faith. Some were so angry they simply required an outlet, to stave off despair. A few just enjoyed making mischief. But all of them risked their lives, unless he could convince them to disband.
He rode his largest hunter to look impressive, searching up and down the road until he came upon them. Then he spoke for nearly an hour, summoning all the eloquence he possessed. Finally, combining threats of what the government would do and promises of aid, he managed to persuade them to remove the carts they had used to block the highway. He was watching them hitch up their horses, hoping they were not simply moving to a different part of the road, when he noticed a post chaise approaching from the south.
He urged his horse along the highway, fearing that some of the rowdier men might decide to stop it. And indeed the group paused to watch as the carriage swept closer. Alec planted himself in the middle of the road so that it had to slow. People must be warned that it was a very bad time to travel in Derbyshire. A man leaned out of the vehicle’s window. Alec was astonished to recognize his cousin Edward. “Alec!”
“What are you doing here?” Edward never left town at the height of the Season. For a moment, Alec wondered if he might have come to help his tenants. Then he let that ridiculous thought go.
“Let me pass!”
Edward looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. He was tousled and unshaven. Alec had never seen him less than perfectly groomed since he left school, which meant that something was very wrong. “What’s happened?”
“I must get home. Let me pass!” Despite his commands, the driver pulled up. It was that or run Alec down.
“I doubt you can get through. Haven’t you heard what’s happening? The countryside is in an uproar. Roads blocked, men gathering to protest…”
“They would not dare stop me!”
“That is exactly what they would do, Edward. Why do you think they are setting up barricades?” Alec indicated the carts that were still partly blocking the way.
His cousin seemed at a loss. He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it further. “Blast it. Damn both of them to hell.”
“Who? What are you doing here? What has happened?”
“Get in,” his cousin snapped.
“Why…?”
“Tie your horse to the back and get in! I can’t be shouting private business across a highway.”
He was so agitated that Alec decided to comply. But when he’d climbed into the chaise and faced his cousin, he demanded, “What the devil is this about?”
“There’s something… wrong with my mother.”
“She’s ill?” What was he doing up here, in that case?
Edward tapped his fists on his thighs, vibrating with tension. He seemed reluctant to speak, and yet at his wits’ end. “She seems to have brought Charlotte here,” he blurted finally. “And I don’t know what she means to do with her.”
“Do…?” Alec wondered if his cousin had had some sort of brainstorm.
The admission appeared to have broken a barrier, and words tumbled out of Edward now. “We’d been to the opera, the three of us. On the way home, Charlotte and I had… a disagreement. My fault entirely. I was… not myself.”
Most likely drunk, Alec thought, his blood burning at the idea of this “disagreement.” What had Edward done?
“I woke late the next day and had to spend a bit of time… recovering. I felt vile, if you must know. It was afternoon by the time I made that hellish long drive out to Charlotte’s house to apologize. Then, when I got there, I found the place all at sixes and sevens. They’d received a note saying that my mother was taking Charlotte on a visit to the country. Charlotte hadn’t come home the night before, hadn’t summoned her maid. No warning, nothing packed, an impulse, the note said.”
“In the middle of the Season? Aunt Bella would never…”
Edward waved him to silence. “You needn’t tell me. I went over to her house. I have a key. And I found it empty.”
“They’d left already?” It made no sense.
“No, Alec, I mean empty. Only my mother’s bedchamber and one servant’s room upstairs had furnishings. A few bits in the kitchen.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The rest of the place was bare walls and floorboards,” Edward almost shouted, as if volume would get his point across.
“But… that’s…”
“Unbelievable? Inexplicable? I have used those terms and more on this damnable journey.”
Alec tried to remember the last time he had been inside his aunt’s house. It was