Through the open door voices floated up from the hall below. Matty had returned and was even now coming upstairs. Quickly Phyllida wiped her cheeks. No one must know her weakness, the constant aching loneliness that filled her waking moments. It would pass. Pray heaven it would pass quickly.
She heard Matty’s firm tread on the landing and prepared to greet her, but when the maid appeared she was far too distressed to notice Phyllida’s forced cheerfulness. She burst out wildly,
‘Oh, my lady, I’ve lost Miss Ellen!’
Chapter Fourteen
‘What do you mean, you have lost her?’
Phyllida stared at Matlock, whose usually severe countenance was wild and ravaged by tears.
‘Miss Ellen said she wanted to buy a little present for Miss Julia so we stopped in Milsom Street on the way to Lady Wakefield’s, to buy some ribbons. Miss Ellen asked me to wait outside. Well I thought nothing of that, for there was her parasol to hold, and her sketchpad and pencils, and the shop was very crowded. So I waited, and when she didn’t come out after ever such a long time I went in, but she wasn’t there. The assistant said she thought Miss Ellen might have left by the side door, the one that comes out into the passage. I went on to Laura Place, thinking somehow I had misunderstood her. But she wasn’t there, my lady. She had never arrived.’
‘Oh, good heavens!’ Phyllida put her hands to her cheeks but Matlock hadn’t finished.
‘The family had already set off for Beechen Hill. Lady Wakefield’s butler told me they had received a note from Miss Ellen crying off from the sketching party.’ Matty sank down on to a chair and pulled out her handkerchief. She said, between noisy sobs, ‘Oh, my lady, I do fear Miss Ellen has run away.’
‘I do not believe it,’ declared Phyllida, but in her heart there was already a numbing chill when she recalled the fierce hug Ellen had bestowed upon her before setting off that morning. She ran into Ellen’s room and her heart shrank into a hard icy block when she saw the note propped against the trinket box on the dressing table. With trembling hands she picked it up.
‘Oh, my lady, what does she say?’
Matlock’s shaking voice came from the doorway.
‘It would seem you are right, Matty, she has run away. Eloped,’ Phyllida replied calmly, but inside she was burning up. How had she missed the signs? Ellen had shown no preference for any of the gentlemen who clustered about her. Who had stolen her heart? Phyllida knew that only the deepest passion would have persuaded Ellen to take such a rash step. She closed her eyes.
Please, please let it not be Richard....
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, but Mr Arrandale is below, and insists upon speaking to you.’ The butler’s voice was like the answer to her silent prayer. ‘I am very sorry, my lady, but I couldn’t keep him out, leastways not without an unseemly scuffle on the doorstep, so I’ve put him in the morning room. If you like, I could fetch Patrick and the scullery boy to try to eject him...’
‘No. Thank you, Hirst, I will go down to him.’
Pulling herself together, Phyllida followed the butler to the morning room, where she found Richard pacing the floor. Almost before Hirst had closed the door upon them he spoke.
‘Did you know Ellen was going out of town today?’
She shook her head.
‘She was engaged to join the Wakefields for a sketching party to Beechen Hill. Her maid has just returned to say Ellen gave her the slip in Milsom Street.’
His brow darkened still further.
‘My man tells me he saw Ellen climbing into a travelling carriage at the White Hart. The blinds were drawn down so he could not see who else was in the carriage, but there was a quantity of luggage on the roof.’
Phyllida swayed. She put a hand out and gripped a chair back.
‘So it is true. She has eloped.’
‘This is no time for weakness, madam,’ he said roughly. ‘I have sent runners to find out which road they are taking. My curricle is outside, if you will allow me to drive you, we should be able to catch up with them before nightfall.’
His brusque tone steadied her. She could send a message to the stables for her own carriage, but that would take half an hour at the very least, and by that time who knew where they might be?
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You are right. There is no time to lose. I will fetch my cloak and bonnet.’
‘Good girl. I shall wait for you outside. I told my people where to find me, if there was any news.’
Phyllida ran back up the stairs. She must keep her mind upon the task of finding Ellen. Questions about why Richard should be going to so much trouble could wait.
