Chapter 41
The Missing
He was gone; he had disappeared …
Jane Austen, Persuasion
“Ah, Mr. Goutier!” Charlie Foote hailed Goutier and Tauton as soon as they reached the stable yard.
“Something’s off,” he muttered to Tauton, and Tauton nodded. They both knew that if Kinsdale’s Pride was stolen, the man in charge of her would not be so cheerful.
“Was waiting on you,” Foote told them both. “Got a message. Now where the devil …”
Foote started patting his pockets, and, if Goutier was honest, it looked like this was going to be a long business. He folded his arms, as if that would hold back his straining patience. Tauton just rolled his eyes.
“Ah, here!” Foote finally dug two fingers into his waistcoat pocket and extracted a twist of paper. He held it out to Goutier. “Next time, tell your man not to be so stingy with his writing materials, yeah?”
“I’ll pass it along,” said Goutier gravely as he took the note.
Foote had reason for complaint. The paper was little more than a scrap, and now it was a grimy, wrinkled scrap from having survived its term in the stableman’s pocket.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” he said, and loped off to return to his own work.
“Who’s it from?” asked Tauton as soon as Foote was out of earshot.
Goutier squinted at the smeared writing. “Harkness,” he reported. “Says there was trouble on the road. Business with the horse was a distraction. Longer letter waiting for us back at the Green Briar.”
Tauton made a throttled sound. “Can’t keep anything simple, can he?”
“Not since I’ve known him.” Goutier tucked the note into his own pocket, and found himself staring hard at the stables, as if he thought he could see through the walls.
“Oh, now you’re getting one of those looks,” Tauton muttered.
“What looks?”
“Like our esteemed Mr. Harkness gets when he’s had one too many thoughts in that head of his. Come on, man, out with it.” Tauton made a come hither gesture with two fingers. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking we’d better check on Kinsdale’s Pride anyway,” Goutier told him. “I’d hate to find out this note was the distraction, and it’s meant to pull us out of here.”
Tauton huffed. “As it happens, I was thinking much the same thing. And we might have a word with Foote as to the details of the situation.” He bowed and gestured elaborately. “After you, Mr. Goutier!”
“Is that for me, Duggin?” asked Miss Cynthia.
The young footman stood uncertainly on the threshold of the sitting room. He stared at the pile of dresses heaped on the sofa as if it might rise up and bite him. Laurel hid a smile. She would tease him mercilessly about how he had faltered when faced with that mountain of delicate femininity.
Laurel and Miss Cynthia were alone in the sisters’ rooms. Right after breakfast, Miss Clara had gone to call on Lord Casselmaine.
Laurel suspected she wanted the chance to talk about money without being overheard by the rest of the household.
The eldest Miss Kinsdale had left shortly afterward, without saying where she was going, or when she intended to return.
Laurel determined she would make sure Mrs. Kendricks knew that as soon as she could get away.
Although that might be awhile. Laurel and Miss Cynthia were engaged in the tedious process of sorting through her wardrobe to help convert it to full mourning.
They needed to determine which dresses could be sent away to be dyed, or otherwise suitably altered, and which needed to simply be packed away, and how much new stuff would have to be ordered.
Laurel already had a pile of gloves and stockings to mend, not to mention the slippers she had been handed with the rather limp directive of “see if anything can be done with these.”
“Well?” Miss Cynthia was saying impatiently to Duggin. Laurel prepared to fade into the background, but she kept her ears wide open.
Duggin looked uncertain. “No, miss, that is … the note’s for Laurel. It’s just come from the Green Briar, sent from Miss Thorne. They said it was urgent.”
“Well, you’d best take it, hadn’t you?” said Miss Cynthia. Her voice was flat, but her disapproval was plain.
She had some reason to be snippy about it, Laurel supposed.
By the normal rules, any message for one of the staff would have been left in the servants’ hall.
Not that Laurel had ever received many written messages.
In fact, she’d only learned to read a year ago, thanks to Miss McGowan and her copybooks.
“Thank you, miss. Sorry, miss,” Laurel murmured as she took the note. The look Duggin gave her said “better you than me,” and the footman made a hasty retreat. Laurel felt a twist of envy as he vanished. She did not at all like the way Miss Cynthia was watching her.
Laurel made herself ignore her employer and unfolded the paper. Slowly, carefully, she spelled out the words, keeping her lips pressed firmly together so that Miss Cynthia would not see her murmuring to herself.
“Well?” asked Miss Cynthia impatiently. “What does Miss Thorne say? Or is it private?”
Miss McGowan would have urged her to say it was private.
Miss McGowan was very much one for standing on one’s rights, even if one was “just” a servant.
And Laurel found she very much did not want to tell Miss Cynthia about it.
She had done her best to be sympathetic toward the young woman.
After all, she’d been through such lot in such a very short time.
But, if Laurel was honest with herself, Miss Cynthia’s abrupt shifts of temper about every small thing were becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.
Laurel swallowed all this. The last thing she needed was Miss Cynthia angry at her. If she was ordered out of the room, it would hinder her real job, which was keeping as close an eye on all the sisters as possible.
Or, at least that had been her job.
“Miss Thorne says she’s been called back to London,” Laurel said. “It’s to do with this business with Mrs. Lynn. She asks to have her things packed and for me to follow on as soon as may be.” She lowered the paper. “I’m sorry, miss. …”
“No, no,” said Miss Cynthia at once. “You’d best go immediately. This can all wait.” She gestured to the dresses draped over the sofa.
“Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.” Laurel made her curtsy, genuinely grateful that Miss Cynthia had decided not to make a fuss. She hurried out to the corridor, and down the servants’ stair.
She found Mrs. Kendricks ensconced in the butler’s pantry with Thrush and Cook. A whole array of bills and notebooks had been spread out on the table between them.
Laurel paused in the doorway and cleared her throat. “A word, please, Mrs. Kendricks?”
Mrs. Kendricks frowned up at her. But when she saw the urgency of Laurel’s expression, she excused herself at once from the household conference and stepped out into the corridor.
“This is come from Miss Thorne.” Laurel handed her the note. Mrs. Kendricks opened it, and her frown deepened. “I should leave at once and—”
“You should do no such thing,” snapped Mrs. Kendricks.
“But, Miss Thorne—”
Laurel got no further. “Miss Thorne never wrote this,” Mrs. Kendricks declared.
“I know her hand. Besides, she would never send such a careless letter, even if her house was on fire. There’s no mention of how you are to travel, and no instruction for Leigh, and not a single word of how anybody is to be paid for their trouble. She would never forget such details.”
Laurel felt the blood drain from her cheeks. “What do we do?”
Mrs. Kendricks glowered at the wall, clearly thinking furiously. “You carry on here,” she said. “But you keep your ears and eyes open wide, you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The fact of the matter was that Mrs. Kendricks spoke so sharply that Laurel probably would have said yes to almost anything.
“And you tell that Duggin, and Thrush as well, that if anyone comes looking for Miss Thorne or Mr. Harkness that they’re over at the Green Briar getting ready to go back to London. Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Laurel again. “What will you do?”
“I am going to fetch Lord Casselmaine,” said Mrs. Kendricks. “And pray that we are not too late. Because something has gone badly wrong.”