The Lady Flees Her Lord

by Ann Lethbridge

  Squaring her shoulders, she threw on the brown wool cloak and pulled the hood over her head. Slowly, quietly, she turned the door handle. Darkness greeted her in the passage outside. Hand firmly gripping the balustrade, she crept down the servants’ staircase to find the footman who had served her at dinner slumped on a chair beside the side door. On silent feet, she tiptoed into the kitchen, where the scent of rosemary mingled with fresh-baked bread for the morning. The banked hearth cast enough light for her to see her way to the kitchen door.

  What had the upstairs maid said about the key? Ah, here it was, in the chef’s apron pocket, hanging on the hook beside the door. He left it there so the parlor maid could sneak out and visit her beau. A wry smile twisted her lips. Denbigh would be furious if he knew.

  The heavy iron key chilled Lucinda’s palm. Her fingertips located the keyhole. Breath held, she guided the key into the slot and turned. The well-oiled lock tumbled over. The door opened without a sound. Mr. Galloway was a tartar for a creaking door, the maid had giggled early one morning while making up the bedroom fire. For once, Lucinda offered sincere thanks to the insolent butler. Outside, cool air brushed her face. She pulled the door closed behind her and scurried down the garden path to the high wooden gate. The iron bolt slid back easily. She peered into the stinking alley behind the mews. No one. She picked up her skirts and ran. With every step, her heart hammered one word into her brain. Freedom.

  At the corner, she pulled her cloak tight and glanced back at Denbigh’s home. It had never been more than a roof over her head these past few years. Good riddance. If it didn’t mean she had to lose her mother and father, her real home and family, too, she’d be perfectly happy. The rush of moisture behind her eyes turned the street lamps into a string of haloed moons. She dashed the tears away and increased her pace. No crying. She’d made her decision.

  The small store of coins in the pocket inside her skirts banged against her knee. It wasn’t much. A few guineas she’d kept back from the allowance Father provided through his bank every month. It would get her to her destination.

  She trotted into Charles Street. She allowed a small smile to curve her lips. By underestimating her ability to turn pennies into pounds through investments and by assuming she had used all of her tiny portion to pay the household accounts, Denbigh had left her cage door ajar. The knowledge of her success gave her a smidgeon of confidence. Her stride steadied.

  The hardest part had been creating a false identity. After that, locating a man in the City who didn’t mind doing business with a woman he thought was a widow had been relatively simple. At first, she’d thought to use her profits to help Denbigh with his debts, to surprise him into acknowledging she could make a contribution to their marriage.

  Then she began to understand. Men, particularly Denbigh, didn’t want wives who could think or reason or figure. He wanted a porcelain doll to show off to his friends or a brood mare to provide his children. Since she had failed on both counts, she would use her money to start a new life. Perhaps when she got settled, she could risk a message to her family.

  She pressed on. The dim light of the occasional street lamp made the buildings look threatening. Her footsteps echoed as she turned onto Berkeley Street and made her way to Piccadilly. A hackney rattled past. The jarvey perched on his box gave her a hopeful glance. She couldn’t afford to ride. And besides, if questioned, a hackney driver might remember her destination.

  She shivered in the early morning chill. Each step took her farther away from the townhouse, and with each passing moment she expected to hear a shout, to learn of her flight’s discovery, to be dragged home in ignominy.

  Footsteps sounded behind her. She stopped, shrinking against the wall and melting into deeper shadows. A gentleman in a beaver hat, his cane twirling, strolled down on the other side of Piccadilly without so much as a glance her way.

  Breathe. Walk firmly, head high. People will see nothing but a woman on an errand or a servant on her way home. The sounds of London wafted around her. The all’s well call of a Charley, laughter from an inn’s glimmering windows, and a couple’s raucous singing carried on a breeze heavy with the familiar smell of coal fires and offal.

  By the time she reached the stagecoach stop at the Angel Inn, her nerves were pulled so tight that her shoulders ached. A light beckoned from the parlor window inside the courtyard. Oh, for a hot cup of coffee. Or chocolate with warm sweet rolls. She would never eat another water biscuit as long as she lived.

