“Cornwall.” Julia looked at Alexander, an entire conversation passing between them in that instant. Both Frederick and Anna had been from Cornwall, where they had lived and fallen in love with one another before…

  Well, before.

  “Do you know where Mrs. Holland was from? Before London, I mean.”

  Alexander crossed his arms over his chest, for a moment appeared as though he wanted to curl up inside himself. “No,” he said after a moment of thought. “I know her family hired her, though. That’s all.”

  “But if she came from Cornwall originally?” Julia stressed. “If she has connections with your wife’s family, her parents…”

  “Do you think…?” He trailed off, but a spark of hope glimmered in his eyes.

  Julia shrugged. “We could be mistaken. We might be looking in entirely the wrong direction.”

  “We could,” he agreed. “But so far, it’s all we have. And right now, I’ll take something that could be wrong over nothing at all.”

  After that, they could only wait for James to return along with any news he might have gleaned from Barrow-in-Ashton. Julia pressed Alexander to eat something, and she did the same, though the both of them finished their small meal with plates and glasses still half full.

  It was after eight o’clock before the footman returned, his hat still dripping and his boots leaving a trail of muddy water on the floors as he tracked the two of them down in the kitchen.

  “They were seen,” James said immediately, instead of wasting time on any kind of formal greeting. “Mrs. Holland hired Tommy Dickson to take her to the Root & Crown in Oakley. A coach runs through there on Sundays, bound for Dorchester. Tommy said she had a girl with her, though he couldn’t describe her with the weather being so awful.”

  “Zora,” Alexander said, a mere whisper of sound from between parted lips.

  “From what I could gather, the coach left Oakley about four hours ago, though it’s supposed to stop for the night somewhere around Stockbridge or thereabouts.”

  Alexander pushed away his plate and stood up before James had finished speaking. “Saddle my horse. I want to be on my way in a quarter of an hour. Less, if possible.”

  “I’m going with you!” Julia followed him from the kitchen as he headed for the servants’ stairs.

  He turned around with his foot on the first step, his shoulders brushing against the narrow walls. “I can make better progress on horseback.”

  “I know you can,” she agreed. “But they’re stopping for the night. It’s not as if they’ll outrun you in the next few hours. And when you find her, what are you going to do? Tuck her into your coat and ride all the way back in the rain? In the dark?”

  He hesitated, his breathing sharp and his teeth set. “Fine,” he surrendered. “I’ll have them prepare the carriage instead.” He abandoned the stairs and took another step towards her, bending down to drop a quick kiss on her lips. “And Zora will need you when we find her. We both will.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  * * *

  The roads were nearly impassable in places. The rain had stopped not long after their departure from Langford, but muddy ruts and holes caught at every turn of the carriage wheels, and more than once they were forced to turn around and find a different way that hadn’t been flooded out by the heavy rains. After two hours with what felt like little progress, Julia began to despair that they would make better time if they simply climbed out and walked the rest of the way to Stockbridge.

  “If the roads are difficult for us, they’ll be difficult for everyone else.” This was the assurance Alexander offered as they sat beside each other inside the carriage, Julia gripping the seat with white-knuckled hands while he bounced his leg as rapidly as though he was about to leap out the door and keep pace beside the horses.

  They stopped at the first inn they came to, a dreary establishment made even less inviting by the flooded yard behind it. Alexander went in to inquire if anyone matching the description of Mrs. Holland or Zora had been seen, but he returned to the carriage with a dismal shake of his head.

  “No sign of them inside, though the innkeeper said the Dorchester coach had passed through here no less than three hours ago.”

  “We’re catching up,” Julia said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. “We’ll find them, I’m sure.”

  They set off again, hardly speaking to one another as the carriage creaked and rumbled around them. Julia couldn’t stop thinking about Zora, worrying about whether she was frightened or confused, worrying about whether or not Mrs. Holland was treating her well. She would miss her nightly story, she realized, and her eyes began to burn at the thought. And with only one more night before Julia finished the tale of the dragon with his heart made of coal.

