Damsel in Distress (17 page)

Caroline swallowed down her anxiety and said, “Foolish girl. She has gone off with friends, but she forgot to tell me which friends. Did you happen to see who it was?”

“Yes, your ladyship. When I asked her if her chaperon was not accompanying her
—
it seemed a trifle unusual for a young lady to be leaving with a gentleman at such an hour
—
Lady Helen told me the man was her uncle, Lord deVere. An older gentleman, tall, silver hair, distinguished. I am afraid that is all I can tell you, for they spoke French to each other.”

Gone with a man, the worst possible news! “Lord deVere, of course. Thank you so much.” The description matched the man Newt had seen at the Pantheon. “At what time did they leave?”

“It was pretty late, about two o’clock this morning.” Two o’clock! Good God, they had been gone for over five hours!

“Did you happen to notice which way deVere’s carriage headed when they left?” she asked, in a nearly normal voice.

“I am afraid not, milady.” He lowered his tone to a whisper. “We had a couple of gentlemen arrive at that time
—
foxed. I would have turned them off, but Sir Aubrey’s family have been coming to the White Hart forever. Had the deuce of a time getting them to bed.”

“I see. Thank you, you have been very helpful.” She found a coin in her pocket and handed it to him.

Her mind was seething with questions. Of course, Lord deVere was no uncle of Helen’s. That he was speaking French and had been at the Pantheon suggested he was involved in the theft of the necklace. He might even have killed Miss Blanchard
—
and now he had Helen.

She ran upstairs to find the rest of her party assembled in Lady Milchamp’s room. Three anxious faces turned to her with hopeful eagerness. It was clear they all looked to her to guide them. She already knew Lady Milchamp for a peagoose; Georgie had little experience of life. Newt would be some help, but it would be for her to direct him. From some deep well of fortitude, she must find the resources to handle the situation until Dolmain could come. He would leave the Horse Guards now, whether York gave permission or not. Necessity compelled her to damp down her own fear and confusion and take the reins.

“It is as I suspected. She left of her own accord,” she said with a calmness she was far from feeling. She gave the details she had learned from the clerk. “This Lord deVere would not be an uncle on her mama’s side, Lady Milchamp?”

“No, Marie was an only child.”

“I see. Have you written to Dolmain?”

The lady handed her a note. “May I?” Caro asked, and glanced quickly through it. Lady Milchamp had written that dear little Helen had been stolen from her bed by the Frenchies, and was probably dead in a ditch by now. “Perhaps I should write a different note, now that we have learned a little more,” Caro said, and threw Lady Milchamp’s note into the grate.

“What can I do?” Newt asked.

“DeVere must have had a carriage. You could drive around
—
toward London is our best bet
—
and question the toll gate keepers. The clerk says there is a Sir Aubrey someone or other who arrived here at the inn as Helen was leaving. Find out his room and talk to him. He may remember something.”

“What can we do?” Lady Milchamp asked.

“Try to stay calm. Have some breakfast,” Caroline said.

Lady Milchamp was happy to dump the matter in Caro’s dish.

“I shall order a private parlor. Come down as soon as you are dressed,” Caroline said, and left with Newton.

In the parlor, Caroline wrote to Dolmain, and Newton went off to rouse Sir Aubrey and his friend while waiting for the coffee to arrive. When he returned, the coffee had come and Caroline had finished her note.

“Did you learn anything?” she asked eagerly.

“I couldn’t rouse Sir Aubrey, but t’other fellow
—
his name is Giles something
—
saw Lady Helen leave right enough, and not in a carriage. There were two mounts waiting outside. He says they were good tits. Bays, he thinks.”

“If they were riding, they have gotten even farther away from us! And they can avoid the toll stations by running across country. I hate to write this news, but I must tell Dolmain.”

“Giles heard the word ‘Brighton.’ Speaks a bit of French. He thinks Helen asked how long it would take to get to Brighton.”

“Brighton? That is excellent! It is much smaller than London. Looking for her in London would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“No, a diamond in a haystack,” Newt said, and sighed.

While Caroline added the necessary items to her note, Newt sat, his protuberant eyes diminished to slits and his face clenched in wrinkles. When she put down her pen, he spoke.

