Clarissa and Hawk ran after him.

They found the Delaneys opening and shutting drawers and armoires that had to have been searched before.

Con told them, and they both turned impossibly paler.

“Therese,” Nicholas said. “Please, God, no.”

Eleanor clutched his arm, and then they were wrapped with each other. Clarissa remembered that Madame Bellaire was the woman who had gathered the money, then lost it to Deveril. She’d thought when Nicholas told her that there was more to the story.

If only she had pursued. Or done something.

“We have to follow it up,” said Nicholas, coming back to life. To Clarissa he said, “Which way did you see her go?”

“Down to the village.” She described it exactly.

Before she could say she was sorry, Hawk said, “That path splits three ways. And I doubt she took the village one. She moved her whole household out at crack of dawn.”

“Where?” Nicholas asked.

“No one knows, and we won’t until Old Matt returns to say where he took his cartload. Madame Mystique must have some base in Brighton, but there’s no saying she’s returned there. If it is she.” He added, looking at Clarissa, “Fortune tellers can be uncanny.”

“I know! I’m not sure of anything.”

Clarissa could almost feel Nicholas’s need to rush off, but he looked at Hawk. “I’m in no state to think, Hawkinville. I gather this is your forte. Will you take command?”

Clarissa saw a touch of color on Hawk’s cheeks. She remembered then that he and Nicholas could be seen as on opposite sides in respect to her. All that was unimportant now.

“Of course,” Hawk, said. “I’m sure you want to do something, however. Why not follow the route Clarissa described? Look for clues or people who saw the woman. Take a couple of Con’s grooms to follow other routes when it splits.”

Nicholas hugged his wife and left. Susan went to hold Eleanor’s hand.

Hawk turned to Con. “I’d like you to head for Brighton by the most direct route, looking for the Frenchwoman or Old Matt. If you get there without a trace, find Madame Mystique’s establishment and check it out. Take a couple of armed grooms—and be careful.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” said Con ironically, but without resentment, and hurried out.

The salute brought a slight smile to Hawk’s lips.

“Shouldn’t someone check Mrs. Rowland’s place here?” Clarissa asked.

“Yes, I’ll do that. It won’t take long, and it needs a careful eye. I’ll see if my father knows anything about the woman, too. He was mightily upset to hear of her leaving.”

He turned to go, but Clarissa grabbed his sleeve. She wasn’t sure what to say except that she had to say something. “Find her.”

He looked at her with deep darkness, then touched her cheek. “If it is humanly possible—”

Then in a black streak, Jetta leaped in to sit on his boots, as if trying to pin him down. Clarissa wondered for a mad moment whether the cat knew he was going into danger. He picked it up and moved it, and strode out. After a shake, Jetta strode after him. There was no other word for it. Clarissa felt as if he had a guard.

But then she turned back and saw Eleanor’s face. “I’m sorry. I should have gone after her.”

But Eleanor shook her head. “She would have killed you. Or taken you with her if she could.”

“Then I should have raised the alarm! Immediately.”

“Why?” Eleanor had lost all that placid calm, but she came to take Clarissa’s hands. “Why should you imagine anything so extreme? Life would be impossible if we all jumped to such conclusions every time we saw something out of the ordinary.”

“But,” Clarissa said bitterly, “I should have learned from experience. Everyone who has anything to do with me ends up in disaster.”

Eleanor gathered her into her arms. “No, no, my dear. Everyone who has anything to do with Therese Bellaire ends up in disaster. Really,” she added, with a touch of unsteady humor, “Napoleon would have been well advised to wring her neck.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

The women continued the search for a while—Clarissa even ran out to the fish pond in case the child had escaped the house and drowned—but no one’s heart was in it. They were all sure that Arabel had been stolen away.

Clarissa took a moment in the garden to let out her tears, and she felt better for it, if drained. But, oh, the thought of that sweet, trusting infant, who seemed innocent of anything but adoring kindness, in the hands of “Mrs. Rowland”! If only she’d not acted sensibly for once. If only she’d been impetuous, and pursued. Perhaps she might at least be with the child and able to protect and comfort her.

The only “if only” that mattered now, however, was if only she could do something to speed up the child’s safe return.

She returned to the house and discovered that Hawk also had returned and taken over Con’s study for what could only be called a command post. She entered to find that he’d set the women to work, even the dowager and Con’s sister.