  Time slipped away in odd fits and starts. Alexander pulled out his pocket watch so often, checking it by the waxing light of the moon through the window that Julia worried he would wear away the engraving on its surface before the night was at an end.

  “We should be there soon, I hope,” was all he said a few minutes past midnight, before they fell into a taut silence once more.

  They arrived at the next inn, near Stockbridge, over an hour later. Julia had been sitting with her head resting on Alexander’s shoulder, her eyes wide open, too anxious to sleep. When the carriage shuddered to a halt, they both sat up, Alexander already on his feet and with the door flung open before the wheels had finished settling into the mud. He leapt out first, then turned around and held out his hand to her.

  “Here we are,” she said, and slipped her gloved hand into his. Even if Mrs. Holland and Zora weren’t to be found here, she needed to at least stand up and stretch her legs or risk not being able to unfold herself from the carriage ever again.

  The night was cold. Julia looked up at the sky and saw the gleam of stars beyond the brim of her bonnet, the clouds from the previous day’s rain long cleared away. Together they picked their way across the inn’s waterlogged yard and up to the path that led to the door. Alexander knocked loudly enough to shake the dead from their graves, and in less than a minute there was the mumbling of a voice behind the door before it swung open to reveal a squinting man in a cap and nightshirt, surveying them from behind the light of a single candle.

  “What d’you want?” came his sleep-slurred greeting.

  “I’m looking for a lady and a young girl.” Alexander stood near enough to the innkeeper that he loomed over him like a specter. “They would have stopped with the Dorchester coach. The lady is about sixty years of age, tall and slender, gray hair and eyes. The girl is eight years old, dark hair, either very quiet or very talkative. Most likely the former, in this situation.”

  The innkeeper coughed into the sleeve of his nightshirt and cleared a rumble of something unpleasant from his lungs. “And how important is it to you if they do happen to be staying here?”

  Alexander leaned forward. He stood taller than the innkeeper by several inches, so when he placed his hand on the doorjamb, there was nothing for the smaller man to do but quiver a little and take a faltering step back. “The girl is my daughter. Now, you will tell me if they are here, and which room they are staying in if they are, or else I will tear this building down to kindling around you.”

  “Ah.” The innkeeper cleared his throat again and moved out of Alexander’s path. “This way, then.”

  They followed him inside. The inn was mostly quiet, though there were a few footsteps and the murmur of voices from the floors above, guests who had yet to settle down for the night. They passed through the common room and the warmth that still lingered there and up the stairs, the boards creaking beneath their feet as though the entire building protested at this late intrusion.

  “Here we are.” The innkeeper kept his voice low once they arrived outside a door on the second floor. But before Alexander could reach for the knob, the innkeeper stretched his arm across the space. “Now, I’ll have you know she promised me ten shillings for keeping her presence here a secret. A fine gentleman such as yourself would surely be able to double or even triple that amount for all the help I’ve given you.”

  Alexander fixed the innkeeper with a hard stare. “Why would I give anything to a man who so easily broke a contract with one of his guests? You should’ve made her pay you the ten shillings up front,” he scoffed, and raised his fist to knock on the door.

  There was silence, at first. A few seconds passed, and then there was a voice — Mrs. Holland’s voice, Julia realized, and clutched Alexander’s sleeve — complaining about the ungodliness of the hour before the door opened an inch and a sliver of Mrs. Holland’s face appeared in the gap.

  Her gaze fell on the innkeeper first, and her mouth opened again to speak. And then Alexander shifted into her line of sight, and her skin blanched.

  “Oh.” That little sound, dropping from her lips, before she tried to slam the door shut in their faces. Alexander was too quick for her, however, and blocked her attempt with the toe of his boot.

  “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Holland,” he said, his words carried on a tightly strung thread of menace. “I believe you took something of mine? I would very much like to have it back.”

