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A tight pain bit hard in Edward’s gut when the carriage drew to a halt before John’s ostentatious townhouse. Dawn had broken as they travelled, flushing the sky pink. Now it was full light, and the sky an azure blue.

If Mary is not here…

That was a thought he had refused to consider during the journey.

John rose from the opposite carriage seat. He had chosen to accompany them, leaving Kate with the children. He opened the door to alight. A footman was already there, setting down the step. John turned and offered his hand to his mother. Ellen descended hurriedly, asking the footman, ‘Is my daughter here?’

The man looked blankly at her.

‘Is Miss Mary here?’ Edward asked. She had to be.

‘Miss Marlow left with you, sir, a day ago. She has not returned. I did not think she was expected.’

The answer hit Edward like a fist to the stomach.

‘Have the stables quickly saddle horses for myself and His Grace.’ Perhaps Mary was at the Smithfields after all and Eleanor was mistaken.

The footman had not moved. ‘Horses! Now! Run!’ Edward barked.

The man ran.

Edward looked at John. ‘We will ride to Smithfield’s. If she is not there his daughter may know where she is.’

Ellen looked sickly pale. ‘I will go to her room.’ She rushed up the steps to the house. The porter had opened the door. ‘Perhaps she left a letter.’

If Mary had left a letter, it could only mean one thing – she had eloped.

Edward followed Ellen across the grand hall of the town mansion, and up the broad stairs. John came too.

Edward felt torn from reality. Where was his precious daughter, his firstborn? Flashes from the past illuminated his thoughts. A small child taking her first steps. A young girl rubbing his earlobe while she fell asleep on his lap. An impatient young woman tapping his leg beneath the table to gain his attention. The beauty of her smile when she had attended her first ball.

In her rooms, everything was where it ought to be.

Two days ago, he had handed her up into a carriage. Where the hell had it taken her?

‘Check the writing desk,’ John said.

Edward had bought that desk for her, as a gift. It was mahogany inlaid with a delicate pattern of roses formed from rose, walnut and apple woods. He opened the lid. It contained a muddled pile of letters.

The letter on the top was the one from Smithfield’s daughter, confirming her parents’ agreement for Mary to stay. Was that a lie? Had he not ever known Mary? How many times had she lied?

John took out some letters. Edward passed some to Ellen and picked up a first letter to read.

The letters Edward read were inconsequential letters from her friends, they contained young women’s chatter. ‘There is nothing here.’

‘DF…’ Ellen looked at him and John, holding up the letters she had been reading. ‘Mary received a letter that was delivered by a servant. She said it was from Daniel. I thought she had feelings for him but within days he proposed to her friend. These are all love letters signed DF or D and most are dated after Daniel’s engagement… Why would I disbelieve her? Mary never lied. Never…

‘They speak of meeting her, Edward. Who was she meeting? I thought her silence and distraction a symptom of a broken heart. These letters urge her to trust him. Why did she not speak of this man to me?’

Anger clasped at Edward’s jaw. Had Mary been that foolish? ‘DF. Drew Framlington.’

He cast the letters he held down into the desk and comforted Ellen, feeling no comfort himself. ‘She did not tell you because they are from a man we told her to avoid.’

‘She would not d—’ John growled.

‘It looks as though she has.’ Fear froze Edward’s skin.

Ellen pulled away from him. ‘They were passing these letters through a stable boy. Find him.’ She looked at John.

John turned away.

‘She has eloped,’ Ellen said when John left the room. ‘We do not even know him, Edward. Why did she not at least try to persuade us? We told her she may choose her husband.’

‘Because both John and I would not have tolerated a match. My guess is she feared speaking would only alert us to the possibility. The man is a manipulator, he has charmed her. He will have told her not to speak to us.’

‘If he has hurt her?—’

‘I will kill him.’ What had Framlington said to her, done to her, to persuade her? Edward should have challenged her harder the other day, he could have prevented this.

John had returned with a young lad. The boy looked scared. ‘I found Mary’s little messenger. Tell Lord and Lady Marlow what you told me.’

‘I didn’t do nothin other than what malady asked.’

Edward glared at the boy. ‘What did she ask you to do?’

‘She gave me letters an said no one else should know. She made me swear.’

‘Who did you deliver the letters to?’

‘I don’t know the gent’s name, milord, ee was just some toff who lives in the Albany. I took letters there, an ee sends em back and one time ee came ere.’

A knife lanced into Edward’s chest. ‘The man was here?’ Had Mary lost her mind? What had happened then? What was happening now?

‘Lord Framlington lives in the Albany,’ John said.

Edward could not look at Ellen. ‘We had better start our search there. I saw her speaking with Lord Brooke and Framlington only days ago at a ball.’

‘Brooke is Framlington’s best friend,’ John stated, ‘and he rarely goes to such things?—’

‘Well, he has attended balls recently, and twice, he danced with Mary,’ Ellen interjected. ‘Oliver had introduced one of his friends. I never thought to question it.’

‘And Oliver clearly never gave a damn,’ John spat.

‘It hardly matters now,’ Edward said. ‘What is done is done. Now we must simply find them…’