A map was spread on the desk, and Hawk was studying paths and roads under the eye of a watchful cat. Eleanor was taking notes and seemed much steadier. Everyone else seemed to be drawing. Clarissa soon gathered that they were drawing rough sketches of routes, with churches, houses, streams, and such as markers.

She was given a piece of paper, and Eleanor read off some details for her.

“We’re going to send out riders along all these routes,” Eleanor said. “It will cover everything from here to a five-mile radius.” She glanced at Hawk. “He is very meticulous, isn’t he?”

Clarissa looked at him too. “He has that reputation.” She couldn’t help adoring him for his control and discipline. Knowing him, she realized that inside he was probably as achingly worried and anxious as they all were, but he was intent on his goal. Rescue.

He said something to Eleanor, looking up, and his eyes found Clarissa. Something flashed there—a need, she hoped—but immediately it was controlled. “The Henfield road goes through two tollgates,” he said to Eleanor. “The second should be far enough. The river blocks any roundabout route. Who has that one?”

Eleanor looked at her list. “Susan.” She went to relay the instructions to Susan, who was using the deep windowsill to work on.

Then Nicholas returned, looking exhausted but better somehow for racing around. She realized that Hawk had sent him for exactly that reason, and had probably put Eleanor to work to help her, too. So many threads in his fingers, each one to be done perfectly, because failure was impossible.

Then the maps were finished, the waiting grooms summoned, instructed with crisp precision, and sent off.

“They can be back within the hour,” said Hawk, but he glanced out of the window at the overcast sky. “If the weather holds.” He looked at Nicholas. “The woman may have gone to Brighton, but it might be too obvious. What do you want to do?”

“Ride hell-bent for Brighton, of course,” said Nicholas. “Or to London. Or to the Styx to bargain with Charon—” He stopped himself. “We will wait until the riders return, and hope there’s a clear path. It would be worse, after all, to go in the wrong direction entirely.”

“Then we must eat,” Hawk said. “Susan?”

Susan left, and everyone moved restlessly, waiting for something that could not come for a while.

“If Con finds anything along the road,” Hawk said, “he’ll send back word. What’s the woman like? From all I’ve heard of her, devious but not stupid.”

Nicholas rubbed his hands over his face. “No, not stupid. But she can be foolish. She prides herself on her arcane plans, but then gets lost in them. Certainly following a straight line is unlikely to find her. You’re going about it the right way. Spin a web.”

Now that the immediate work was done, Eleanor Delaney had sunk into a chair, staring into nowhere. Nicholas went to her.

Clarissa turned to look out of the window. Evening was beginning to mute the day. Realistically speaking, it was no more terrible for the child to be in the hands of a madwoman at night, but it felt as though it was.

Hawk came to stand nearby. She knew it even before she looked.

“Is she mad?” she asked.

“Probably not. But there’s a kind of madness that thinks only of itself. All controls to do with decency or humanity are lost, and only the desires and pleasures of the person matter. I suspect she is that sort of woman. What do you think?”

“I think of her with her children.”

He put out a hand to her, then stopped it, lowered it. She did not protest. There was no place in this for them, for the tangles and dilemmas still to be sorted out.

Susan returned, followed by maids with trays holding tea, wine, and plates of hastily made sandwiches. Certainly, thought Clarissa, sitting down to dinner would be macabre. The maids left, and everyone was busy for a moment, pouring, passing, taking plates. But then stillness settled.

“Eat,” Hawk said. “You can get it down if you try, and strength is needed. And don’t get drunk.”

After a moment, Nicholas put down his wineglass and picked up a sandwich. Eleanor was drinking tea, but she started to eat too.

Hawk ate two sandwiches, but he seemed to be thinking throughout the meal. Then he said, “The most likely situation is that the Bellaire woman has taken the child to hold for ransom. I gather she has reason of sorts to think that Clarissa’s money is hers. My father was under the illusion that she was going to marry him as soon as she was widowed. No illusion, actually. That doubtless was her plan once he had the money. I suspect I was her hunting dog, sent to sniff out the villains. An interesting mind. I assume that my elopement told her the plan was dead—so we have this.”

Nicholas put down his food. “But we only arrived yesterday. This has to have been an impulse. Had she no other device? It is unlike her.”