  Mrs. Holland staggered back, leaving the door to swing open the rest of the way. Julia shouldered past them all and rushed into the room. It was dark, the light from the innkeeper’s candle behind her. But there was enough moonlight streaming through the windows for her to make out the small figure of Zora curled up in the bed, sound asleep.

  Julia stopped, her legs pressed against the side of the mattress. She was torn between the urge to bend down and pull the girl into her arms, which would startle her from her sleep, or to simply remain where she was and take in the glorious sight of her, apparently well and unharmed. So instead she carefully sat down on the edge of the bed, forming a kind of wall around her without doing anything to disturb her. Zora made a faint sound, her eyelids fluttering and her lips working around nothing before she rolled over and nestled against Julia’s side, quickly falling back to sleep again.

  “...take her to another room,” she heard Alexander say. He was still caught in the doorway with Mrs. Holland and the harried innkeeper. “Away from her clothes and any of her other belongings. I’ll deal with her in the morning.”

  Mrs. Holland was pushed out of the room, still in her nightdress and bare feet, a few words of protest trailing from her mouth before Alexander silenced her with a single glance. And then he slammed the door shut between them. He sighed heavily, then pounded his fist once against the wall before he joined her by the bed.

  “Is she well?”

  “She seems to be.” Julia shifted so that he could sit down on the other side of Zora. “You should try and rest. It’s been a long night.” Though she doubted either of them would manage a wink of sleep before sunrise.

  The bed creaked with his weight, the mattress sagging with an ominous groan, but the structure held the three of them without fear of collapse.

  “What will you do about Mrs. Holland?” Julia canted her voice into a low whisper.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, his own voice more of a growl of tempered frustration than anything resembling a whisper. “I fear the majority of the night will be spent separating what I wish to do to the woman from what I should, seeing as how the former would have me absconding to the continent to avoid prosecution.”

  Julia looked down at Zora. Her heart ached so much with the leftover fear of having lost her that she thought her ribs might not be able to contain it. “But she’s safe now. And will no doubt be utterly confused when she wakes to find us here.” She wanted to laugh at that, but instead she bit at her lips and wondered what might have happened if…

  There were too many ifs. If they hadn’t learned which coach Mrs. Holland and Zora had boarded. If the weather had been different. If Mrs. Holland hadn’t stopped for the night…

  “Oh, God.”

  She glanced up at Alexander. Before her eyes, his face crumpled, a portrait drawn and wadded up again with careless fingers.

  “I was so scared,” he said, he breathed, his voice no louder than the rush of air carrying his words. “I thought…” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to think. If we were too late, if we were wrong about where she was going, which coach they were on. I just…”

  She slipped off her gloves, and she wiped the moisture from his cheeks with her fingers. He fell against her then, his head on her shoulder while sobs wracked his frame. She let him cry, let him release all of the fear and worry of the last several hours. And she held him, her fingers in his hair, her lips on his brow, and his child — their child, sleeping peacefully between them.

  ***

  Julia did manage to sleep, for at least an hour or so before dawn. She woke to find all three of them still somehow clinging to the bed, though Alexander had swung a leg down to the floor to keep from tumbling off entirely. Between them, Zora squirmed awake, alternately burrowing herself further beneath the blanket and alternately stretching out an arm and then a leg from under the covers like a seedling bursting out of the ground.

  “What…?” Zora mumbled. And then she looked at Julia, and she looked at her father, and her mouth formed a perfect little ‘o’ of surprise. “You’re here,” she said quietly. “You’re here!” And she launched herself into Alexander’s arms, nearly knocking him the rest of the way off the bed. “I knew you’d come!”

  Julia scrubbed at her cheeks, wiping away the quick burst of tears before Zora could see them and worry about her.

