From Papa, profiting from the new docks made sense. He’d never understood how much Gatewell and St Katharine’s meant to her, and working to increase the company’s profits was simply how he strove to protect his family. To him, the company’s future was the family’s future.
But Robert wasn’t some mindless soldier blindly following her father’s orders. He had more resolve than any other man she’d ever known, certainly enough to stand up to Papa about this project. She’d been convinced that he’d understood what this place meant to her. He’d lost a parent himself, knew what grief could do. She thought she’d come to know him…but apparently, she hadn’t known him at all.
No. She knew exactly what he was.
He was the devil, and she’d let him take her soul.
“Mariah, oh thank goodness you’re here!”
She opened her eyes and stared through the watery blurriness as Mrs. Smith hurried down the basement hallway. Mariah couldn’t answer for fear of breaking into fresh sobs.
The housekeeper stopped suddenly and stared at her. Her lips pressed together at the sight of her red-rimmed eyes and puffy nose, and her face softened sympathetically. “So you’ve heard already, then?”
Confusion added to the swirling emotions inside her. “Pardon?”
“Evelyn.” Worry darkened the older woman’s face. “I just received her note.”
With a stab of dread, she shoved herself away from the wall. What had her sister done now? “About what?”
Mrs. Smith blinked, now confused herself. “You don’t know?” Deep worry wrinkled her brow. “But your tears—”
“Aren’t important.” The last thing she wanted to do was explain why she was crying. “What’s happened?”
Mrs. Smith fished the note from her apron pocket and gave it to Mariah, then lowered her voice for fear of being overheard, “She’s run off.”
Oh God. Mariah quickly unfolded the note and scanned the message. With every word her heart fell further toward the floor. “To Scotland to elope,” she whispered, in her shock unable to speak any louder.
“To run off like that…” Mrs. Smith twisted her hands in her apron as she fretted with worry. “It’s not like her.”
Unfortunately, it was exactly like Evie. To follow her heart and leap without looking. But this leap might just ruin her life.
“Mariah!” Whitby’s voice boomed through the school as he charged down the steps into the basement. He hurried toward her, concern for her plastered all over his ruddy face, now made even more red from chasing after her all the way from Wapping. “Are you all right? You ran out before I could—”
“It’s Evelyn,” she interrupted. She couldn’t bear to face Whitby’s pity now. She pressed the note into his hand. “She’s run off with Burton Williams.”
“Williams?” He stiffened with surprise. “That fortune hunter? But surely he knows that Evelyn doesn’t have a dowry.”
“No, I don’t think he does.” Or that Papa expected his sons-in-law to work for their money. Burton Williams was not the kind of man who seemed willing to work for anything. Including a wife, apparently, when he could simply steal her. “She’s making a terrible mistake.” She looked frantically between Mrs. Smith and Whitby as the helplessness raged inside her. “We have to stop them!”
Mrs. Smith interjected. “We’ll tell your father, and he can send a man after them.”
Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “They’ve already been gone half a day.” Which was exactly why Evie had sent the note to the school instead of to the house, so that Mariah wouldn’t learn of what she’d done until it was too late to stop her. She rubbed her forehead and groaned in frustration. “By the time Papa sends someone after her, they’ll be halfway across England and impossible to catch.”
“I’ll go after her, then,” Whitby piped up, the bravado of his words undercut by the uncertainty on his face. “I’ll take my phaeton and catch up with her—”
“And throw another unmarried gentleman into the mix?” Mariah shook her head. “Her reputation would never recover, then.”
“It won’t recover at all if we don’t stop her one way or another,” Mrs. Smith muttered worriedly.
Whitby pleaded, “Which is why you have to let me go after her.”
Her head swam with worry, her own troubles with Robert pushed aside. For now. All that mattered at this moment was saving her sister from making the biggest mistake of her life. And there was no way to stop her, unless—“I’m coming with you!”
Mrs. Smith gasped, appalled at the idea. “Absolutely not! The last thing we need is for your reputation to be ruined on top of Evelyn’s.”
“I don’t signify in this.” A stab of guilt pierced her chest. She was already ruined, her heart past saving. “But if anyone finds out that Evelyn ran away, I’ll never forgive myself if I could have stopped her but didn’t.”
“Then I’ll come, too.” Mrs. Smith’s lips pressed into a determined line. “I’ll be your chaperone, and then no one can say that you two girls did anything improper.”
“We’ll take my father’s carriage,” Whitby offered, already running down the hall toward the door. “He’s got the sleekest coach and six in London. I’ll fetch it and be back in less than an hour. We’ll catch them before they reach Leicester!”
An hour later, all three of them had settled into the coach and set out toward the Great North Road. There hadn’t been time to pack anything more than one bag of essentials between the two women, and in his rush to be the chivalric hero, Whitby hadn’t thought to bring anything with him at all. But even in their hurry to leave and her anger at her father, Mariah made certain to have Whitby send word home that they were chasing after Evelyn. He hadn’t had time to scrawl out more than a few sentences, but it would be enough to put Papa’s fears at ease until she could send a more detailed message herself from one of the posting inns. And put enough distance between them to keep Evie safe from the brunt of Papa’s anger until it was all over and she was tucked safely back into her room in Mayfair. This time, Mariah was certain, it would be back to Miss Pettigrew’s for both of them.
Mariah leaned against the squabs and tried to concentrate on the city passing outside the window. But her thoughts were racing too wildly for her to calm her pounding heart or put at ease the dread weighing upon her chest.
“Are you all right, Mariah?” Whitby asked, his long face drawn with concern.
She nodded. “We’ll catch up with them before they reach Gretna Green. They’ll have to stop every hour or so.” A wry smile tugged grimly at her lips. “Evelyn can’t travel far without having to use the necessary.”
“No,” he corrected gently. “I meant about Carlisle.”
Her body flashed numb at the mention of Robert, then a thousand pins pricked at her as the numbness eased away and the pain returned in force. Yet she somehow kept her composure, despite the deep concern for her that she saw on Whitby’s face. And the pity.
She forced a sniff and turned toward the window. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Sitting next to her, Mrs. Smith slowly put down the knitting she’d brought with her. Mariah felt her concerned gaze land on her. “So that was why you were crying.”
“Mariah was crying?” Whitby asked, incredulous.
She rolled her eyes, wishing for nothing more at that moment than to be alone to wallow in her misery. “It was nothing.”
“It was Carlisle,” he told Mrs. Smith, leaning forward and somehow managing to sit on the edge of the seat despite the long length of his legs in the small space between the benches. “They had a row.”
Oh, she truly wanted to be alone! She shrugged it away. “We always have rows.”
“That’s true,” Mrs. Smith agreed, yet frowned at Mariah, her knitting forgotten in her lap. “But the man’s never made you cry before.”
“She cried when they met,” Whitby reminded her.
“Oh that’s right, I remember now. Well, he’s not made you cry since.”
“Usually he just makes her furious—”