But it could not be true.
He would not leave.
Not like this.
“One who disappeared once might do so again.”The words nettled her for the hundredth time. Was it possible Simon had returned to Sowerby yesterday? That he had gathered together his children, dismissed the butler, and departed?
But why lock the door?
“My dear, you shall be mere bones if you do not eat more than that.” Mamma waggled her spoon. “Men are entirely more fond of corpulent wives, you know.”
She would never be a wife, so it hardly mattered. “I am not hungry.”
“Tut, tut. Eating is a delightful diversion, whether your appetite calls for it or not.”
Scooting from her chair, Georgina heaped her napkin on the table.
“Excuse me, Mamma. Mr. Lutwidge.”
“Where are you going?”
“Mr. Oswald and I shall be riding together at Hyde Park, as the weather is so pleasing.” Which was not true, of course. Mr. Oswald hadnotagreed to meet her, and the weather was as dreary outside as the foreboding in her heart.
But Mamma only laughed and called her a dear girl, then went back to rubbing spilled marmalade off her fichu.
Georgina hurried upstairs. She found Nellie in Agnes’ old chamber, dusting furniture long untouched, patting the wrinkles away from a bed not slept in for too long.
She tried not to acknowledge how much that niggled at her. If ever she needed Agnes, it was now.
“Hurry and have the carriage prepared, Nellie.”
The maid straightened. “Going out alone, Miss Whitmore?”
“I shall have accompaniment soon.” She hoped. First, she would arrive at Sowerby House and inquire after Simon. She would plead for Mr. Oswald’s assistance.
Then she would begin her own search, with or without him.
Because one way or another, shewouldfind Simon.
She could not lose him the same way twice.
John and Mercy would not understand.
The helplessness of that thought pricked like the thousand needlelike jabs at his face. Everything hurt. He’d lost consciousness sometime in the night—whether from the head injury or exhaustion, he was not certain—but he’d awakened to shocking cold water splashing his face.
The man appeared different in daylight.
Early, pinkish light fell through the cracks of high-boarded windows, gleaming off the brass bucket he slung to the ground. Theping, ping, pingrattled Simon’s brain.
“Sit straight.” In his modest green tailcoat, brown breeches, and worn-but-clean buckled shoes, he seemed more average in appearance than menacing. The sort of man who should be nodding a friendly smile from a church box pew, not stealing away children.
“I said sit straight.”
“What did you do with them?” Simon blinked hard against the frigid water dripping from his face. “I want to know where they are.”
“Where you’ll never see them again, if you don’t do as I say.”
He wiggled straighter. “Who are you?”