“Thing to do, go to Brighton,” he said.

“I have asked Dolmain to meet us at the Royal Crescent on Marine Parade. We’ll be there by noon if we leave soon.”

“If we can get a burr under the old girls’ saddles.”

“We cannot wait for them, Newt. We shall leave at once, and let them follow or go back to London if they prefer. I should have insisted on sharing Helen’s room. Lady Milchamp is useless. She quacked herself with laudanum, imagine!”

Caroline ran upstairs to speak to Georgiana, who stood waiting while Lady Milchamp fiddled with her coiffure.

“So difficult, coming without a dresser,” the dame complained. “Oh, there you are, Lady Winbourne,” she said in a plaintive voice. “Have you found Helen?”

The inanity of the question was enough to show the nature of the lady’s mind. Caroline outlined briefly what Newton had learned, and what she intended to do.

“What, leave without breakfast?” Lady Milchamp exclaimed.

“You and Lady Georgiana eat here and follow us at your leisure later, or return to London if you like.”

“We will follow you,” Georgie said, before Lady Milchamp could choose the less exciting course. “I will pack your trunk for you, Caro. You and Newt will not want to waste a minute.”

“Why go to a hotel?” was Lady Milchamp’s next objection. “Dolmain has a house on the Marine Parade.”

“I did not know where his house was situated. Why do you not go there, ma’am? We can join you there later,” Caro said.

“That will be best,” Georgie said. She could see Caro was on thorns to be off. “Run along, dear. Godspeed.”

Caro gave her a quick hug and ran off.

Lady Milchamp said crossly, “I thought we might count on Lady Winbourne to prevent this sort of thing. This will do Helen’s reputation no good. I had hoped to nab the Duke of Clive for her. Forty thousand a year and three estates. Dolmain must not blame me if the girl has disgraced herself.”

Newton had his carriage waiting when Caroline joined him. “We are one footman short as you sent one to London with your note,” he said. “I am taking two with me. The old girls can make do with one, eh? Not likely anyone will molest them.”

“If I had known Lady Milchamp was a fool, I would have asked Dolmain to leave her at home.”

“I have had a thermos of coffee put in the carriage. You’d best have a cup. Your nerves are in tatters, Caro.”

They entered the carriage and Ankel sprang the horses.

“Try if you can rest now,” Caro said.

“Couldn’t sleep if my life depended on it. And neither could you
.
” He felt tears stinging his eyes, as if he had been eating green gooseberries, to think of poor little Helen at the mercy of DeVere.

“No, I couldn’t,” she said, and poured a cup of coffee.

Even with a team of four good nags, the trip took four hours. Four hours was a long time to be rattled about in a confined space, worrying. Once through Tilgate Forest, they stopped from time to time to inquire at the toll gates, but heard nothing of their quarry. Their spirits were low and their stomachs hollow by the time they reached Hayward’s Heath, a little past the midway point of their trip.

“My stomach has begun asking my throat if it’s been cut,” Newt said. “Time for fork work, Caro. If I don’t sink a bicuspid into a beefsteak, I will be no good to man or beast.”

“Yes,” she agreed. She needed a respite from the jostling of a carriage going full tilt, and perhaps a cup of tea.

The hamlet boasted no major hostelry. They stopped at a small inn. The servant was a bright-eyed young girl who looked as if not much would escape her.

“I don’t suppose a young lady and her uncle stopped here last night around three o’clock?” Caroline asked.

To her astonishment, the girl said, “Indeed they did. I didn’t serve them myself; Meg told me about them. The lady was ever so pretty. The gentleman tipped Meg a golden boy.”

“A blond lady, wearing a green traveling suit?” Caro asked, naming the outfit missing from Helen’s trunk.

“That’s her.”

Having finally received confirmation of her theory, Caro hardly knew what else to ask.

“Friends of ours,” Newton said. “Set out on horseback. Still riding, were they? Or did they switch to a carriage?”

“They changed nags, but went on their way on horseback,” the servant replied.

“Hired the nags here, did they?” Newt asked.

