An argument ensued about whether he would go alone, as he wished to do for the sake of speed, or if his wife and sister-in-law would accompany him. As he pointed out, if Camille went, she would have to take Jacob with her, since it was impossible to predict how long they would be, and if Jacob was going, it would be difficult to leave Sarah and Winifred behind. In the end, they all had their way. Joel went ahead on horseback, and the rest of the family followed in the carriage, for, as Abigail pointed out, their grandmother would want to know about their letter and about what Joel discovered, as would the rest of the family, who were staying at the Royal York.
Joel rode down the long hill into Bath and left his horse at a livery stable before striding off on foot. He passed Bath Abbey on the way and was hailed by someone in a group of people standing and conversing outside the Pump Room. He recognized Anna, his dearest friend when they were growing up together at the orphanage and for a number of years afterward. She was now the Duchess of Netherby. The duke was with her, as were Camille’s aunt Louise, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby, and Elizabeth, the widowed Lady Overfield. He hesitated for a moment, but then turned in their direction and returned Anna’s hug when she stepped forward to greet him.
“You look as if you are in a vast hurry over something,” she said.
“Is anything amiss, Joel?” Elizabeth asked, a frown of concern on her face. “One of the children?”
“Camille and Abby are worried sick,” he said. “There was a letter this morning from the housekeeper at Hinsford. She wants to know where my mother-in-law is. She still had not arrived there.”
“Hired carriages are an abomination,” the Dowager Duchess of Netherby said. “You may depend upon it that it broke down somewhere. She should have accepted the loan of my carriage. I have no use for it while I am here, as I was at pains to explain to her. But dearly as I love Viola, I have to say she is one of the most stubborn women of my acquaintance. She was bound and determined to do it her way.”
“But why has she not written to say so?” Anna asked.
“I daresay,” Avery, Duke of Netherby, said, “that before we delayed him, Joel was on his way to demand answers of the coachman who drove her.”
“I was,” Joel said. “I still am. If the carriage has returned, that is.”
“If.” Anna’s hand crept to her throat.
“I shall come with you,” Avery said. “If you will excuse me, that is, my love?”
“Oh yes, do go, Avery,” Anna urged. “We will return to the hotel and wait to hear what you discover. Oh, what on earth could have happened?”
“Camille and Abigail are on their way to the Royal Crescent,” Joel said. “They were too worried to wait at home.”
“Then we will go there too and wait for you,” the dowager said.
The coachman who had driven the hired carriage was not present when they arrived at the company’s office. He was out on a call, but it was a local one and he could be expected back at any moment. Any moment proved to be an hour long. When he finally arrived, the man removed his greasy hat in order to scratch his greasy hair after Joel had hailed him and explained why he was there.
“I lost a good-paying customer back here on account of that there fare,” he said. “Had to replace the axle, I did, though the old one wasn’t exactly broke. Not good enough to fix, though. I lost a whole day and a pile of money. That gent did not make good for the day I lost either. I suppose a day’s pay is neither here nor there to the likes of him. Some has it easy.”
“The gent?” Joel said.
“My carriage wasn’t good enough for Mr. High and Mighty,” the coachman said bitterly. “Oh no, not him. He had to go looking for another one, he did, even after I went and changed the axle. Got me to take him to where he could find one. I only hope he got fleeced and all the wheels fell off before it had gone five miles.”
“You left Bath with Miss Kingsley,” Joel said. “Who is this gentleman you speak of? And what happened to Miss Kingsley after the mishap with the axle?”
The coachman scratched his head again. “Didn’t know him from Adam,” he said. “But he thought he was the king of England, he did. She was with him when I took him into town after the carriage was fixed. He had the cheek to say he wouldn’t insist that I pay her back for the cost of the night at the inn. Can you believe it? I hope that after I left them they couldn’t find nothing else to hire for the wheels to fall off of. It would serve him right, it would, if they was stranded there for the rest of their lives.”
“My temper would be considerably happier if you would confine your remarks to answering the questions that have been put to you,” Avery said, regarding the man with languid disfavor. “Where exactly did this slight accident with the axle occur? Where exactly was Miss Kingsley stranded for the night? To which town did you convey her and the mysterious male stranger the following day?”
More head scratching. “Some village,” the coachman said vaguely. “Can’t remember what it was called, if I ever knew. They was having some big fair there over something or other. The church roof, maybe.” He did, however, remember the name of the town to which he had taken his passengers the following day. “I really ought to have been paid more for my trouble,” he added, squinting shrewdly at Joel. “Cost me a bundle, that trip did.”
“I believe you got off lightly,” Joel told him. “Your journey, for which you had been paid in full, was cut short when you were no longer required to go the whole distance, and Miss Kingsley apparently did not insist upon either a refund for the untraveled portion of the journey or recompense for the unexpected night she was forced to spend at an inn. Did she say anything to you the next day? About who the gentleman was or where she was planning to go in another carriage?”
But there was no further information to be got out of the man, and he dropped no more hints about the losses he had incurred during the ill-fated journey. He seemed somewhat disconcerted by Avery’s languid mention of his unhappy temper and Joel’s grim displeasure.
When Joel and Avery arrived at Mrs. Kingsley’s house on the Royal Crescent, they found every member of both families gathered in the sitting room, all looking identically anxious, with the exception of the children. Jacob was asleep in Abigail’s arms, and Sarah, the younger of Camille and Joel’s adopted daughters, was curled up on her mother’s lap, hovering between sleeping and waking, though she roused herself sufficiently to greet her papa with a wide smile. Winifred, the elder of the adopted daughters, was tickling and smoothing a hand over the bald head of Josephine, Anna and Avery’s baby.
As soon as Joel had given his report, the whole family would have gone tearing off in pursuit of Viola and the mysterious gentleman, who quickly assumed sinister proportions in the eyes of many of them, if Avery had not imposed silence and then reason upon the gathering with the mere lifting of one finger. He then observed that they would resemble a traveling circus and would surely move across the countryside at the speed of one if they all went together.
“I will go alone,” Joel said.
“I’ll come too, Joel,” Alexander, Earl of Riverdale, told him. “I am head of the family, after all, and you may need some assistance. This . . . man is an unknown quantity.”