Page 98 of The Highlander Is All That

“Aren’t we all?” Victoria said in far too complacent a tone. When everyone stared at her she shrugged and said, “Well, aren’t we?” She pinned Elizabeth with a wicked smile and waggled her brows.

Elizabeth took her meaning at once. What a horrifying thought. “I cannot countenance Mary throwing away her life for me!”

“Funny,” Anne said. “She felt the same about you.”

Oh, dear, sweet, misguided Mary! “I cannot carry that weight. I can’t.”

“It’s not your fault,” Esmeralda barked. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I should have seen. I should have noticed. A footman, for pity’s sake.”

“He is very handsome.” Victoria merely smiled when her aunt glared at her again.

“I knew she was planning something,” Elizabeth murmured. “I should have said something.”

Anne sighed. “No one could have expected it. I certainly didn’t.”

“There’s no good in guilt or worry,” Bower said. “We need to focus on bringing her home.”

“And keeping this from the ton,” Esmeralda said.

Bower blanched. “That . . . ah . . . may be difficult.”

Esmeralda looked up so fast her neck cracked. “What do you mean?”

“I, ah . . .” He tugged at his collar. “One of the neighbor’s maids told one of our maids that Mary might have been seen leaving with Jamison.”

Esmeralda collapsed into her chair. “Egads. This is awful. The worst.”

“It’s not so bad,” Anne assured her. “We can think of something to put the gossips off.”

But there was no time to plan. Because then the locusts descended.

Word was out, apparently.

Mary was ruined.

And with her, her sisters were scandalized.

And everyone in the ton wanted to come and have a look.

* * *

It was a horrific morning, one Elizabeth never wanted to repeat. On top of her worry about Mary, there was the fact that when Hamish arrived, she was not able to speak to him—or even say goodbye when he, Bower, and Anne took the carriage and headed north.

Beyond that, she, Esmeralda, and Victoria had their hands full dealing with calls.

Esmeralda stalwartly insisted nothing was awry, that Lady Prentiss had been mistaken when she’d seen a girl of Mary’s coloring mounting a horse behind a footman—and the sisters both followed suit, averring Mary—and Anne, for that matter—had gone off to Kent to visit an ailing relative. And thank God Esmeralda had plenty of ailing relatives living in virtual obscurity.

It was patently obvious some of the esteemed visitors didn’t believe a word, especially when Sally Albright looked pointedly around the room and asked, “And where are your Scotsmen, may I ask?”

Esmeralda set her lips together and frowned at her. A thinking woman would have left the room. Sally was not that wise.

“Well?”

Victoria smiled sweetly and refilled Sally’s teacup. “Oh, they asked not to attend morning calls anymore,” she said.

“Why ever not?” Sally said, tittering to Belinda Battersby.

“They find the company . . . banal,” Esmeralda murmured.