Chapter 2 #3
A faint blush crept into the young maid's cheeks. “They're worried about his lordship.”
Something tightened painfully inside Rosalind. “So am I.”
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Nelly glanced toward the staircase to make certain Lady Eastmere had truly gone before stepping closer.
“If you'll forgive me for saying so, my lady…”
“Yes?”
Nelly hesitated, lowering her voice until Rosalind had to lean in to hear her. “The servants hear things.”
Rosalind frowned. “What do you mean?”
Nelly glanced instinctively toward the front door, as though half expecting someone else to overhear.
“We're always carrying trays into drawing rooms. Polishing silver while gentlemen talk as though we're part of the furniture. Helping coachmen. Speaking with kitchen maids from other houses.” She gave a small shrug.
“People rarely mind their tongues around servants.”
Rosalind felt something shift inside her.
She had spent ten days questioning magistrates, calling upon acquaintances, and listening to gentlemen explain why there was nothing more to be done.
It had never once occurred to her to ask the people everyone else overlooked.
“You think someone may know something?”
“I don't know.” Nelly offered an apologetic smile. “But I know we haven't asked.” Her face brightened. “The servants' network is enormous.”
Despite everything, the corner of Rosalind's mouth lifted. “The servants' network?”
“Oh yes, my lady.” Nelly nodded with complete confidence. “Housemaids speak to laundresses. Laundresses speak to cooks. Coachmen speak to stable hands. Valets know everything, though they'll never admit it.”
“And all of them talk?”
Nelly's smile widened. “When they think no one's listening.”
For the first time in ten days, Rosalind felt the crushing weight upon her chest ease, if only by a fraction.
It wasn't hope. Not yet.
But it was another path. Another question waiting to be asked.
“Will you make some enquiries?”
“With your approval.” Nelly smiled shyly. “I'll begin tonight.”
Emotion caught unexpectedly in Rosalind's throat.
She had spent the better part of the afternoon arguing with people who wanted her to stop searching.
Nelly was the first person who had simply offered to search with her.
“Thank you.”
Nelly dipped a small curtsy. “We'll find him, my lady.”
The certainty in the young woman's voice far exceeded the evidence they possessed.
Rosalind found herself holding onto it all the same.
***
Dinner that evening passed beneath a strained silence.
The dining room, once so full of easy conversation, seemed much too large for three people.
Lady Eastmere picked listlessly at the food on her plate. Rosalind could not have said what had been served; every bite tasted of nothing.
Isabella, seated opposite, made one or two quiet attempts at conversation, asking after a book Lady Eastmere had been reading and remarking upon the improving weather. Each effort faded almost as soon as it began.
Even she, usually so untroubled by silence, seemed to surrender to it.
Halfway through the second course, the butler entered carrying a silver salver.
“A note for Lady Eastmere.”
Her mother accepted it absently, breaking the seal without interest.
Rosalind watched the color drain slowly from her mother's face.
“What is it, Mama?”
She handed the note across the table without speaking.
Rosalind unfolded it.
The Directors of the British Institution regret that, owing to unforeseen circumstances, tomorrow's private viewing shall proceed by invitation only. Your attendance is therefore no longer required.
She read it twice before lowering the paper.
Isabella reached instinctively across the table. “Rosalind?”
Her mother closed her eyes. “It has begun.”
The words settled over the dining room like a funeral bell.
Rosalind looked down at the note again.
Yesterday they had been expected. Today they had become an inconvenience.
Her father had been missing only ten days, and already society was quietly pretending the Carlisles no longer belonged among them.
She thought of the ladies whispering behind gloved hands. Of gentlemen lowering their voices when she entered a room. Of invitations that would never arrive.
This was how it began.
Not with a public condemnation.
But with small, polite doors closing one by one.
Isabella said nothing further, but when Rosalind looked up, she found her friend watching her with quiet determination rather than pity. Somehow, that was easier to bear.
Rosalind folded the note with deliberate care, smoothing the crease with the edge of her thumb.
They could whisper and speculate. They could decide that the Earl of Eastmere had abandoned his family.
She refused to help them bury him before he had even been found.
Tomorrow she would meet Lord William Sinclair in Hyde Park.
Not because she trusted him. She wanted to. She simply could not afford to.
Because she refused to surrender the search.
And because, whether he realized it or not, he remained the last thread connecting her to the father she meant to bring home.