CHAPTER16
George’s heart pounded in his chest as he stepped back and then rushed to hit the door once again with his shoulder. To his relief, it gave more fully. One more hard hit and it flew open and he staggered partly into the chamber.
Lily rushed past him. “Alice!” she cried out. “Alice!”
But Alice wasn’t in the main chamber. Lily looked at the door to the dressing room, which was closed, and her hands shook as she approached it and slowly opened it.
He held his breath, praying that Alice hadn’t injured herself out of desperation and heartbreak. But when Lily opened the secondary door, the room was empty.
She trembled with relief, but then faced him. “How could she have gone? We would have seen her.”
He motioned to the window. It was wide open and a chair was placed in front of it. They rushed to it together and looked down, but again they weren’t met with a broken body and heartache, but only with a little flutter of torn fabric that had caught on a nail as whoever wore it clearly made their way down the tree just outside.
“She’s gone?” Lady Westinghouse shrieked.
The others were coming into the room now, his mother and father in the lead. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”
It was many voices asking the questions, but all George could do was look at Lily. She was staring at the chair where her sister had likely stood to make her escape. He followed her gaze and there was a little scrap of paper with Lily’s name on it placed on the seat.
She picked it up and while Lady Westinghouse tried to play off what was happening and the others argued with her behind them, they read it together:
I’m sorry, Lily. Mama says you know about Mary and that you despise me as much as she does for it. I hope that isn’t true. Even if it’s not, I cannot do this, I cannot lose her. There’s no other choice but to run. Alice.
Lily spun on her stepmother and her voice cut through the fray. “You told her that I hated her?”
She lunged and George caught her arms, holding her back against his chest. “No, stop love, stop,” he said, close to her ear. “We have to think of Alice now. This woman isn’t worth it.”
She struggled against him for a moment as Lady Westinghouse cowered like she wasn’t the one who had caused Lily’s battered face. Finally, George’s mother stepped forward.
“What is going on?” she asked, her voice calm against the roar of despair and desperation in the room. That soft, gentle tone seemed to lower the temperature of the room and finally there was quiet so that this situation could be dealt with.
“Thanks to the horrible actions of her wretched mother, Alice has fled,” George said through clenched teeth. “Apparently Alice was forced into this marriage.Blackmailedinto it.”
His father gasped and pivoted on Lady Westinghouse with a grimace. “Tell me that isn’t true, my lady.”
“What is the difference?” Lady Westinghouse said, pushing her shoulders back and giving her head a haughty toss. “An arranged marriage or a forced one. We all want what is best for our houses. I did us all a favor.”
Lord Pembrooke’s face twisted with further horror at that answer and he turned away from the viscountess in disgust. For all his complicated emotions about his father, George was happy the earl immediately saw the problem in her actions.
“We must find her,” Lily said, grasping for his arm. “Please,pleaseyou must help me.”
“We’llallhelp,” Esme said. “She couldn’t have gone far if this all just happened. Finn, we could take one of the open rigs and search the south fork of the road.”
Delacourt looked down at her. “You were uncomfortable in our very fine carriage, Esme. I’m not taking you bouncing along the road in this condition.”
“I’ll go with Delacourt,” Lady Pembrooke said softly and stepped away from her husband and toward the countess. She glanced toward George before he could react. “It is not a question. It’s a statement. I will go.”
Ramsbury stepped forward. “Marianne and I could take the north.”
“If she was on foot, she could go toward the lakes and the tenant fields,” Clarissa said. “I know the way very well.”
“And you and I will search the wood,” George said to Lily. “We’ll find her, I swear it.”
“Where shall I look?” Lady Westinghouse asked, her voice a little smaller since she realized she was clearly in the role of the villain to the others.
George exchanged a glance with his father and the earl folded his arms. “Youwill stay under the watchful eye of the Countess of Delacourt and I,” he said with a little glance at Esme. The young woman looked very up to the task, despite her advancing pregnancy. “Soyoudo not cause more pain than you apparently already have.”
“Thank you,” George said softly as they all made for the hallway. He touched Pembrooke’s forearm as they passed by and his father’s hand covered his briefly. Delacourt said something to his mother then rushed off to arrange for the rig as the others began to leave the house to do the same, or take their positions in the search.
