Page 26 of Choosing Her Earl at Last
“Precisely,” Emmeline agreed.
“A dirty, torn cloth,” Michael noted thoughtfully, “makes me think of a laundress or seamstress, but I do not know how that would apply here.”
Emmeline suddenly sat upright, her eyes burning with a fierce glow. She reached out, grabbing his hand to silence him. “I might know,” she breathed, leaping up from her chair. She scurried over to the door of the library. “Mr. Quincy, a carriage if you please,” she requested, turning back to face Michael and Colin.
“Where are you going?” Colin asked, concerned as he rose from his chair.
“To the market,” Emmeline answered enthusiastically.
“You believe that Rebecca is at the market?” Michael asked in confusion. “If she were there, the Bow Street Runners would have found her by now.”
He stood, crossing the room to her side. He gazed down into her eyes, the old fire that he had known and loved flaring up at him from their whisky amber depths. His heart stuttered in his chest, and he had to remember to breathe. Taking a deep breath tosteady himself, he felt the old desire for her reawakening within him.
Oblivious to the tumult that her passionate nature had caused within him, Emmeline shook her head. “I know that Rebecca may not be at the market, but the laundry maid is.”
“Laundry maid?” Colin asked, coming to join them at the threshold of the library. He exchanged a questioning look with Michael, but Michael was no wiser than his cousin on the matter.
“I will explain along the way. We must make haste.” Emmeline ushered them both through the door and out into the hall.
“Your carriage awaits, my lady,” Mr. Quincy announced as he emerged from the foyer beyond, bowing in respect of her station.
“Come,” Emmeline commanded of the clueless men who stood flanking her. “We must away!”
Chapter 11
Emmeline dragged Michael and Colin through the bustling market, her head turning from side to side, searching the crowd for the laundry maid that Rebecca had introduced her to. She stopped at the flower vendor where Rebecca had arranged for Emmeline’s bouquet.
“Do you know the laundress Martha…” Try as she might, Emmeline could not remember the maid’s surname. “…Gold something?”
The flower vendor shook her head. “I am sorry, my lady. I do not.”
Emmeline nodded her head in understanding. Sighing, she turned around and around, studying the faces at the nearby stalls. “Where are you, Martha?”
“So that I understand what we are doing,” Michael asked from beside her, “we are looking for a laundry maid named Martha, whose surname you do not remember, in one of the most crowded markets in all of London, because Rebecca stopped and talked to her once?”
“We are,” Emmeline agreed. She knew that she sounded unhinged to anyone who did not know the way that her mind worked, but Michael was not one of those people. “Her last name had something to do with gold. I remember thinking that it wasan odd surname for a laundry maid, but I cannot remember the name in its entirety.”
“What was odd about it?” Colin asked, joining them.
Emmeline shook her head. “It was a surname one would think to find among a family of jewelers and goldsmiths, not a laundress.”
“Hmm,” Michael hummed in thought. “Some families do not retain their hereditary occupations, but keep the surname associated with it for generations. It could be that one of her ancestors was a goldsmith.”
Emmeline nodded in understanding. “Unfortunately, that knowledge does not seem to be helping us to find her.”
“Goldsmethe, Goldsmithe…” Colin offered in an attempt to help as he began rattling off surnames historically associated with the gold trade.
“Gouldsmith!” Emmeline cried out triumphantly as the name slid back into her mind like a key clicking in a lock. “Martha Gouldsmith is who we are looking for.”
Nodding, Michael and Colin began asking the nearby vendors if they knew of a Martha Gouldsmith who worked as a laundress. While they tried to be discreet and not draw undue attention tothemselves, it was inevitable that a trio of noble persons asking questions of the common folk would draw attention.
The more questions that they asked, the more people began to behave with suspicion and distrust. After asking nearly every vendor in the market, the three of them stood discouraged near the edge of the street.
“I am not entirely certain that they are all telling the truth,” Emmeline stated, her frustration rising with each rejection.
“I am certain that they are not,” Michael confirmed. “They had decidedly closed ranks to protect one of their own.”
“We mean the lass no harm.” Colin sighed, just as frustrated as Emmeline.
