Elizabeth Thornton by Whisper His Name

shoes to think what would become of him. This dire prediction had flowed over George as water over the proverbial duck’s back. He never argued. He wasn’t rebellious. He simply went his own charming way regardless of what others thought.
    He had been the perfect companion to share her adventure in Paris. He wasn’t like other young men who were interested only in gaming, drinking, and wenching. He’d come to see the sights, the architecture, the museums, and the magnificent gardens. And when Hugh had arrived on the scene and introduced them to his friends at the embassy, George had enjoyed that too. Then he’dmet his own friends and gone off with them. He would write to her, he said. And she had laughed, knowing that George wasn’t much of a letter writer.
    She covered her face with her hands. How had it come to this? Her brother’s life depended on her, and she was no heroine. She wondered if she’d done the right thing by not going to the authorities. Those family conferences that she’d always scorned would have been a great comfort to her now. But she’d set her course, and she would stick to it till together they decided what was best.
    If only she had paid more attention to Mr. Horton—Morton—when she’d danced with him at the Assembly Rooms. George’s friends, he said, were becoming worried about him. No one knew where he was. She should have listened to him more carefully. She should have taken him seriously. She should have asked him questions about where and when he’d last seen George. Now, she didn’t know where Mr. Horton was or how she could find him.
    She stayed as she was for several minutes. When Nan began to stir, she dropped her hands and looked out the window. There was nothing to be seen in the thickening dusk but the glisten of raindrops caught in the light of the box lamp.
    Abbie was jerked from an uneasy sleep when the chaise came to a swaying, grinding halt. She heard coach doors slamming and men shouting. Horses were neighing and stamping their feet. Her maid moaned and blinked her eyes, but she did not waken.
    Abbie let down the window and looked out just as one of her hired postboys came down from his perch.
    “Looks like an accident, miss,” he said. “I’ll go take a look.”
    She’d thought, hoped, when the coach halted, that they’d reached their destination, but evidently this wasn’t the case. Ahead of them, in the faint glow cast by the box lamps on each carriage, she could see a line of stationary vehicles stretching all the way to the bend in the road. There could be no doubt that some unfortunate carriage had come to grief.
    When five minutes had passed and her postboy had not returned, she decided to investigate in person. She opened the door, let down the steps, and gingerly climbed down. Beneath her feet, the road was like sheet ice, and she steadied herself with one hand against the front wheel till she found her feet. As she passed her postilion, he half turned in the saddle to look at her.
    “What’s going on?” she asked. “Have you heard anything?”
    “Mail coach,” he replied. “It must ’ave taken the bend too fast. They thinks they’s real whips, them mail coachmen. That’ll learn ’em.”
    She had just come abreast of the next carriage, when the sudden blast of a tin horn up ahead, followed by the sound of men cheering, shattered the silence. Some minutes passed, then, “All clear!” shouted a coachman before climbing into his box, and the cry was taken up and carried down the line of waiting carriages.
    Inch by slow inch, she began to retreat, but she stopped when someone called her name. The young man who came out of the shadows was wearing a many-caped driving coat with a double row of silver buttons down the front. This was the fashion that all young men who aspired to be dandies had taken up. Her brother George had a coat just like it.
    “It’s Harry Norton,” he said, coming up to her. “Don’t you remember me? I’m your