by Leah Conolly
“Quickly,” she said, lowering her voice. “Let us move back behind the crates where you were hiding. We will exchange clothes there.”
Christine’s eyes widened, but she did not question Charlotte. The three women moved back to the shadow-shrouded crates, and Ruth positioned herself directly in front of them to block them from the sight of passers-by.
As quickly as possible, Charlotte and Christine exchanged clothes. Once the women were adequately covered, Ruth abandoned her guard post and helped them finish dressing. When she was done, she stepped back and looked them over. Her eyes widened, and she put her hand to her mouth. Charlotte looked at Christine and gave a tiny gasp.
Christine had transformed into a beautiful, proper lady before her eyes, and the resemblance between the women was now uncanny. From the expression on Christine’s face as she studied Charlotte, it was clear that she saw the resemblance as well.
Charlotte recovered quickly when she saw people beginning to board the ship. She knew that the Comte’s brother would disembark soon to find her and escort her to France.
“Come,” she said, gesturing to Ruth and Christine. “Let us get you ready to present to Comte Francois’s brother.”
Christine followed Charlotte, but Ruth stayed where she was.
“My lady,” she said. “I am staying here with you.”
Charlotte walked back to Ruth and took her hands.
“No,” she said. “Christine must have a maid. She could not possibly travel without a chaperone. Besides, this will give you the opportunity to see France, just as you wanted.”
Ruth glanced at Christine and shook her head firmly.
“I am not unsympathetic to Miss Becker’s plight,” she said. “But I will not leave you. I cannot. Please, do not ask me to do so.”
Before the discussion could continue, Charlotte saw a man approaching them. She held her breath and gestured almost imperceptibly to him, giving Ruth and Christine a meaningful look. Despite Ruth’s protests seconds before, she put a hand on Christine’s arm and approached the man with a warm, professional smile.
“Good day, ladies,” the man said, bowing as he looked at Christine. “Lady Charlotte, I presume?”
Charlotte stayed rooted to the spot, holding her breath. She suddenly feared they would be discovered, and the whole plan would fall apart.
Christine gave the man a surprisingly elegant curtsey and smiled brilliantly at him.
“Yes, my lord,” she said.
The gentleman smiled warmly.
“Very good, my lady,” he said. “I take it this is your lady’s maid?”
Ruth gave a brief curtsey.
“Yes, my lord,” she said. “However, I will be unable to travel with Lady Charlotte. I am not well, I am afraid, so I must stay behind.”
The gentleman studied her briefly before nodding.
“Very well,” he said. “There are other members of Comte Francois’s household aboard the ship. They should prove sufficient chaperones in your absence. I wish you a speedy recovery.”
Ruth curtseyed again, and, even from where she stood, Charlotte could see the relief on her maid’s face.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said. She turned to Christine. “My lady, I wish you a safe, happy journey.”
Christine embraced Ruth gently, and Charlotte was surprised at how genuine it seemed.
“Thank you, Ruth,” she said, looking at Charlotte over the maid’s shoulder. “For everything.”
Charlotte gave her a small smile and nod, grateful that the gentleman had not noticed her. She and Ruth stood as still as statues, as Christine took the gentleman’s arm and disappeared into the crowd. Only once she could no longer see the curly blond hair did Charlotte dare to breathe a sigh of relief and join Ruth where she stood.
“We should leave here at once,” Charlotte whispered to her.
Ruth nodded.
“Where will we go?” she asked.
Charlotte stopped. She had acted so spontaneously that she did not have a plan for what came next. She pulled out her coin purse, which she had tucked into the pocket of Christine’s dress after she had donned it and counted the money inside.
“We have enough shillings to last the month, and almost enough to board a ship to the New World,” she said.
Ruth nodded, not questioning her mistress’s choice to travel to the New World.
“Perhaps we could slip aboard a ship in some crates,” Ruth suggested.
Charlotte smiled.
“Ruth, darling, you are a genius,” she said, embracing her maid.
Trying to stay out of sight, the two women slipped unnoticed along the docks, searching for any crates near a ship that was leaving for the New World.
Luck favored them once more, and they found crates that were being loaded onto a ship further down the dock. After determining that none of the ship’s crew was nearby, they slipped into a crate with a top left askew. Fortunately, it was largely empty, save for some straw and rough clothing. The women settled inside and pulled the crate lid closed. Soon enough, the crate began to rise off the ground. Charlotte’s heart was pounding in her ears, and she put a hand over her mouth to muffle her surprised grunt when she heard voices just outside their crate. Then she watched in horror the lid of their crate toppled off and fell to the ground. The sound attracted the attention of one of the men talking beside the crate. He stared at them in shock, but only for a moment.
