Flora’s eyes widened for a moment, but she shook her head. Meg watched as she smoothed her fingers over her forehead. It was one of her mother’s rules. Frowning caused wrinkles, and wrinkles were to be avoided at all costs. She settled back into the chair, and arranged her skirts to elegant perfection. “She’s here somewhere, I’m sure of it. I will simply sit right here and wait for her to return.”
Hector appeared in the doorway, his expression grim. Meg felt her heart climb into her throat, knowing it was bad news, hoping her sister wasn’t hurt, or worse. “You’ll have a long wait, Flora. A lad from the village just delivered a note. Rose is gone. Eloped, she says.” Meg’s heart dropped again, hurtling to the floor like a stone. It was worse indeed.
Hector held out the note, but Flora recoiled in horror.
Meg stood in stunned silence for a moment, staring at the letter in her uncle’s hand. The ink was blotched with tears. Or was it only rain? She glanced out the window at the weather.
Sunny. Her stomach knotted.
“It’s not true,” Flora murmured. “It can’t possibly be true!” She looked from Meg to Hector. “What am I to do now?”
Meg took the note and read it. Rose would not, could not, marry a man like Temberlay. She would rather face death and—Meg slid it into her pocket without finishing it, bitterness filling her throat. Now they’d all face death, or poverty. Her sister was the most selfish creature on earth. Still, she glanced at Rose’s side of the bed with a twinge of fear. The future she’d chosen might turn out to be far worse than marriage to a duke with a rogue’s reputation.
She squeezed her mother’s hand, worried herself now, for Rose, for Flora, for her sisters. Hector patted Flora’s shoulder as she began to blink back tears. “We’ll find her before things go beyond redemption,” he said. “She can’t have gotten far.”
Flora looked at Meg, her blue eyes sharp as a needle. “Who would Rose elope with?”
Meg shrugged. “How would I know? She had a dozen young men who—”
“A dozen?” Flora cried. “Oh, Hector, I’m going to faint!”
Hector ignored the threat. “Can you narrow it down?”
Meg shook her head, and Flora’s eyes narrowed. “Come now, you’ve shared everything for over a year, clothes, this room, that bed! Surely you know her secrets!”
Was this her fault? Meg hadn’t wanted to hear Rose gloat over her admirers, spin her romantic dreams. She’d pretended she didn’t care, ignored her sister’s attempts to whisper her secrets in bed at night. Guilt coiled through her like smoke. “Not this one.”
Flora put a hand to her mouth. “Think of the scandal! What will the duchess say?”
Meg read dismay in Hector’s eyes before he turned to soothe Flora. “I’ll go myself, and bring Rose straight to London when I find her. In the meantime, Meg is close to her sister in size. She’ll do to have the wedding gown fitted.” He pressed his handkerchief into Flora’s hand.
Meg felt her knees turn to water. “Me?” she whispered.
“Hector’s quite right. The wedding is a fortnight away, and there’s no time to waste,” Flora said, rising now the decision had been made. She smoothed her curls and set her bonnet on her head like a soldier preparing for battle. “I’m going to wait in the coach. Do hurry.”
“Is there anything else you can think of? Anything at all?” Hector asked Meg.
Meg looked again at the tear-stained note, scanned the last few lines. Rose didn’t name her intended husband. If only she’d listened, hadn’t been jealous. She racked her brain. “The last lad she mentioned was an ensign in the navy. I don’t recall his name. Edwin, possibly. He wrote her several letters, but I didn’t—she wouldn’t let me read them.”