  Fool. No matter how hungry she felt, she must resist the temptation. A widow buying a ticket and boarding the stage would not likely warrant attention, whereas a woman sitting in a public inn for hours in the middle of the night might well be remarked upon.

  The shadows of a nearby building provided a clear view of the approach to the inn. If her husband came looking for her, she would see him first.

  Oh, God, she hoped so. Panic weakened her knees and made her stomach churn. She pushed thoughts of Denbigh aside, refusing to think about the kind of punishment he would inflict if he caught her. Anticipation of that sort only led to paralyzing fear. A lesson well learned under Denbigh’s harsh tutelage.

  Time passed at a crawl. From time to time, she shifted her aching feet. At first she thought it was wishful thinking, the faint trace of gray in the sky, but then an oxcart squeaked and groaned its way along the cobbled road in the direction of Covent Garden. Morning could not be far away if the farmers were bringing their produce. She pressed back against the wall to give the cart room to pass. The man at the reins gave her a friendly nod. A ragged street sweeper, a boy of about ten, established himself at the corner.

  London was stirring.

  A stable lad yawned his way across the inn courtyard opposite, plying his shovel to the dollops of dung. He paused to chat with a chambermaid laden with buckets of coal. Simple folk going about their business as if all was well in the world. How strange it seemed. How uplifting. Soon enough, the stage would draw up in front of the inn, and she’d be on her way to a new life.

  “Psst. Missus,” hissed a voice in her ear.

  Lucinda’s heart lurched into an awkward gallop. She whirled around, a cry of alarm lodged in her throat, and stared at the slatternly woman balancing a child of about two on her hip. Thank God. No one she knew.

  How could she have missed the woman’s approach? It might have been one of her husband’s men, or Denbigh himself. She pressed a hand against her breastbone in an attempt to still her heart’s flutter.

  “Will ye?” the nasal voice repeated.

  “Will I what?” she asked gently.

  “Will you hold the child while I goes over there? ’E won’t let me through the door with the nipper. I wants to ask for work as a chambermaid.”

  Lucinda shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I’m waiting for a stage.”

  The woman coughed, a horrid hacking sound that shook her body. The paroxysm subsided, and she dragged her filthy sleeve across her mouth and nose. “I won’t be but a moment, miss,” she gasped. She thrust the sleepy child into Lucinda’s arms with so much force Lucinda staggered. If she had not caught the child, the woman would surely have let it fall to the flagstones.

  With a curse at the street sweeper when he tried to clear her a path through the muck, the woman stumbled across the street and ducked into the inn.

  The child chose that moment to open a pair of blue orbs and gaze up at Lucinda in solemn contemplation.

  Lucinda regarded the dirt-smudged cheeks and rosebud lips. Poor little thing and so thin. She peered anxiously across the street. Just a moment or two, the woman had said.

  The street urchin sauntered over, his brush over his shoulder, a thumb in his waistband, and a glint of knowing in his eyes. He tipped his hat back at a rakish angle. “Loped off, has she? Properly bubbled you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “‘Blue Ruin Bonny.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the inn. “She bamboozled you.”

  The ragamuff
in seemed to be speaking a foreign language, although Lucinda recognized some of the words as English. It must be cant. Geoffrey, her brother, had favored it at one time, though his version had been more comprehensible. “She asked me to hold her child while she applied for work.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, then pulled a dirty handkerchief from somewhere about his person and wiped his eyes. “You won’t see ’er ag’in. Not no how.”

  “Do you mean she’s not coming back?” Lucinda looked down at the child, who stuck a finger in its mouth.

  “Naw, not ’er. You’ll have to take that there to the work’ouse. They’ll take care of it.”

  “Why didn’t she take it?” It? She had just called a child it?

  “It ain’t ’ers. ’Er sister ran off and left it. The old man wants to chuck it in the river.”

  “Drown a child?” Her mouth dried.

  The boy nodded. “Yerst. Best fing if you asks me. Better than bein’ throw’d on the parish and put to a trade.”

