Page 35 of Miss Harvey's Horribly Lovable Fiancé
Lymon piped up. “The maid says she saw your lady abed at one o’clock.”
So any time thereafter she could have left. Giles focused on his tiger who scuffed the floor with one shoe. Jarvis and the boy had slept with the other grooms and coachmen in the carriage house. Esme could have gone anywhere on foot. But then the boy was shamefaced. So then. “Did she take a horse or a gig?”
“A horse.”
“Didn’t you hear her?” Giles glanced from coachman to groom to tiger.
The boy squinted. He had better hearing than a pack of wolves.
The other two were silent.
“I see,” Giles noted how bleary the child’s eyes appeared. If Henry had been in his cups, so had the others been. “You drank wine last night, eh?”
“Oui, Monsieur le Marquis.” Henry drifted into French and titles often for comfort.
“English, boy. English.” Giles pulled tight his sash. “Where’s Courtland?”
Lymon was quick to respond. “In Miss Harvey’s rooms.”
Giles stepped into the empty hall. No guests were up yet. He cursed silently, releasing his burgeoning fears not at all. So where was she? Gone for a ride. Simply out. Relieving her own tensions. Or she’d gone and something had happened to her.Unlikely, given her abilities as a horsewoman but then…we have to consider it all, don’t we?
“What time is it?” he asked anyone who had an idea as he marched toward the family wing.
“Twenty past seven, my lord.” Lymon moderated his voice lest other guests hear them through the walls.
He whirled on his men. “Who discovered she was gone?”
“Miss Harvey’s maid.” That from Lymon.
“Who notified you?”
Lymon looked as if he’d been kicked by a mule. “The maid rang for the butler, who awakened Lord Courtland. Who then ordered the butler to wake us to see if we were still here and if you were.”
Giles scowled.
Jarvis shrugged his shoulders. “In case you and she—”
“Yes, yes. I know. In case we had run away to get married. That,” Giles said through his teeth, “is the most asinine assumption I’ve heard yet. Why would we—?”
Oh, what did it matter? He flapped his arms to his sides. Esme was gone. And gone without him. Esme loved him. Why would she flee? The reason hit him like a hammer. The agreements, of course. The damned agreements.
“Where is Lady Courtland?” He heard no wailing so perhaps that lady had already died from shock.
“In her rooms.”
Giles arched two brows, angry he had to drag this out of his men word-for-word. “Has she been told?”
All three shook their heads.
Was that a blessing or a curse? Soon to know. Soon to know.
“What does the maid know about where she’s gone?”
Lemon winced. “Nothing.”
“Where is she?”
“With Courtland,” Lymon said.