“Oh no, sir. We have nothing good enough for the likes of Lord deVere. He brought four mounts here in the afternoon. He rode off on one late last night, leading t’other behind him, then come back with the young lady riding it. They had a bite and a drink, and left straightaway on the fresh mounts. Early this morning his lordship’s groom took away the ones him and his niece had been riding last night.

“I expect Lord deVere and his niece were in a hurry to get to Brighton?” Caroline asked, adopting a conversational tone.

“They never spoke a word of English, according to Meg. Meg did hear the young lady say something about her mama and papa. She figured the lady was going home, wherever home might be for a French lady nowadays. She seemed eager to be getting on.”

“Yes, very eager,” Caroline said in a thin voice. She thanked the servant, who then left.

“Crafty devil,” Newt grumbled. “If he’d hired a rig or even nags, we might have found out where he was going. The stable would have wanted an address.”

“That is precisely why he brought his own. We are not dealing with an amateur, Newt. This was all planned in advance. Helen got a note to her cohorts before we left London, letting them know we would be stopping at Reigate.”

“The thing took time to set up. She must have used a servant she trusts to send her message.”

“I wish I had known this. Dolmain might have questioned his staff and discovered something. I shall tell him as soon as we meet in Brighton. Are you finished breakfast?”

“I can take the rest with me,” he said, and wrapped a piece of plum cake up in a napkin. In her distraction, Caroline had not noticed what he was eating. “Just to keep up my strength,” he explained, when she eyed it askance. “The servant said a beefsteak would take fifteen minutes to cook.”

“At least we know we are on the right track,” he said, when they were back in the flying carriage. “Pity we don’t have an address. Plenty of places to hide, even in Brighton.”

“Dolmain might have some ideas.”

But when Dolmain finally arrived at the Royal Crescent at one o’clock, he was in such a state, he hardly knew his name, much less where his daughter could be. He had driven his sporting carriage, which made better time than a traveling coach. Caroline felt a heavy ache in her heart to see him so anxious.

His face was chalk white with the strain and worry. His expression did not improve when she outlined what she had learned, including that DeVere was the same man who had been at the Pantheon with Helen. Caro felt in some manner it was her fault, but when she apologized, he brushed her words aside.

“This is my fault. You tried to tell me, but I refused to believe my daughter was capable of subterfuge. I had no right to ask you to put yourself in jeopardy for her sake. It is I who must apologize, Caro. I have not spent enough time with her. She has turned to these people in her loneliness.”

“Don’t blame yourself. How should Helen be lonely, when she had the excitement of her debut? She could have been busy every minute if she had wanted to.”

Caro wanted to ease his suffering, but this was not the time for false comfort. There was a job to do, so she damped down her compassion and said sternly, “Have you eaten yet today?”

“I don’t know. Some coffee, I think ...” he said vaguely.

“We’ve not had a bite ourselves, barring a piece of plum cake,” Newt said. “We have ordered up a beefsteak.”

“And you shall have some of it, too, while I tell you what we know,” Caroline said. “I fear it is not much,
”
‘ she added swiftly, when his eyes flew hopefully to hers.

While waiting for lunch, she briefly outlined the recent events over a glass of wine. Dolmain listened closely.

“Then it is clear she went of her own accord, and that she is somewhere in Brighton. I shall interrogate the servants in London about that message Helen smuggled out of the house, or perhaps write my butler asking him to do it. I wish I could be there myself. You have done an admirable job, Caro.”

Her heart swelled at his praise. “Thank you, but the job is not done yet. Have you any idea where she could be in Brighton? Does Helen have special friends she might go to?”

“Our friends are in London, with the Season beginning. In Brighton we stay at my house. We must look there, but I cannot believe she would take this man to my home.”

“She might. She doesn’t know we know she has come to Brighton. Let us go,” Caro said, jumping up from the table.

“I shall go,” he said, gently pushing her back onto her chair. “You shall have your breakfast.”

She did not urge him to stay and eat. Of course he must continue looking for his daughter. She had no appetite herself, but nibbled at her peas and potatoes, which seemed to go down more easily than meat. Newt ate stolidly without speaking, which left her free to think.

Helen had mentioned Brighton the day they went shopping. Her mama and papa met here. Dolmain had bought the house his wife had been living in for her, and later given it to the French émigrés. But what was the address? Dolmain was back before they left the table.