“Halt,” he said, holding up his hand to the crew members who were attempting to load the cargo. He reached for the crate and helped lower it to the ground. Once it was secure, he pulled Ruth and Charlotte up by their elbows.
“Well, well,” he said, smirking. “What have we here?”
Chapter 2
Duncan Lancaster looked over the invoice yet again. He had tallied up the total number of crates and wine bottles he was supposed to have, but he was still one short. It was certainly not the biggest mistake that had ever occurred with one of his shipments, but it was perplexing, nonetheless. He supposed that he could simply order an extra crate of wine with his next shipment, but he would have to refigure his books in the meantime.
“Are you certain that there is no other place the wine could be?” he asked the ship’s purser.
The man shook his head, looking sheepish.
“No, milord,” he said. “We have searched everywhere. I believe there was a clerical error, and we are simply short one crate of wine. I am terribly sorry, Lord Willeton.”
Duncan glanced at the invoice again, then looked back at the man. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“It is alright, Jack,” he said, smiling warmly. “These things happen. It is not your fault.”
Jack smiled back at him gratefully.
“Thank you, milord,” he said. “I will ensure that this does not happen next time.”
Duncan nodded and smiled again.
“I know that you will,” he said.
He folded the invoice up and tucked it into his pocket, so that he could make the proper adjustments to his books when he returned home. Then he began to help the ship’s crew load the remaining crates of wine. He made a mental note to write a letter to the customer, informing the man of the shortage and promising to send extra wine, free of charge, in his next order. The customer was one with whom he had worked for years, and he felt sure this arrangement would be more than satisfactory.
Moments later, he heard a commotion. He looked up from the crate he was handling and saw two of the ship’s crew members pointing and shouting about a crate swinging a few feet off the ground. Duncan frowned, not understanding the source of the excitement. He abandoned his own crate and approached the men.
“What has happened?” he asked.
The men stared at him with matching expressions of shock. Duncan moved closer, noticing that the crate’s lid was lying on the ground. He looked up, and his own mouth fell open. Inside it were two terrified young women.
Duncan jumped into action.
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“Lower that crate at once,” he shouted to the stunned shipmates. His authoritative tone snapped them out of their trance, and they scattered. Within moments, the crate had been gently lowered back down to the dock. Duncan, seeing the women were now safe from grievous harm, took a moment to collect himself before he approached the crate.
“Well, well,” he said, bemusement replacing his earlier surprise and concern. “What have we here?”
The two women exchanged a fleeting look of terror before attempting to flee from the crate. The hems of their dresses got caught on the rim of the box, and Duncan was easily able to snag their arms gently as they tried to pull free.
“Correct me if I am wrong,” he said slowly, “but the two of you do not look like any bottles of port wine I have ever seen.”
The women looked at the ground, not meeting his gaze.
“This is quite the predicament, you see,” he continued. “For I found you in place of a missing crate of wine. It does make me wonder if, perhaps, the rest of my wine was not misplaced, after all, but rather stolen.”
At this, the blond woman’s head snapped up, and she met his gaze directly.
“Such a crime would make us rather foolish. Why would we climb into the very crate from which we stole and try to sneak aboard the same ship onto which it was being loaded?” She patted the pockets of her unremarkable, somewhat dirty dress. “And besides, where on earth would we have managed to hide so much wine?”
Duncan chewed his lip to stifle a laugh. He knew very well that these women could not have stolen or hidden all that wine between the time the shipment arrived and the time he found them inside the crate. He did, however, wonder why they would risk stowing away amongst a ship’s cargo.
“Well, it was rather foolish to try to illegally board a ship without paying for your journey,” he said. “Either foolish or desperate. I am merely trying to discern which.”
The women exchanged a look, and the fair-haired one fell silent once more. Duncan noticed how beautiful she was, and he could not help wondering why on earth she would take such a risk.
“We really are terribly sorry,” she said, “but you must believe that we are not thieves.”
Duncan swallowed another chuckle.
“Stealing away on a ship without paying is theft, young miss,” he said.
The woman blushed again, and Duncan felt remorseful when he saw the look of shame that came over her face.
“We are truly sorry,” she repeated, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.
Duncan thought for a moment. He did not wish to see them arrested, but he did need to know why they were trying to stow away on his ship. Whoever and whatever they were, they were clearly not dangerous, and, if they were in some kind of trouble, he wanted to help them if he could
To his surprise, the darker-haired woman looked right at him.
