Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(48)

“She is an acquaintance of his,” André explained. “And of mine. A perfectly respectable lady, Jane. I daresay she gave him a ride to somewhere where he could hire a carriage for his own use since I had taken his.”

Jane was not about to question her brother-in-law’s ramshackle brother while the innkeeper was an interested spectator—or in the hearing of her niece and nephew. But her mind reeled. Why exactly had Dorchester sent his brother and his carriage out of the way? And who exactly was this woman André insisted was respectable? Was it respectable to take a man who was not one’s husband up into one’s carriage? And had they both spent the night at the inn? In separate rooms? Oh, she ought to have locked the twins in their rooms at home and embarked on this journey with Charles and André.

The innkeeper was able to direct them to the town where Miss Kingsley’s hired carriage had been bound.

“But where did he go from there?” Estelle asked of no one in particular. “Why did he not come home, as he had promised he would?”

Jane could think of one excellent reason, but she held her peace.

André rubbed the side of his nose with one finger and held his peace too.

“I daresay something happened to make him change his mind, Stell,” Bertrand said. “Maybe we will find out what that is when we reach that town.”

Jane Morrow looked at André with narrowed eyes while the twins climbed into the carriage again. “You knew about that woman,” she said quietly enough not to be overheard by her nephew and niece. “You ought not to have brought them here. I suppose it did not occur to you that it was highly improper to do so. You are no better than your brother.”

“Oh, I say,” he said indignantly. “I did not bring them here. I had no wish to come here at all. It stood to reason that Marcel would be long gone. They brought me.”

“We really have no choice now,” she said, raising her voice to address the twins inside the carriage, “but to return home and wait for your father there. He will come in his own good time. He always does.”

“But the party,” Estelle protested.

“We do have a choice, Aunt Jane,” Bertrand said. “We can go and find out where he went, or at least try. We have come this far. Why go back now without at least making an effort to track him down?”

Jane could have offered a very good answer, but how could she speak bluntly to her two young charges? “He is probably busy and will resent the intrusion,” she said.

“You think he is with that woman, Aunt Jane,” Estelle said. “Well, what if he is? I daresay it is not the first time and will not be the last. But I want him to know that I have arranged a birthday party for him. I want to tell him to his face that he has . . . inconvenienced me.”

Her aunt stared at her in some exasperation. It was so very unlike Estelle to be stubborn. What a shame it was that children had to grow up.

“Onward with the search, then?” André asked cheerfully, offering his hand to help Jane into the carriage.

“Yes,” Estelle and Bertrand said in unison.

After that, the pursuit was relatively easy. They found the inn at which Miss Kingsley’s hired carriage had set down its passengers, and they found out about the newly purchased carriage without having to leave the inn. They spoke with the ostler who knew which direction the carriage had taken—with both the lady and the gentleman. All of Jane’s worst fears were confirmed. The same ostler was obliging enough to mention that four other people—two gentlemen and two ladies—had gone in pursuit of that same carriage two days earlier. Even more obligingly he gave them a description of that carriage too.

It was merely a case after that of following a trail that fairly blazed before them. Almost everyone they spoke with remembered one or other of the two carriages, or, in many cases, both. They were further assured that they were going in the right direction when André suddenly remembered something.

“Oh, I say,” he said with a loud clicking of his fingers. “I will wager Marc has gone to the cottage.”

“Cottage?” Jane asked.

And André told the story his mother had told him of the great-aunt on their father’s side who had taken a fancy to Marcel when he was an infant long before he, André, was born, and of her making him her heir and leaving him her cottage somewhere in the wilds of Devonshire.

“It seems a likely sort of place to take a wo—” André said before being cut off too late by a pointed glare from Jane and a sharp elbow in the ribs.

“Woman,” Estelle said. “Where in Devonshire, Uncle André?”

He rubbed one side of his nose, but doing so did not prompt his memory further. Or perhaps, he admitted, he had never known. Close to the sea, perhaps?

That was very little help.





Twelve





The sky had cleared and the wind had died down, at least in the valley. The hillsides and the valley floor had had a day to dry out. It was time to go out again, Viola announced, to take a long, brisk walk along the valley to the sea.

“There will be mud,” Marcel predicted.

“It can be stepped around,” she said. “Coward.”

It turned out to be not the brisk hike she had anticipated. The valley floor beside the river was spongy at best after all the rain, muddy at worst. In places, old, dead branches and even whole, rotted-out tree trunks were strewn across what had not really been a path in the first place. It was all very wild and overgrown. It was possible, even probable, that no one had walked here for years. But it was an exhilarating exercise anyway as they weaved about obstacles, clambered over a few, avoided the worst of the mud, and stopped frequently just to look about at the glory that was the early autumn trees and to listen to the birds.