  She flinched at his brutal words. “You seem to be quite all right,” she shot back.

  “I got me own business,” the boy said, scratching at a grimy ear. “This ’ere’s my corner. An’ I got a place to rest me ’ead. That there’s a mort. Only fit for a drab and not for a long while.” He shook his head. “Take it to the work’ouse.”

  Lucinda deduced from this speech that “mort” meant a female, and she didn’t want to know what he meant by a drab. “Impossible. I will miss my coach.”

  “Catch it tomorrer.” He cocked his head on one side. “’Course, they might fink you’re its ma and keep you, too.”

  The sense of a trap slamming shut closed off her supply of air. She forced in a deep breath. “Nonsense. Mrs. Bonny er . . . the aunt went into the inn to seek work. She will come back.”

  The boy sniggered. “Mrs. Bonny. That’s a laugh.”

  Hefting the child higher on her hip, Lucinda glared down her nose. “I will find this Mrs. Bonny myself.” The lad’s laughter followed her across the road.

  She marched into the Angel. In a room just off the entrance, a bootblack looked up from a row of boots and shoes, his brush poised in midair. “Can I help you, miss?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for a woman who came in here a few minutes ago seeking work.”

  “Saw a baggage come in,” he agreed. “She ran out the back door.”

  “The back door?”

  “That’s right.” He jerked his head. “That way.”

  Lucinda tried to ignore the apprehension rising in her chest. “She would not have left without this child.”

  “If you say so, miss.” He shook his head. “We gets some bad’uns ’round here we does, no mistake. Imposing on respectable folks, too. Best take it to the Asylum for Deserted Children. They’ll know what to do with it.”

  “An asylum?” A step up from the workhouse?

  “Yes, in Lambeth. You has to explain it h’aint yours or they won’t let you leave it.” It again. The little girl rested her head against Lucinda’s shoulder.

  Outside in the yard, the clatter of horses and the shouts of oslers and customers heralded the arrival of the stage. Her life depended on not missing that coach. “Can you take her to Lambeth? I’ll give you some money.”

  The man shook his head. “See all them boots. Got to be ready by six that lot ’as.” He picked up a brown boot large enough to fit a heifer and gave it a swipe. “You best be on your way, miss, before the master finds you in here and calls the constable.”

  A constable would want to know her name. He might even insist on escorting her home. A sense of disaster left her numb.

  The little girl gave a thin sort of wail.

  “Sounds hungry,” the boots offered helpfully. “They’ll give you a pennyworth of bread and milk in the parlor.”

  Surely, the child’s mother would arrive at any moment with a profusion of apologies about the misunderstanding. She had to. Lost for any further idea and wanting the child to stop crying, Lucinda followed the delicious aroma of coffee into the public parlor, where a plump-cheeked woman greeted her from behind the counter.

  “May I have some warm milk and a roll for the child?” Lucinda asked, miserably aware that she barely had enough funds for her own purposes without spending money on food for another woman’s offspring.

  Smiling, the woman leaned forward to the child, then reeled back with a gasp. “It’s filthy. A lass like you ought to know better.”

  A lass like her? Lucinda opened her mouth to give the woman a set-down, then pressed her lips together. Any sort of altercation would be sure to attract attention.

  “We’ve been traveling,” she said weakly.

  “Hmm,” the woman said. “All right. Sit over there. I’ll bring you some bread and milk for the little one and a coffee for you.”

  “I need to catch the stage,” Lucinda said.

  “Don’t worry. You’ve a good half an hour to spare.”

  Lucinda gazed into the baby’s huge blue eyes. Poor little thing. What if the woman never came back? And what if she did? Would the child end up in the river? Desperation drove people to take extreme measures. Take herself, for example, fleeing her husband in the dead of night. A mad thought popped into her mind. Denbigh would never think to look for a woman with a child.

  The waitress bustled over with a basket of fresh rolls, a large pat of butter, a cup of milk, and another of coffee.

  Lucinda’s stomach growled. She ignored it and broke off a piece of roll before dipping it in the milk. She touched the milky bread to the child’s lips. The baby sucked at the soggy roll, then opened her mouth and took a bite.

