Barrington didn’t argue. He left the room at once.
Mrs. Hemsley crossed her arms. “I should have gone with her.”
“No,” Alex said, reaching for his coat. “I should have stayed.”
He strapped on his gloves in silence, jaw tight, his eyes already narrowed with purpose.
“I’ll find her.”
“You’ll take someone with you.”
Alex didn’t answer. He simply opened the door and disappeared into the corridor, his footsteps already pounding toward the courtyard.
By the time the lamps were lit in the drawing room, the warmth of the day had fled, leaving the windows streaked with breath and the fire sputtering in the grate.
Mrs. Hemsley sat stiff-backed in her usual chair, a shawl draped over her shoulders and a cup of untouched tea cooling beside her. She’d returned from Sommer Chase nearly an hour earlier, with no answers and a heaviness that wouldn’t lift.
Eliza stood near the window, arms folded tightly, watching the empty drive as if willing Georgina to appear by force of will alone.
Mrs. Bainbridge had come down from her room without being asked, summoned by instinct or some other sharp intuition, and now occupied the settee, a blanket over her knees but no comfort in her posture.
The door opened quietly.
Alex stepped in, the wind still in his coat. His face was unreadable, drawn in hard lines.
“No sign of her,” he said.
Barrington followed behind him, removing his gloves with uncharacteristic distraction. “We checked every path into town. Not a trace of her passing. No purchases, no shopkeepers, no footsteps remembered. Not one person recalled her at all.”
“She was meant to meet me,” Eliza said again, voice thin. “She never came.”
Alex leaned one hand against the mantel, the knuckles white. “Then we assume she never reached town.”
Mrs. Hemsley rose to her feet. “I’ll check the study.”
“For what?” Barrington asked.
“For anything she might have left behind.”
They all remained where they were as she swept from the room,her footsteps clipped and echoing in the stillness.
It wasn’t more than five minutes before she returned, her expression unreadable, a crumpled piece of paper clutched in her hand.
She passed it to Barrington without a word.
He unfolded it carefully.
Two words. That was all.
Greyline Holdings.
“We’ve seen that name before,” Alex said, in a low, clipped tone. “It was in Rowland’s ledger. Where did you find that?”
“In the wastebasket by the desk.”
“That’s Rowland’s old study,” Barrington murmured.
“It’s the only thing in there that wasn’t in order,” Mrs. Hemsley said.