  “But how did you find us?” Zora still had her arms around her father, her fingers digging into the sleeve of his jacket as though she could weave herself into its threads. “I wanted it to be like Hansel and Gretel, leaving a trail behind me for you to follow. But I couldn’t find anything to throw out the window, and Mrs. Holland wouldn’t let me sit beside the window anyways. I had to sit beside a man who smelled like onions and kept telling me I was pretty.” Her features curdled, as though she couldn’t think of anything worse for an onion-scented man — or any man — to offer as a compliment.

  “It was Mrs. Holland who left the trail,” Julia explained, then went on to tell her about the housekeeper’s correspondence with people in Cornwall and their being seen boarding the coach for Dorchester.

  “Oh, I like that,” Zora said, releasing her father long enough to roll towards Julia instead. “The witch leaving the bread crumbs instead of the children.”

  Julia choked on the laugh that burst out of her, but stifled it quickly. She glanced at Alexander who looked to be balanced on a knife’s edge between apoplexy and hilarity.

  “Where is Mrs. Holland?” Zora peered at the corners of the room, as though the housekeeper might be lurking in the shadows like a recalcitrant spider. “Did you dispatch her with your sword? Like a real dragon in all the stories?”

  Alexander bent forward and kissed the top of her head. “I feel I should be worried about your fascination with dangerous weapons and monsters to be defeated.” But he smiled as he said it, and Julia felt as though she could draw in a full breath for the first time since the day before.

  “I’m hungry,” Zora announced, her immediate concern over Mrs. Holland’s whereabouts swiftly eradicated by the contents, or lack thereof, of her stomach. “Will there be breakfast?”

  There would be breakfast. Alexander promised to go downstairs and fetch it for them, while Julia helped Zora to wash up and dress. Taking great care, Julia eased the truth from Zora about how Mrs. Holland had managed to take her from Langford without anyone knowing.

  “She sent me out to play,” Zora said, while Julia scrubbed behind her ears with a ragged flannel and the cold water standing in the pitcher. “She said I needed to run off my energy before the rain started. Then she came out and said you were to meet us in the village, at Mrs. Decatur’s, as the gowns were done and we were to pick them up and bring them home. So I went, because I thought I was supposed to. And then she told me we were going to go in Tommy Dickson’s cart out to the Markham’s, that we would see Papa there first and then come back around for the gowns afterwards, rather than carry them with us the entire time.” And by the time they made the transfer to the Dorchester coach, by the time Zora realized something wasn’t right, they were too far from home, too far from Langford, from her father and from Julia, and so fright set in.

  Zora twisted around after Julia had finished buttoning her gown, looking up at her with wide, pleading eyes. “I thought it would be all right. I didn’t know I shouldn’t have gone with her.”

  But Julia shook her head. “She lied to you, dear. You couldn’t have known of her deception, and you had no reason to question it. You only did what you thought you should at the time.”

  “Even after it started raining, she kept saying the coach would take us back home, that it was only because the weather had worsened. But then the coach didn’t stop, and Mrs. Holland wouldn’t let me out, and she told me she was taking me to visit Mama’s family, that I would be staying with them for a little while.” She swallowed, her hands twisting the fabric of her skirt. “She said Papa wanted me to go.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Of course, I knew she wasn’t telling the truth.” Zora straightened her shoulders and tugged at the end of her braid while was still trying to tie a ribbon around the end of it. “Because you and Papa wouldn’t have wanted me to go away, especially not before the wedding. Not when you’re about to become my new Mama, and—” she added, with great emphasis on this point in particular, “—especially not without Ellen.”

  Alexander returned a few minutes later, and with a maid behind him bearing a large tray filled with what was apparently their breakfast.

  “How is… everything?” Julia asked, trying to keep her questioning vague, in case he wanted to be careful of how they spoke of Mrs. Holland in front of Zora.

  “We should be on our way back home after we eat,” he said, pulling out the small, rickety wooden chairs from the equally rickety table. “Mrs. Holland will not be joining us on the return trip.”