  Gracious. The child had a mouth full of teeth. She must be older than she looked.

  “What’s your name, little one,” Lucinda crooned. “I can’t keep calling you child.”

  The little girl stared hopefully at the roll.

  Lucinda handed her the bread, and the child proceeded to dip it in the milk. While she devoured her roll, Lucinda buttered another for herself. Washed down with coffee, it seemed like the most delicious thing she had eaten in years. The two of them munched in silence until nothing but crumbs remained.

  The little girl sat up and gazed around. “Mama?”

  The word clawed at Lucinda’s heart. No child would ever call her “mother.” Not a child of her own. She gazed at the tiny face topped by wispy blond curls and couldn’t prevent a smile.

  The child blinked back enchantingly.

  “Sweeting, to me you look like a Sophia.” The name she’d chosen for the daughter she’d once hoped to conceive. She tickled her under the chin. “Sophia, let us use the facilities, and then it will be time to depart.”

  • • •

  Hugo drew Grif to a halt at the top of Beacon Hill, inhaled air redolent with the first cut of summer hay, and gazed over the magnificent sweep of Kent countryside. Three weeks laid up in an army hospital followed by a storm in the Atlantic made one appreciate England’s beauty.

  A lark trilled liquid notes high above him. He squinted into the afternoon azure sky and, as he expected, saw nothing of the small bird making one of the sweetest sounds on earth. He couldn’t remember when he’d last heard anything besides shouted orders, booted feet, and the crashing of cannon. Perhaps coming home wasn’t so bad.

  In the midst of bucolic beauty squatted the Grange. A fortified half-timbered manor in medieval times, its outline had been softened with sprawling stone additions and outbuildings by succeeding generations of Wansteads. Looking down on it from the rear, traces of its origins remained: a dip in the lawn the last vestige of the moat, the square core of house, and even the bricked-up arrow loops either side of the oriole in the library, once the solar. If he stared hard enough at the lawn alongside the tree-lined drive, he could make out the old tilting field where once armored knights charged at one another. A haven of safety. At least he’d thought so as a boy, before he learned the truth and hotfooted off to war.

  H
is gut twisted at the painful reminder. For a moment, he considered turning tail. He sighed. He had nowhere else to go. The Grange was a responsibility he’d avoided for far too long.

  Shifting in the saddle, easing his aching thigh, he pulled out his flask and took a long pull of brandy. For a moment, he let the numbing warmth spread out from his belly. Then he pressed his heels to Grif’s flanks and urged the stallion into an easy downhill canter along the edge of a fallow field. He entered Brackley Woods, an approach that would take him directly to the stables. They’d ridden hard from Portsmouth, but his eagerness must have transmitted through his hands and heels, because Grif, game as always, broke into a gallop.

  A flash of blue, ahead and to the right. On a collision course. A child. His hands sawed at the reins, his body adjusting to the skittering halt. The child stopped dead in her tracks in front of Grif with a high-pitched screech.

  The stallion reared and danced on his hind legs, snorting and trembling. Flashing hot then cold, Hugo brought Grif down hard to one side. Cold sweat poured down between his shoulder blades as his mind took in the near tragedy.

  A woman in gray dashed out from among the trees and scooped up the little girl. Chest heaving, her dark eyes accusing, the woman backed up. He’d seen nothing but terror for years. He hadn’t expected to be the cause of it in the peaceful English countryside.

  He leaped down, reaching to calm Grif with a pat to the neck, aware of his own slowing heartbeat. What was this woman thinking, letting a child roam free in these woods? His woods, no less. How dare she put a child in such danger?

  The child pillowed her head against the woman’s magnificent bosom, while the woman stared up at him. A large woman and unusually tall, she held herself proudly. Not a beauty by traditional standards, with her aquiline nose and prominent chin. But unlike the ladies of Spain and Portugal, her fair complexion reminded him of cream fresh from the churn. A faint blush of pink stained her softly rounded cheeks. What little he could see of her light brown hair was scraped back beneath a plain straw bonnet.