“I do not think it was guests,” Joanna replied solemnly, stretching out her hand. In it, she clutched a letter. “I never sleep well alone, so… I thought I would go and sleep beside Ellen. She… was not there. Her bed was made. I found this on the bedside table.”
Phoebe took the letter, slowly unfurling from her sleepy fog. “Light a candle for me, would you?”
Joanna obeyed, taking a spill from the jar on the side table and lighting it from the fireplace, cradling her hand around the flame so it would not sputter. As she touched it to the candle, the sudden flare of light cast the true nature of Joanna’s frightened demeanor into stark view. That, in turn, speared dread into Phoebe’s stomach.
“What is this?” Phoebe frowned at the strange words written on the paper—the secret language the twins had crafted when they were still girls. “I cannot read this. What does it say?”
Joanna shook her head. “I did not know this would happen. I thought it was innocent. She told me it was innocent. She said they were just getting to know one another, and that I should not say anything because you would not approve.” She licked her dry lips, wringing her hands urgently. “They went for a walk in the gardens together last night. I… knew where she was when she was missing, but… I did not know this would happen. You must believe me.”
“Joanna, what does it say?” Phoebe pressed with a vehemence that startled them both.
Joanna dropped her chin to her chest, shaking from head to toe. “She has absconded. The entire charade of her being inebriated was a trick so you would put her to bed and think all was well.” Her voice quivered. “She has left with him. They are on their way to Gretna Green and intend to be married.”
“Left with whom?” Phoebe urged, though she suspected she already knew.
Ellen’s pretend inebriation was not the only trick that had been used. Pretending to be asleep in plain view was an almost perfect ruse, too.
Joanna swallowed loudly. “The Baron of Harburgh.” She paused, lifting her gaze. “She told me they were just becoming acquainted. She swore that was all it was. I tried to dissuade her, but she begged me to let her meet with him in secret while we have been here at the manor. I could not see the harm, and she seemed so happy, so I… kept her secret. I did not know.”
Phoebe sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth as memories of the previous night flooded her mind. Words that Ellen had spoken that seemed innocuous, now bitterly obvious.
“You deserve to be happy and to find love, just like Joanna and me. You deserve to search for it, as we have been allowed to.”
Whether Ellen had said all of those things about Daniel and Phoebe as a method of distracting her older sister, or whether she had spoken so boldly because she knew she would not be there to see what happened and truly wanted everyone to be happy, Phoebe neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was getting Ellen back before it transformed into a scandal.
“Get dressed,” Phoebe said, throwing back the coverlets. “Do not summon a maid. Dress yourself and meet me on the front steps in ten minutes.”
Joanna did not move. “What are we going to do, Phoebe? She will… be ruined.”
“We stay calm, we get dressed, we meet downstairs in ten minutes, and we chase after her,” Phoebe replied. “All is not lost, Joanna. Not yet, and, my goodness, I am not letting that weasel have her.”
Joanna nodded. “Are you angry with me?”
“We shall speak of that later.” Phoebe padded over to her armoire. “Now, back to your chambers. There is no time to waste. We might yet catch them before they get too far ahead.”
Finally, Joanna turned and hurried out of the room.
The moment she was gone, Phoebe braced her palm against the armoire and bent at the waist, sucking in deep breaths to steady herself. Nausea churned in her stomach, her head pounding, terrified that something else Ellen had said might turn out to be true.
“Maybe you are not the protector that you have always been to us.”
“You will not ruin her, Lord Harburgh,” she hissed. “I will not fail.”
A foggy dawn spilled dusky light, the exact color of Phoebe’s eyes, across the gardens of Westyork Manor. The household was fast asleep, and the last of the guests had departed, bleary-eyed, in their carriages, but one figure remained awake, sitting in the crook of the cedar bough.
Daniel had not bothered retiring to his chambers, aware that he would not be able to sleep a wink after the night’s events. He had not even realized that his feet were carrying him to the cedar tree, but as soon as he climbed up and swung himself into the very position where Phoebe had once sat, a calm had come over him. It was peaceful in the gardens. It did not help him to think clearly, but it did help him to not think at all.
“You could not find someone else?”Phoebe’s words drifted back with the rising sunlight.
He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath of the cold morning air.
I should. I have placed my bet on Joanna, but… perhaps it is too cruel.
“What am I to do?” he whispered to the songbirds who had begun their sweet chorus. “How do I proceed without causing pain to—”
A cough interrupted his spoken thoughts, catching him in the back of the throat. It began as a tickle, swelling into something altogether more violent, each cough squeezing his lungs, making it harder to catch his next breath. He banged on his chest, his eyes bulging, panic shuddering through him as he hacked and spluttered uncontrollably.
Just when he thought he might suffocate, he swallowed. The motion cleared his throat for a moment, long enough for him to gulp down a deep breath. It did not immediately hold back the coughing fit, but it allowed him air once more. And slowly but surely, the coughsdidsubside, the tickle dulling to an odd sensation as if he had a tiny piece of bread stuck in his throat.
