”
“It’s a matter of my heart and mind being otherwise engaged in a time and place where they ought to be present,” she’d answered, honestly enough. “It would give me much peace of mind to put the matter to rest. Then I can focus fully on everything that lies ahead—our marriage, our union before God and man, and our life together.”
Now, remembering the conversation in the safety of her bedroom, months after the fact, Charlotte found herself dropping her gaze from Lucy’s enquiring stare. “I already told you,” she said softly. “General Wallace has graciously agreed to postpone the wedding until the matter of Hester’s disappearance has been solved.”
“And he’s alright with that?” Lucy asked, her young face betraying the same suspicion that Charlotte felt in her heart.
“He has agreed,” Charlotte said in reply. “And that is enough for me.”
“I heard Mama last night,” Lucy said, sobering considerably, “and she would probably beg to differ with you. At least, she would ask whether you were enough for him.”
“One day very soon,” Charlotte said, walking back to the mirror and running her fingers through her wild red curls, “you will understand what it is to court and marry a man so closely interwoven with the fabric of your family and the attentions of society. It seems like it is everything that a girl would want, but it is in fact the quickest way to disappoint everyone in your sphere in a single blow.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy asked, and Charlotte could see with a single glance that she meant the question innocently enough.
“Never mind,” Charlotte said. She left the mirror and walked behind the screen that unfolded nearby to block her from the rest of the room. She slipped out of her nightgown and into a corset and undergarments, putting each on as quickly as she could. Lucy slipped behind and helped with the buttons, lacing up the back of the gown.
“I’m glad to see you’re at least making an attempt at making yourself presentable,” Lucy said. “Mama says that she’ll take me into town for a new bonnet if I will wait and travel with her next week.”
Charlotte was amazed, as always, that Lucy could turn so quickly from serious topics to matters of lace and style. She bit her lip and tried to remember that her sister was younger, and therefore could not be expected to have a mature view of the world, not as of yet at least.
“I am going to get dressed,” she said quickly, putting up her arms to shrug into a pale green dress with simple styling and sleeves down to her wrists. “But only because I’m running into town to do business today. Lucy, I know you mean well by coming up here to intervene and entreating me to leave the business of Hester’s disappearance behind, but I can’t do it. I can’t abandon her. I will try to rejoin the family and make social appearances so that you don’t feel as responsible for me, but I won’t stop searching until I find her.”
Lucy finished buttoning the last button and then followed Charlotte back to the mirror while Charlotte twisted her hair into a simple bun and pinned it with pearl-studded pins.
“Alright,” she said at last, her voice uncharacteristically cowed. “I can’t stop you from searching. I wish I could help, really I do …” her voice trailed off, then after a moment’s silence, she added, “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Don’t worry about searching on your own,” Charlotte said, putting the last pin in her hair. “I know that it’s a strange obsession I’ve begun on, and I wouldn’t want to bring you down with me.”
Chapter 4
“Ewan Sinclair.”
Charlotte looked up from her breakfast to see Lucy’s hand in front of her, slamming down a scrap of paper with a name and address scribbled on it. Lucy was standing across from her, dressed as usual in pink, but this time she had a little cloak around her shoulders.
“Were you out walking before breakfast?” Charlotte asked in surprise. Then, as a delayed response, “What do you mean, ‘Ewan Sinclair?’”
Lucy looked as though she was about to respond, but then Lord and Lady Pembleton entered the breakfasting room together and Charlotte saw her sister’s face fall as quickly as it had peaked in interest.
“Girls, you certainly made it down early this morning,” Sir Francis said, as he did every morning. Most mornings Lady Pembleton took her breakfast in bed, but without fail Charlotte and Lucy were in the breakfast room
before their father.
Charlotte looked up, as she always did, and said indulgently, “The sun was too inviting to stay in bed, Father.”
It was at this point that Lucy always added, “Mama says it’s polite to know when to deny an invitation as well as when to receive one, Lottie,” but this morning she was conspicuously silent, only slipping into place beside Charlotte and reaching absent-mindedly for the teapot. As she did so, Charlotte noticed her take the scrap of paper with the name back into her hand.
Charlotte turned to her with a question in her eyes, but Lucy only gave the slightest of nods indicating the need for silence, and Charlotte took the hint.
“You still have your cloak on, Lucille—” Lady Pembleton levelled a strict glance at the offending garment. “Is that really appropriate at the table? And why were you out walking early in the morning anyway?”
Lucy looked like a trapped mouse. “I was …I was …”
You were … clearly bad at lying. Charlotte gave a bright smile. “She was running an errand for me in town. We can speak of it more later. Father, did you hear anything about the overturn in the county government? I heard that the vicar was looking for a way to lobby in London for more fair estate taxes, but apparently the whole thing has been sidelined over a boundary dispute.”
In truth, Charlotte had only heard bits and pieces of an argument some servants had been having the day before, but she’d put all the phrases into one sentence and hoped they made sense to her father. He did what he always did when posed with a political problem—he folded his hands so that the fingertips touched and he put them under his chin, thoughtful and composed.
