Page 55 of Lady Willa's Divinely Wicked Vicar
Chapter 12
Charlie crushed the letter in his hand and threw it in the fire. “How dare the man!”
But of course, the Earl de Courcy dared anything. But to suggest that he had caused Willa to disappear from this earth? Was he mad?
“I am!” What a fool! If he ever saw the earl again, he would throttle him for being such a bully that his daughter had to take to subterfuge to escape from them all!
Someone banging on his cottage door had him stifling his curses. When he pulled it open, he was agape.
Viscount Courtland stood there, his eyes wide, his hair ruffled, no hat, no coat, a missive held aloft in one hand. “De Courcy!”
Charlie scowled. “You have a letter from him, too?”
“I do. Arrogant bastard!”
Charlie ran a weary hand through his hair and stood aside. “Do come in, my lord.”
Courtland entered but did not sit. Like Charlie, he paced before the fire. “What the hell is happening with women that they all want to disappear?”
Charlie had a good idea what most women wanted. It was not what they currently had. Controlling fathers, no standing, no rights to property or money or even their own children. “Willa was unhappy, sir. Her father wished to force her to marry in the new year.”
“Well, it matters not, it seems, whether a woman is to wed the man she wants or not! She flees any and all whom she knows!”
Two days and nights had passed since Courtland’s daughter, Esme, had run from her own wedding. Taken a horse and fled in the middle of the night, it seemed. Courtland had set out himself to Bath and Esme’s favorite aunt, but had not found her there. He’d also commanded two of his servants to go to nearby towns, but they had returned with no news. Esme’s betrothed, the marquess of Northington, had sought to track her. He’d left the mansion soon after she’d disappeared and no one had heard from him.
What they knew about Wills’s disappearance was as little. That afternoon, Willa had ordered her coachman and groom up from the coach house along with her own conveyance. She’d declared to the servants in the house that she would return home. Her maid Mary finished the packing of Willa’s trunk that Willa herself had begun. And off they set.
Charlie shook his head. “De Courcy says the maid, the coachman and groom arrived at De Courcy Manor late Thursday evening.”
“He wrote the same to me.”
“And Willa was not with them!” He plunked his hands on his hips. “How in hell did they lose her?”
“She escaped them!” Courtland said. “How can that be? Are they that stupid?”
“Or Willa is that clever,” Charlie said.
“How did she do it? Pull the wool over their eyes? If I were De Courcy, I’d give the lot of them their notices! I’ve a mind to dismiss my own men. None of them stopped my girl.”
Charlie understood the viscount’s fury. “She told them she was going for a wee ride.”
Courtland sighed and sank into one of Charlie’s chairs. “What do we do now? Two missing women!”
“The Runner you hire will find Esme, sir. I’m certain of it.” Courtland had sent to London to Bow Street to hire a special man to investigate. Given traveling time, he should arrive soon.
“He better arrive from London today. I have no hope for her otherwise. She could be abducted, held for ransom. Worse. Worse. I cannot bear it. Her mother is beside herself.”
Charlie took the other chair, his mind whirling. The disappearance of Esme worried him as much as Willa’s. He had no idea what her father was doing to find her, but he would do his best to contribute.“The De Courcys are frightened, too. They love their daughter and would want no harm to come to her.”
“But the man is too much, too much, I say, to accuse me of persuading his daughter to run away the same as mine.”
Charlie stared into the fire, the flames firing his imagination. “I agree. De Courcy must learn to tame his pompous, conceited…” He cleared his throat. “You don’t suppose that Willa has joined up with Esme to…to…” He flourished a hand.
“Why?” Courtland frowned. “Well, I don’t know. Perhaps. One runs from a man she wants. The other runs from…what, Charlie?”
“A man she doesn’t want. A life she doesn’t want.”And I made it worse for her to accept. Of that, I am not sorry. God help me.
“We have to find out what route she took,” Courtland said.
