The Highlander Is All That (Untamed Highlanders #4)(54)

Esmeralda, looking haggard and cod-like this morning, whimpered. “One does not simply fall in love with a footman. I don’t think it’s physically possible.”

“Of course it is,” Anne said, spearing a sausage with her fork. They didn’t often take breakfast together in the parlor, but this morning was different. In oh so many ways.

For one thing, Mary was not here. Elizabeth snuffled again. “Oh, where could she be?”

“She’s probably on a coach for Gretna Green,” Victoria suggested.

Aunt Esmeralda clutched her pearls, but it was probably just an instinctive reaction, because she wasn’t wearing any. “I think I shall be ill.”

“I’m sure she’s perfectly safe,” Anne said soothingly. “She’s a sensible girl.”

Elizabeth and Victoria sent her an incredulous look. Victoria mouthed the word Mary?

Fortunately, Anne’s reassurance was enough to calm their aunt, though she still wheezed now and again, and when she reached for her teacup, it shook decidedly.

The parlor door opened and the baron strode in.

“There you are!” Esmeralda bellowed, though there was no call to yowl. She leaped to her feet. “What have you found?”

Bower grimaced. “Not much. It appears they’d been planning this a while.”

“They?” Esmeralda boggled.

“A while?” Elizabeth wailed.

“One of the grooms said he knew Jamison had been saving money for something important, and . . .”

“And what? Oh, just blurt it out. My heart can take it, I swear.”

Hah. And Esmeralda had thought Mary the melodramatic one.

“There is a horse missing.”

“A horse?” Their aunt glanced at him with a befuddled expression, as though she wasn’t quite certain she’d ever heard of one.

“Aye.” Bower set his hands on his hips and sighed. “As soon as Hamish gets here, we’ll head out after them.”

“Oh thank God. I cannot bear to think of that child in danger.”

Anne stood and moved toward Bower, leaning in to say, “Mary will expect you to follow her.”

“Aye. She will.”

“She’ll have some plan in place.”

He scrubbed his face. “Nae doubt.”

Anne drew in a deep breath and glanced at Aunt Esmeralda. “I know her better than anyone. I should go with them.”

At once, a chorus erupted.

“Unthinkable!”

“I know her better than you!”

“I’m the one trapped in a betrothal I don’t want. I should go.”

Their aunt glared them all down and repeated, “Unthinkable, Anne. You would be ruined.”

“Aren’t we all?” Victoria said in far too complacent a tone. When everyone stared at her she shrugged and said, “Well, aren’t we?” She pinned Elizabeth with a wicked smile and waggled her brows.

Elizabeth took her meaning at once. What a horrifying thought. “I cannot countenance Mary throwing away her life for me!”

“Funny,” Anne said. “She felt the same about you.”

Oh, dear, sweet, misguided Mary! “I cannot carry that weight. I can’t.”

“It’s not your fault,” Esmeralda barked. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I should have seen. I should have noticed. A footman, for pity’s sake.”

“He is very handsome.” Victoria merely smiled when her aunt glared at her again.

“I knew she was planning something,” Elizabeth murmured. “I should have said something.”

Anne sighed. “No one could have expected it. I certainly didn’t.”

“There’s no good in guilt or worry,” Bower said. “We need to focus on bringing her home.”

“And keeping this from the ton,” Esmeralda said.

Bower blanched. “That . . . ah . . . may be difficult.”

Esmeralda looked up so fast her neck cracked. “What do you mean?”

“I, ah . . .” He tugged at his collar. “One of the neighbor’s maids told one of our maids that Mary might have been seen leaving with Jamison.”

Esmeralda collapsed into her chair. “Egads. This is awful. The worst.”

“It’s not so bad,” Anne assured her. “We can think of something to put the gossips off.”

But there was no time to plan. Because then the locusts descended.

Word was out, apparently.

Mary was ruined.

And with her, her sisters were scandalized.

And everyone in the ton wanted to come and have a look.

*

It was a horrific morning, one Elizabeth never wanted to repeat. On top of her worry about Mary, there was the fact that when Hamish arrived, she was not able to speak to him—or even say goodbye when he, Bower, and Anne took the carriage and headed north.

Beyond that, she, Esmeralda, and Victoria had their hands full dealing with calls.

Esmeralda stalwartly insisted nothing was awry, that Lady Prentiss had been mistaken when she’d seen a girl of Mary’s coloring mounting a horse behind a footman—and the sisters both followed suit, averring Mary—and Anne, for that matter—had gone off to Kent to visit an ailing relative. And thank God Esmeralda had plenty of ailing relatives living in virtual obscurity.