Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Elizabeth,” chided his father. “There’s no need for such dramatics. You see your brother is well.”
“I cried too,” said Hazel. His sisters were a full decade younger than him, the babies of the family, though, at seventeen, Hazel would be coming out the following year. He kissed them both and thanked them for their tears of concern.
“Did you see or hear anything of Lady Ophelia Lovett?” Townsend interrupted the siblings’ affection, his voice tense with worry.
Before Townsend could say anything else, his father cleared his throat, looking at Elizabeth and Hazel. His mother sent the two girls on an errand to the kitchen to fetch their guests some sweets. Once they were gone, his father paced to the window with a somber expression and looked out into the street.
“The Earl of Halsey’s daughter went missing in the fire as well, Wescott. Our search parties encountered one another near the theater, where she was separated from her family. No one’s seen or heard from her since last night.”
Townsend started pacing, which wasn’t like him. He was typically the calmest and most level-headed of their group. Wescott sent a questioning glance at Marlow and August. Could this missing Lady Ophelia be the woman Townsend had been mooning over the past few months? Wescott had never heard of her, but Towns seemed beside himself. Horrible, to think she might have gone to the theater with her family, then been lost in the roaring, spreading fire.
His father turned from the window, his imposing air of authority lending even more gravity to the discussion. “Now that you’re found,” he said, “we must let the Halseys know, so the searchers can focus on Lady Ophelia alone.”
“I’ll go,” said Townsend, his face pale with lack of sleep. “Then I’ll head down to search the area of the fire again.”
“We’ll go with you,” August offered.
Marlow agreed. “Yes, three are better than one. We’ll find her.” He gave Townsend a fortifying nudge on the shoulder. “She might have turned up at home now that it’s morning, just as Wescott’s done.”
“Yes,” said August. “It’s likely the lady found shelter and was waiting for morning’s light.”
The men saw themselves out, leaving Wescott alone with his parents. Their expressions were grim.
“Poor child.” His mother blinked back tears. “She’d only just returned to London from abroad. Lady Halsey must be worried sick for her safety.”
“I didn’t know the Halseys had a daughter besides Lady Nanette,” Wescott said. Nanette had been courted by scores of bachelors the year before. Halsey had money, lots of it, as well as a respected and distinguished title, which brought out the ton’s marriageable men in droves. If Halsey had another daughter, she’d be an apt match for Townsend, especially since he seemed full gone with love.
“There were so many people fleeing the theaters when the fire came,” he said to his mother. “They must have swept Lady Ophelia along with them. Surely they wouldn’t leave a fine lady to manage on her own.”
“She’d just come from the stage,” his father said, “and the opera house is so large. There are so many doors letting out this way and that. Perhaps, being new to the theater, she got lost finding her way out.”
“How awful.” The duchess shook her head. “How will her parents forgive themselves if the worst has happened?”
Her voice trailed off as his sisters returned bearing sweet buns and biscuits, which they dumped onto the tea tray in front of their brother.
“Thank you,” he said, but his mind was turning on other things. “She’d just come from the stage…?” he echoed. “Lady Ophelia?”
“Yes, she performs in operas. Society is changing, isn’t it?” his mother said, glancing at her daughters. “There was a time no cultured woman would appear on stage, no matter how talented. Now, titled ladies perform regularly in the salons in Bath. And Lady Ophelia’s voice is surpassingly lovely, I hear. The coloratura soprano of a generation, if gossip is to be believed.”
“Gossiping is bad, Mama,” said Elizabeth. “You’ve told me many times that I’m to pay gossip no heed.”
“This is good gossip,” her mother said. “Lady Ophelia apparently sings so much more beautifully than…well…” She cleared her throat delicately. “Than the other women of the opera company, that she was invited to sing with Domino Nicoletti in Armide, and well as another opera later this fall.”
“I don’t know that I would have allowed it, no matter how lovely her voice is,” the duke said, displaying the famous Arlington frown. “Ophelia is Hazel’s age, not even out yet, and making appearances onstage. And now…”
His mother gave a quick shake of her head, wishing the topic dropped, but Wescott was thinking back over the night’s events with rising anxiety.
“What does she look like?” he asked. “What does Lady Ophelia look like?”
“You might ask Townsend,” his mother said. “He’s carried a torch for her ever since she returned from her Viennese music school this spring.”