Free The Passion of the Purple Plumeria by Lauren Willig Page A

loudly.
    “We’ll herd them safely home,” agreed Colonel Reid.
    “
If
I might be so bold?”
    The Pink Carnation’s voice came dangerously close to a shout.
    “Forgive me for interrupting.” Jane waited until she had their full attention before saying, mildly, “It might be simpler to send a message to Mrs. Davies to make certain the girls are with her. If a note were sent by the mail tonight, you might have a reply by noon tomorrow.”
    “No,” said Gwen decidedly. There was no way she was backing down from this trip now, and the more she thought about it, the more she was certain that the Colonel was right. Where else could the girls have been for two whole weeks without exciting comment? No, they must be with this grandmother in Bristol. “Messages go astray. Let’s put an end to this now. Colonel Reid and I will go in the morning and bring the girls back—if they’re there,” she added, just to put the Colonel in his place.
    “Oh, they will be,” said the Colonel cheerfully. “They will be. I can’t imagine where else they could be.”
     • • • 
    “You seem rather keen to go to Bristol,” commented Jane as they made their way back to the Woolistons’ hired house in Laura Place.
    She didn’t say “with the Colonel,” and for that, Gwen was grateful. Jane did show odd inclinations towards matchmaking from time to time.
    The rain had stopped and the women had furled their umbrellas. Gwen used hers to poke at a wayward cobble. “I’m keen to get those troublesome chits back. The sooner they’re home, the sooner we can get back to doing what we need to do.”
    “Assuming they’re in Bristol,” said Jane.
    “Why would we assume otherwise? There were no signs of a struggle.” Gwen began ticking points off on her gloved fingers. “The schoolmistress said that they were annoyed at the departure of their friend. This Lizzy girl sounds like the sort who would egg Agnes on to run off. And it’s ridiculously easy to sneak out of that so-called young ladies’ academy. I saw three ways within five minutes.”
    “I know,” said Jane, tucking her chin into her collar. “I know.” Then, “Mademoiselle de Fayette seemed quite nervous, didn’t she?”
    “You would be too, if you had to tell a parent his child had gone missing,” retorted Gwen. The change in the Colonel, once he had solved the mystery of his missing child, had been remarkable. He had looked like a sinner who had been assured the hope of salvation.
    “I suppose,” said Jane.
    Gwen looked at her charge with mingled affection and frustration. There were times when Jane’s reserve sorely tried her patience. Not that she’d ever pretended to have much of that particular commodity. “What is it, then? Out with it!”
    “It’s not anything I can put my finger on,” said Jane hopelessly. “Just a feeling. I know, I know. I sound like the heroine from one of your novels.”
    “Not my novel,” said Gwen, offended. She had begun working on her novel several years before, and the project was dearer to her than she liked to admit. “My heroine would never indulge in such foolishness.”
    “I know,” said Jane with a slight smile. “She would go charging forward, parasol at the ready.”
    Once, they had both gone charging forward. This new reluctance on Jane’s part . . . Gwen didn’t like it.
    Gwen rapidly changed the subject. “I’m surprised you were able to find anything on Miss Reid’s desk. It looked as though Bonaparte had dropped a shell on it.”
    “Yes, it was rather mussed, wasn’t it?” said Jane. “Whereas Agnes’s was . . . almost a little too tidy.”
    Gwen looked at her shrewdly. “What are you saying?”
    Jane picked her way carefully across the rain-slick cobbles. “If you were to search someone’s desk, you wouldn’t leave it looking as though a shell had exploded. You would put everything back in what you believed to be its place. Wouldn’t you?”
    Gwen didn’t like where this was