His heart pounded, nervousness gripping him at what he was about to do. “Robert Carlisle for Miss Winslow.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Winslow isn’t at home.” The butler blocked the door, refusing to admit him. “Would you care to leave a card?”
Absolutely not. What he needed to say to Mariah was delicate and required the kind of finesse that a card or note could never convey—it more than likely would also require ropes and a chair to tie her to. “I need to speak with her.”
“Might I suggest, then, that you call again in the morning? Good day, sir.”
As the butler began to shut the door, Robert slapped his hand against it and held it open. With anger and frustration speeding through him in equal measure, he pinned a hard gaze on the man that told him he’d tolerate no dissembling and repeated through clenched teeth, “I need to speak with her.”
The butler lifted an indignant brow, a gesture that told him exactly where Mariah had learned that haughty look of hers. “As I said, sir, Miss Winslow is not at home, and I do not know when she will return.”
Damnation. “Then I’ll wait.”
Robert shoved past the butler and into the foyer. He glanced up the grand stairs toward the upper floors. He didn’t expect to see Mariah, yet he couldn’t help but hope. And hoping she wasn’t standing up there with another bucket of water to dump over his head. Or a pistol.
The butler took his hat and coat and handed them to a waiting footman, then gestured down the hall. “The drawing room is this way, sir.”
“I’ll wait here,” he insisted.
The butler stared at him, his mouth falling open, stunned. For a gentleman to wait in the foyer—it simply wasn’t done.
But Robert didn’t give a damn about propriety. There was no way he would risk letting the minx come home and sneak past him to her room. There was too much of his future riding on the conversation they needed to have to chance missing her tonight.
When it became obvious that Robert was going nowhere, the butler snapped his mouth closed, bowed stiffly, and turned on his heel to leave. The footman lingered for a few more awkward minutes, still holding his coat and hat in hand, as if waiting for Robert to change his mind, take them back, and leave.
Robert held out his hands. The relieved footman gladly handed them over, only for Robert to toss his hat onto the foyer table and fling his coat over the nearby stairway banister. He folded his arms across his chest and arched a brow at the gaping footman, who slowly backed out of the foyer, then turned and hurried away.
“Smart man,” he muttered, then set to pacing the length of the black-and-white draughtboard marble floor.
He’d wait here all night, if necessary. It would be a damnably sticky spot he’d find himself in if Winslow arrived home before Mariah, but one that couldn’t be helped. He knew the truth now, that he’d never met a more perfect woman for him than the one who drove him absolutely mad, and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life fighting with her and making up.
A knock rapped at the front door.
Without waiting for the butler to return, Robert hurried to the door and flung it open wide, his heart pounding. “Mariah?”
Instead, a young man in household livery stood at the doorstep and held up a folded note. “A message, sir. To Mr. Winslow from Mr. Hugh Whitby.”
Whitby. His eyes narrowed. What did that dandy want with Mariah’s father? He held out his hand. “Thank you.”
The footman handed over the note, then pulled at the brim of his hat and hurried away, not caring who took the note as long as he’d done his duty in delivering it. As if nothing were out of the ordinary about a well-dressed gentleman answering the door.
“Good to know I can always have a career in service,” he muttered to himself, “when I’m denied Winslow’s partnership.”
With only a fleeing stab of remorse at reading someone else’s message, he snapped the wax seal and opened the note, scanning over it.
Robert’s heart stopped. And when it began pounding again, each beat cut a blindingly painful pulse through him.
Sir,
Your daughter is eloping to Scotland. Mariah and I will be back—with Evie and Mrs. Smith—in a few days. Will send more information as soon as we can. Do not worry.
Hugh Whitby
A searing pain stabbed through him like a knife, so intense that the scrawled handwriting blurred beneath his eyes.
Crumpling the paper in his fist, he spun on his heel and charged from the house, muttering a string of curses beneath his breath. He had to leave. Now.
She had two hours’ travel on him, and judging from the way she’d raced down St James’s Street, the woman wasn’t afraid of speed. But he’d catch her before she reached Gretna Green, even if he had to ride through the night. And God help her—and Whitby—when he did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Along the Great North Road
Two Hard-Traveled Days Later
Mariah rushed inside the Dragon Inn and stopped to let her eyes adjust to the dim light.
Her heart pounded as she scanned the common room. Her sister was here somewhere. The men in the last carriage they’d passed confirmed that they’d seen a couple fitting Evelyn and Burton Williams’s description staying at the inn. Oh, she just had to be here!
“Pardon me.” She hurried up to the counter where a man stacked pewter tankards on the shelf behind it. “Have you seen a young woman traveling alone with a man, about my height and age, reddish brown hair, amber eyes?”
“Aye. There’s a young lady here like that.” He flipped a towel over his shoulder and pointed toward a private dining room in the rear of the inn. “But she’s not traveling with a man.”
Her hope sank through the floor. “She’s not?”
If she wasn’t with Williams, then the woman wasn’t Evelyn. Her eyes stung with fatigue and frustration. After traveling almost nonstop to catch up to Evie, with barely any food or sleep, the thought of having to travel on nearly undid her.
“Not no more,” he answered. “He took off on a hired horse this mornin’. Left her standin’ there in the coach yard—”
Mariah ran. She reached the dining room and froze in the doorway.
Evelyn stood at the dirt-covered window overlooking the innyard, keeping watch for Williams to return to her. Her face pale, she clutched a handkerchief to her breast with a trembling hand. Streaks from shed tears glistened on her cheeks.
“Evie,” Mariah whispered, her heart breaking.
Evelyn glanced up, and as their gazes met, a tangle of emotions darkened her face. But most of all, there was pain. A soft sob escaped her.
Mariah rushed across the room and pulled her into her arms, and the sobs turned into shuddering wails as they clutched each other close. They sank down onto a settle along the wall, with Mariah stroking Evelyn’s trembling back to soothe her in an attempt to ease her pain. But it was impossible, she knew, because she now knew herself the agonizing pain of a shattered heart, and as she held her sister, her own tears began to fall.
“I’m here, Evie,” Mariah whispered, rocking her in her arms as her sister gasped between cries to catch her breath. “I’m here, and you’re safe…everything will be all right.” A bald-faced lie—nothing would ever be all right for the Winslow sisters again. They had both crossed lines that could never be uncrossed. The fact that they had done so for love meant nothing. “We’ll go home, and everything will be fine.”
“He left me,” Evelyn choked out between sobs. “He rode off without even looking back…”
“I know.” She placed a kiss on her forehead. “But I’m here now, with Mrs. Smith and Whitby. We’re here to take you home.”