Minutes later she was heading out of the door, tying her cloak strings as she went. Richard was standing beside his curricle, talking to a soberly dressed man in a plain brown frockcoat. With a nod he dismissed the man and turned to hand Phyllida into the curricle.
‘They were taking the London Road,’ he said shortly. ‘We can ask after them at the turnpikes.’ He added, after a brief hesitation, ‘I have not brought Collins, I thought you would prefer that we should travel alone.’
‘Yes, thank you. The fewer people who know of this the better.’
They set off at a cracking pace. Phyllida clung on to the side of the curricle at first, until she grew accustomed to the speed.
‘Tell me,’ she said then. ‘Who was that man?’
‘One of those I hired to keep watch over Ellen. I apologise, I know I had no right to do so, but I wanted only to keep her safe. You cannot know how much I regret I did not prevent that damnable wager from ever taking place.’
Her hand fluttered. She said shortly, ‘All that matters now is that we find them.’
Phyllida’s worries about losing track of their quarry soon eased. At every turnpike the keeper recalled seeing the travelling carriage occupied by a fashionably dressed gentleman and a beautiful young lady in a pale-blue walking dress.
‘At least we can be confident they are not heading to Gretna,’ remarked Richard, setting his team in motion again after quizzing the pike keeper at Bathford.
‘Nor London,’ said Phyllida as they set off towards Melksham.
‘No.’ He frowned. ‘That surprised me, for they might be expected to hide in town for weeks, certainly until they could persuade someone to marry them.’
‘Perhaps this...this gentleman, whoever he is, has no thoughts of m-marriage.’
‘From what I know of your stepdaughter I would not expect her to settle for anything less,’ he retorted. ‘What exactly did she say in her letter?’
Phyllida clasped her hands together hard and tried to stop her voice from shaking. ‘That the task of protecting her was too much to ask of me. That she w-wanted to relieve me of the burden. I s-suppose she thinks a husband is the answer.’
Richard gave a crack of laughter. ‘Heaven help the husband!’
Phyllida racked her brains, trying to think back for any clue, any sign she had missed that would have told her what Ellen was planning. With a gasp she clutched at his arm. ‘Richard! She was talking to your great-aunt about a special licence. That means they only have to hide out somewhere for a week!’
‘They would still have to convince a priest that she is of age. And even then the marriage would be illegal.’
‘But the damage will have been done.’ Phyllida bit her lip. ‘She will be ruined. Oh, who can have persuaded her to embark upon this outrageous scheme? I would like to think it is a young man who truly loves Ellen, but I very much fear it is someone who has designs upon her fortune.’
‘Someone like me, perhaps?’
She said quietly, ‘I no longer think you want Ellen for her fortune.’ It was true. His concern for Ellen argued that he cared a great deal for her. Her hands were locked together so tightly it was almost painful. ‘My biggest worry is that it might be Sir Charles Urmston.’
‘Urmston left Bath yesterday morning,’ he told her. ‘Let me put your mind at rest on one point, Phyllida. Whoever it may be, if he does not make Ellen happy then he shall answer to me. She shall not be tied to him, even if I have to make her a widow to prevent it.’
So there it was. Even through her anxiety for Ellen she could feel her heart breaking.
They continued in silence, until they reached the village of Atford, where the road forked. Richard pulled up outside the church. Phyllida looked at the diverging roads and beat her fist upon her skirts in frustration.
‘Which way now?’
There was an ancient sitting on the low wall of the church grounds and Richard hailed him. A few moments’ conversation elicited the information that a travelling carriage, heavily laden and travelling at speed, had driven through the village a short while earlier, on the Devizes road. As they set off again Richard glanced across at Phyllida. Her face was pale and strained and he reached out to put one hand over hers.
‘Don’t worry, we are closing on them.’
He felt her tremble and she said in a low voice, ‘After this, sir, I c-cannot doubt your devotion to Ellen. If...if we can save her from this folly, and if she wants you, Richard, then I shall not stand in your way.’
‘If she—’ He broke off, requiring both hands and his concentration to control the team as they approached a bend. Once they were on the straight he declared, ‘Confound it, Phyllida, what are you saying? Ellen does not look upon me as anything more than a friend. And it is certainly not Ellen I want.’