“Well, Charlotte,” he said grandly. “I think you mean to say that the boundary dispute stopped up discussion at present, but the whole thing was sidelined before it even began because of a bill in the House of Lords.”
“Yes, Father,” Charlotte said, taking a small bite of the soft-boiled egg perched in a ceramic container on her plate, “Please, tell me more about that.”
And there was no more discussion of Lucy’s attire. She slipped the cloak from her shoulders so that it fell out of sight on the back of the chair and the slip of paper remained safely in her hands. Breakfast passed without anything else out of the ordinary, and when the family had risen to go about their daily duties—Lord Pembleton to his study, Lady Pembleton to her solar upstairs—the two sisters slipped out of the house and to the garden where they could speak in private.
“Now what is this all about?” Charlotte asked, peering at her little sister with new respect. “You’re not the sort to engage in cloak and dagger dealings of any sort.”
“I’ve never understood that phrase,” Lucy said with a comical wrinkle of her forehead, “but I can tell you exactly what’s going on. I was thinking after our conversation last week that you deserved more than our family’s indifference on the subject of Hester’s disappearance. More than that, I care about Hester too. If what you’re saying is true, and there’s even the remotest possibility that she was taken by force and kidnapped, then I think we both owe it to her to do everything in our power to find her.”
Charlotte opened her eyes wide in surprise, but before she could interject, Lucy thrust the scrap of paper back into her hand and rushed on. “That brings me to the case of Ewan Sinclair. I was in town two days ago trying to post a letter to a friend regarding Hester’s whereabouts, and I found an advertisement pinned to the post office wall. It talked about a man who was well-known for his ability to find lost people.” Lucy paused, her face pale. “I thought about everything you were doing for Hester, and I thought it best if I tried to be brave as well. I took down the address and wrote an enquiring letter to see what services the man offered. Today I received a response.”
“A letter?”
“Yes.” Lucy pulled a second piece of paper from the sash at her waist and held it out to her sister. “It wasn’t written by the gentleman himself, but by another man by the name of Ambrose Townshend. He appears to be some sort of partner. You can read the letter, but I’ll tell you nonetheless what he said. Apparently this Ewan Sinclair has a reputation for being a notorious wanderer and adventurer. He’s travelled the world undertaking tasks for wealthy clients—do you remember last February when Madame Helene, the opera singer from France, lost her ruby at the grand theatre in London? He found it for her and turned the culprit in. He’s very brave, and works mostly through word of mouth and recommendations.”
“And an advertisement in the post office,” Charlotte said wryly.
Lucy shifted nervously. “Well, that was put up by his partner, hence his partner responding to the note and not himself. I’m not sure Mr Sinclair knows of the advertisement.”
“Well, there’s nothing so reliable as a gentleman of business who doesn’t know what his own partner is doing behind his back,” Charlotte said. “Did you ask around at all—other than the partner’s letter—to learn more of Mr Sinclair’s reputation.”
Lucy nodded. “I did, even before I got a letter in response. The milliner knew of him and the book keeper as well.”
“Mr Williams?”
“Yes, and they both corroborate the story we read here in the letter. Mr Williams warned against him, though. He said he’s an unmarried adventurer, and very wild. He seems to have no care at all for the dictates of society, and has gone on any number of journeys that ended in tragedy. There was even a shipwreck, I believe.”
Charlotte couldn’t keep the interested smile from her face. “Now we’re talking about a legitimate solution,” she said.
“You’re only saying that because I told you he doesn’t care for the dictates of society. You’re a rebel at heart, Lottie.”
“It’s Charlotte,” Charlotte corrected her, “and that’s rich ridicule coming from a girl that didn’t undertake to find her cousin until I explicitly told her it wasn’t necessary.”
Lucy blushed, apparently hearing the approval in Charlotte’s tone despite the teasing in her words. “So you think it’s a good idea? I wasn’t sure I should tell you. Mama and Father would hate it, you know. It’s rumoured that Mr Sinclair is of a very low background.”
“If that is the case, and he has still managed to do all that you say to raise himself above his upbringing, then I can only imagine he has had to rely on his wit and courage,” Charlotte said. “That makes me like him all the more and trust him as much as one can trust a stranger one has never met.” She nodded, feeling more certain of herself. “I would like to meet him at your earliest convenience.”
Lucy took a few steps backwards. “No, Lott—I mean, Charlotte—I didn’t mean for you to meet up with him. Who do you take me for? I thought you would want to bring his name to Father and have him arrange a meeting with the man. I would never think of you going, as a single woman, to meet with an unmarried adventurer. It’s scandalous.”
“When meeting with a gentleman who cares not for the dictates of society, one ought not to squabble over them too much oneself,” Charlotte said with a light laugh. Then, seeing that her sister’s face was still stricken with worry, she added quickly, “But I’m serious, Lucy. No harm will come from me meeting the man, and much harm could come from you telling Father. You know that he will not go through with any part of this plan, not when he thinks Hester is just a rebellious daughter trying to prove her worthy in a cruel world. No, he will dismiss it at once, and then you will have ruined any chances for us to meet with this Ewan Sinclair. He will be on to us, as it were.”
Lucy shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, Charlotte.”
A Lady's Perfect Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 30