“Is there anything we can do to correct this situation?” she asked. Her voice was timid but steady. “We truly meant no harm. We just had no other choice.”
Duncan looked at her, appreciating the direct way the women spoke, despite how scared and uncomfortable they were.
“Well, that depends,” he said.
The women looked at each other once more, and then back at him.
“On what does it depend?” the brown-haired woman asked.
“On how honest you are with me about what you were doing in the crate,” he said. “And why exactly you had no other choice but to stowaway on my ship.”
The women looked at each other with identical expressions of fear and worry.
Chapter 3
Charlotte stared at the man before her, terrified. Her mind fumbled for any feasible reason as to why they were hiding in a cargo crate, but she came up with nothing. She dared to glance at Ruth, whose face was red and streaked with tears. She prayed that her maid would not suffer, as her only crime had been being unwaveringly faithful to her mistress.
“Please,” she said. “Punish me if you must but release my friend. This was all my idea. She wanted nothing to do with it.”
The man folded his arms across his chest and studied the women.
“Even if that were true, I caught you both trying to smuggle aboard my ship. Not just you. I do not decide who evades justice, and who deserves it.”
He began pacing in front of the women, and, for a brief moment, Charlotte considered another attempt to flee. She felt sure that they would fail again, however, and any punishment they received would likely be far worse if they continued trying to run. “I believe that the constable would be of great help to me in this situation. If you don’t start being honest with me, I am afraid that I will have no choice but to call him and explain what has transpired here.”
Charlotte bit her lip. She knew she must tell this man something, but she was still at a loss for an explanation. She could not tell him who she truly was. Even though Christine was already on her way to France, if word reached her father that Charlotte was still in London, and that she had not kept her word to marry the Comte, her father would see to it that both she and Christine were in as much trouble as the law would allow. On the other hand, if she did not tell this man something approaching the truth, he might do the same.
She took a deep, shaky breath, and met the gentleman’s gaze once more.
“My name is Christine Becker,” she began. As she spoke, she also tried to think of a way to keep Ruth blameless. “I fell in love with a fortune hunter who abandoned me when my father refused to sanction our match and cast me out. Since then, I have been forced to scavenge on the streets.” She paused to take another breath and buy herself a few more moments. She was trying her best to remember Christine’s tale, but fear and shame were clouding her mind. She knew that even a single wrong detail could mean the end of her charade, resulting in her and Ruth facing a fate worse than marrying a scoundrel Comte.
Floundering, she decided that she would add a small piece of the truth into her tale. “I have nowhere else to go, with a father who does not want me and a man who no longer loves me. I was simply trying to find a way to get to the New World and start over.”
The man’s eyes flickered with what Charlotte felt sure was amusement, but, if it was, it was well concealed. He nodded slowly, glancing at Ruth. Charlotte’s heart sank to her stomach.
“What about your friend here?” he asked. “Is she on the run as well?”
Ruth tensed up, and Charlotte shook her head.
“This is Ruthie,” she said, wincing at once. Why had she not come up with something else? Ruthie was too close to her maid’s real name. But there was nothing she could do about it now. She decided to remain as honest as possible. “She is my maid.”
The man looked at her skeptically.
“If you have no money, how can you pay a maid?” he asked.
Ruth spoke at last.
“I agreed to be her maid in exchange for the chance to go to the New World and receive the same opportunities as Christine,” she said quietly.
Charlotte said a silent prayer of gratitude for Ruth’s quick thinking. She and Ruth had known each other since they were children. Ruth and her mother had worked for Charlotte’s family since both were young girls. After her mother died when they were in their early teens, Ruth stayed on as Charlotte’s lady’s maid. Truthfully, she was glad that Ruth had fought to stay behind with her, instead of going to France with Christine, though she also felt guilty, because she knew how excited Ruth had been about France.
The gentleman continued to study the women, his expression unreadable. Charlotte felt sure that he did not believe a word of their tale and was about to turn them over to the authorities. She cursed herself for being so impulsive and getting them into such a mess.
At long last, the gentleman broke the silence.
“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he began, and Charlotte’s heart sank. Of course, he was going to have them arrested. What man in his right mind would not?
He glanced
behind them at the crate in which they had sought refuge, and chuckled. Charlotte was confused. Did he find stowaways humorous?
“You were never going to make it to the New World. Not on this ship, anyway,” he continued.
Charlotte exchanged a look with Ruth.
“I do not understand,” she said. “There are ships that sail there from this dock, are there not?”
The gentleman nodded.
