Her father slid it open. “What the devil is—oh, good evening, Mr. Delacorte,” he said.
Mr. Delacorte’s usually cheery face was grim and in shadow. He touched his hat. “Saw the seal on your carriage, Lord Vaughn.” He was breathing as though he’d run quite a distance.
“What’s all the hubbub about?”
“Well, it seems theTropicawas destroyed as it sailed toward Portsmouth, some hours out to sea—lightning hit her mast, went up in flame. TheJusticefound a few survivors floating on detritus at sea and they took a detour into the East India docks to bring them to shore and we’re making room and trying to find accommodations for the men they’ve acquired. It’s been a bit mad.”
Lillias went still. “TheT-t-ropica?” Her stomach iced.
“Oh, that is a too bad thing,” her father said. “Poor souls.”
She could scarcely breathe. But she managed to get the question out. “Mr. Delacorte . . . did they find . . .”
He knew she meant Uncle Liam.
Delacorte shook his head slowly.
Nausea struck, swift and dark. She nearly doubled over with pain.
She felt as though she were being pulled into a whirlpool. “Does he know?”
“He knows.” His face was grim. “He’s not in Portsmouth. He’s back at the inn. In his room.” He paused. “His room on the third floor,” he added, rather superfluously and meaningfully. “I must away.”
He closed the carriage door and was gone.
Her father shot the bolt and thumped his walking stick on the roof.
And they lurched hard forward again, but still, progress was halting. Measured in inches.
A roaring sound started up in Lillias’s ears.
It was the sound of her own breathing. In her head was something between a sob and a scream, the sound a heart makes when it is near to breaking.
The carriage inched a few feet more forward.
“Papa, what time is it?” She heard her own voice as though it was coming from outside the carriage, from a great distance away.
“A quarter to eleven o’clock, child.”
Her lungs were sawing now. In, out. In, out.
And then she shoved open the door of the carriage and leaped out.
Her father roared. “Lillias—Lillias! Christ! What the devil is she...”
She ran.
The wind yanked her bonnet from her head and it flogged her back, and her pelisse sailed outbehind her. She dodged and wove and feinted through the crowds of men and carriages and horses, ignoring shouts of indignation, leers, oaths.
The wind stung her eyes into tears, blurring everything like her ruined sketchbook as she raced past. Her lungs sawed.
And when she finally reached the front door of The Grand Palace on the Thames, she seized the knocker and slammed it five times against the door. Praying.
“Oh, Lady Lillias,” Dot said cheerfully through the peep hatch. “It’s five minutes to eleven o’clock. You almost missed curfew. Have you forgotten something?”
“Dot. You must open the doornow.”
“Oh, do you need a bourdaloue?” Dot whispered, with a sympathetic nose wrinkle.
