“Where is Merleton, by the by? We thought he would be with you.”
Her throat went dry at Maeve’s question, and she issued a tight shrug. “I had just come from knocking on his door when I saw the two of you. There was no answer.”
“Oh, but he’s likely still seeing to his attire. Wine stains are a nuisance. I can only imagine the trial he suffers without a proper valet traveling with him. No cause to worry, dear,” Myrtle said as she squeezed her hand. “We’ll be seeing him soon enough, I imagine.”
A hard knock fell on the door, and a gruff Italian voice told them that their carriage was ready. Then four attendants came in and began to carry down their trunks with utmost haste.
“But what about Bryony and Mrs. Pendergast?” Meg asked, falling into a state of panic and wondering what to do about Lucien.
Maeve touched her shoulder and directed her to the writing desk. “They are already gathering their things and will meet us by the carriage. As for your duke, I’m afraid we only have time for you to leave a missive.”
Heart in her throat, Meg nodded. Taking a piece of paper, she scribbled a hasty note, telling him where they’d gone and asking him—if they should happen to miss each other at the next inn or at any point on the journey back to England—to come and find her at her address in Wiltshire. Then she signed it with all her love and her real name.
She wished she could see him and tell him in person, but all she had time to do was slip the note beneath his door.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Maeve said as they sat in the carriage lantern light. “Any man who looks at a woman the way your duke does will surely cross mountains to find you.”
* * *
Lucien awoke to a fist pounding on his door. His primary concern was for Meg. But when he turned reflexively to shield her, he was confused to find the space beside him empty.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he reached toward the bedside table for his spectacles. The first thing he saw was that her clothes were gone from the floor and his banyan—he noticed, with a grin—was carefully draped over him. She had tucked him in, apparently.
The thought warmed him, and he logically concluded that she had gone to find her aunts.
Shrugging into the banyan, he opened the door to find his cousin. “Pell, you have absolutely dreadful timing.”
“It’s Morgan,” he said, his tone raspy and stark.
Only then did Lucien notice his drawn and pallid face. “What’s happened?”
Pell informed him that Morgan had fallen suddenly and gravely ill, and that the physician didn’t expect her to make it through the night.
A wash of dread fell over Lucien, agonizingly cold. She was more than a sister to him. They shared a bond that was unlike any other. She had been the one to save his life, and the one to encourage his pursuits for the majority of his life. Losing her, after all they’d been through and after that terrible row they’d had, would be unfathomable.
Alarmed, Lucien dressed at once. He stopped by Meg’s rooms, but there was no response to his knock. She was likely in the village with her aunts. So he scribbled a note and slipped it beneath the door, asking her not to go onward to Venice without him.
* * *
Later that week, he returned to the hotel, eager to see Meg and tell her of his sister’s remarkable recovery from the malady that they still did not understand. But, for the first time in Lucien’s life, making sense of something didn’t matter. All he cared about was that his family—such as it was—was still intact.
Upon entering the terra-cotta-tiled lobby, however, the concierge delayed this reunion by stopping to deliver his correspondence. One was a letter from his investigator in England, and the other . . . was the missive he’d slipped beneath Meg’s door.
Seeing the confusion on his face, the concierge crisply informed him that the Parrish women had left in haste the same evening that Morgan had taken ill.
An icy shiver of foreboding washed over him. He thought back to that night and wondered how long he’d been asleep before Pell had knocked on the door. An hour? Two? He wasn’t certain. But it was possible that the reason the letter was now in his hand was due to the simple fact that Meg had never read it . . . because she’d already been gone.
Then again, as an intellectual, he knew that a folded scrap of paper and the word of a concierge wasn’t proof of any sort of subterfuge. And Lucien required proof.
He started toward his rooms. Numbly, he opened the missive from his investigator and skimmed the contents as he strode down the hall.
It was the news he feared.
According to Mr. Richards, a groundskeeper by the name of Bagdemus—once employed by Maeve and Myrtle—said that as far as he knew, the Parrish women were deceased.
Lucien crumpled the page in his fist.
So he’d been right. The name Parrish was just another alias. But did that mean everything that followed was a lie as well?
He didn’t have the answer. Not yet. But he was almost afraid to open the door of his room. Afraid of what he’d find.
Drawing in a deep breath, he steeled himself and turned the key.
The apartment was still and eerily quiet as he stepped inside. He searched the parlor . . . the bedchambers . . . the terrace. Nothing. No note. And no book either.
On a shout of frustration, he began ransacking the rooms, looking for any small thing she might have left behind. He turned over cushions, upended chairs and tables as the sound of his own idiocy crashed around him.
He had been a fool, after all.
She had taken the book, but hell would freeze over before he’d let her get away with it again.
* * *
It was nearing the end of September at Crossmoor Abbey, the morning grim and rainy, and Meg staggered groggily from her bedchamber. Just as she opened the door, the scent of coddled eggs seemed to rise from the breakfast room two floors below and smack her across the face.
She instantly dashed back inside, grabbed the glazed chamber pot and cast up her accounts. Over and over, even when there was nothing left.
“Again, miss?” her maid said with concern as she rubbed a hand in circles over her back. “It’s been nearly a fortnight now. Perhaps it’s time to tell your brother or Lady Hullworth.”
Huddled over the pot, Meg shook her head vehemently and squeezed her eyes shut tight. “They mustn’t know. Especially not Ellie. She would surely imagine the worst.”
Then again, the truth was likely just as bad as anything her favorite worrywart of a sister-in-law could conjure. And more to the point, it had actually been a month now since the sickness had first begun. Meg had just been better at hiding it in the beginning.
Taking a deep breath, she sat up and sagged against the side of her bed. “Besides, this cannot last forever. So there’s no need to bother anyone about it.”
“I think, perhaps, there is a need.” Beneath a ruffled cap, Bryony looked at her with concern and handed her a square of damp flannel. “After all, you haven’t had your courses for two months. Ever since you returned from your holiday.”
Meg swallowed.
Her holiday—when she’d decided on the brilliant notion of having one grand flirtation before she put herself on the shelf. She had been determined to have one scandalous secret to keep with her as she grew old, just like the aunts had done once upon a time.