The Rake and Miss Asherwood

by Amy Lake

  “I wasn’t supposed to eat in the library,” she added, looking sadly at the mounds of debris and half-burned books. “But I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

  “We’ll just have to walk,” said Armand finally, after the baguette was finished and the crumbs swept away.

  Marguerite nodded, and they turned their attention back to the pink-tinted area of Picardy, which looked so small and unthreatening on the map. Both children knew of a road toward the Channel, which ran along the Authie River and through the town of Auxi-le-Chateau, but they had no idea what happened then. Could one walk along the coast as far as Calais? And would one want to? The thought of such a large body of water was alarming.

  “No,” said Armand, “I think we must go first to Saint Pol.” He pointed to one of the larger-looking towns not far above Doullens.

  Marguerite nodded. Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise was . . . to the north, she thought. There was only one road in that direction, the one which passed by old Baston’s field, and the village church, and it could hardly go anywhere else.

  “We can ask the direction to Calais from there,” added Armand. “No-one will know who we are in Saint Pol.”

  “How long do you suppose it will take?”

  This was the problem. An hour’s walk was a long distance, and the farthest they’d ever imagined needing to go; beyond that, neither child had any idea.

  “I suppose . . . a day,” said Armand. “Maybe two.”

  “Well, we’ll get there eventually,” said Marguerite.

  Armand nodded. This was an adventure, and he was ready to go.

  * * *

  Chapter 46

  Henry and Miss Perrin

  Dearest Penny—

  Penelope read Elizabeth’s note with mounting alarm. By the time she had finished she was pacing the floor, unsure of whether to laugh or cry and wishing she could give someone a good piece of her mind.

  Miss Elizabeth Asherwood, her dear friend Lizzie, who had never been out of the environs of London without her father or a bevy of servants, who never handled money—actual money—beyond what it took to pay a few pence for an ice, who could barely speak two words of French, and who had never, Miss Perrin was sure of it, taken a public conveyance in all of her young life—

  This Miss Asherwood was now on her way to Calais, by way of Dover and the mail coach.

  Lud.

  Miss Perrin thought quickly. A few minutes later she was climbing the stairs to the second floor, hoping that the commotion she had heard shortly before dawn, a string of curses followed by the sound of someone falling half-way down that same staircase, meant that her brother Henry was indeed home.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “My dear brother—”

  “Gods, Penny, it’s the middle of the night. Go away.”

  Henry Perrin had been lying on top of his bed, one boot still on, the other one thrown across the room. He attempted to hide his face under a pillow.

  “’Tis nine of the morning,” said Penny. “Look at me. Or we can have this discussion with the door open.”

  Henry removed the pillow and glared at his sister. “As it happens, my debts at this moment are fully paid,” he told her. “And not even Mother will care what happened three months ago between me and the Earl of Kettrick.”

  Penny laughed.

  “I don’t think so either,” she told Henry. “But Mother will care about what happens three months from now, or in a week. And the next time—because there will be a next time, you know it as well as I do—I will make sure that every last shilling is reported to her in detail, Henry, I swear to you—”

  Henry looked at Penelope. He knew his sister well.

  “This is blackmail,” he complained. “Your own brother.”

  “This is desperation,” countered Penny. And we are talking about Lizzie. You used to have a tendre for her—which I have never mentioned, by the way. That could easily change.”

  “Penny!” He was outraged.

  “I’m not asking you to go in. Just take me there and wait.”

  “Gods. Go away.”

  “I’m not leaving. And I can argue a lot louder.”

  A pause, then Mr. Perrin sighed. “All right. Give me an hour or two—”

  “Now, Henry.”

  In fact it was a good thirty minutes before Henry Perrin was ready and the groom brought the carriage around. Penelope spent the time continuing to pace, and planning her next argument with the male of the species, although she had hopes that Lord Blakeley would be more reasonable, more concerned about Miss Asherwood, and certainly less foxed than Henry.

  * * *

  Chapter 47

  Journey to Dover

  Henry Perrin sat in the Perrin carriage, a portrait of headache and ill-temper. He held his head and grimaced each time the wheels were jolted by a rut in the London streets.

  “Where did you say we were going?” he asked Penelope. Again.

  “Saint Ann’s Lane.”

  “And is it going to take the entire bloody day to get there?”

  Penny just laughed. “We left ten minutes ago.”

  “Hell.”

  “Oh, and Henry—one more thing. We need to stop at Aisling House on the way home. I need to tell Pivens where Lizzie went before they really start to worry.”

  Mr. Perrin uttered a very bad word.

  * * * *

  Anthony Dewhurst stood at the bedroom door. “Are you making a collection of young misses?” he asked Lord Blakeley.

  Peregrine looked up from the mirror, where he had been making a final, exasperated attempt at a decent cravat. His lordship’s patience had been thin in recent days. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s another one waiting for you in the study. A Miss Penelope Perrin.”

  “Miss Perrin?”

  Penelope did not waste time. “Lizzie has gone to France to fetch Marguerite. She doesn’t speak French, and she claims she will take the mail coach to Dover—”

  “The mail coach!”

  “—and hire a packet to Calais, and heaven only knows if she knows where to find one. I don’t know if she thought to bring money—” Miss Perrin hesitated, frowning. “—although in that case I can’t think the coach would take her. But once in Calais she intends to find Monsieur Rabaillat—she has his direction—”

  “Monsieur Rabaillat?” interrupted Lord Blakeley. He looked at Penny in disbelief. “Monsieur Rabaillat?”

  “Well yes,” replied Penelope, who wondered why he seemed so upset. The fact that Miss Asherwood was in possession of the gentleman’s address had seemed to her the one piece of sense in the entire scheme. “She will find him, and—”

  Lord Blakeley was already at the door. “Anthony!” he called.

  The very nice-looking young man who had showed her into the study re-appeared a few moments later.

  “See that Miss Perrin gets home safely, will you?”

  “Of course. And where are you going?” added the man.

  “Dover. And very possibly France.”

  * * * *

  Miss Asherwood was discovering one of travel’s majors joys and annoyances, which is to say, the unexpected occurrence. It had been simple enough to find a hackney carriage in London, as soon as she had made her way—head high, buoyed by the courage of new-found purpose—into Grosvenor Square. And the hackney driver had been willing enough to take her from the square to the south end of the London Bridge, from which point one could take passage to Dover on a coach of the royal mail.

  She was not really afraid, either for her physical well-being or for the success of her task, if one counted success in a general way, that she would reach the shores of France safely and with every hope of finding assistance from Monsieur Rabaillat. Elizabeth had heard stories, of course, of cutpurses and highwaymen, but hearing a story is a very different thing from experiencing such an event. Deep in her heart she could not believe that anyone would want to harm her. No-one ever had.

  And despite Pe
nny’s worries, Miss Asherwood had money. Her father had kept a stack of pound notes in his desk, which everyone in the household knew of, and which had never been touched, as she’d seen no reason to do anything with them after his death. The amount came to well over a hundred pounds, so adequate funds were not the problem, but Elizabeth was finding that even such a sum could not make a journey with the royal mail as easy as one might like. She had thought that she had no illusions about the comfort of public coaches, having heard wild stories from young men eager to make an impression and convince a young lady of their adventurous spirit. What she had not anticipated, however, was the need to walk some part of the way to Dover.

  They passed through Blackheath well enough, with the wall of Greenwich Park skirting the northern edge. But Shooter’s Hill loomed ahead of them, and just below it the carriage stopped and all the travelers were ordered outside. None of her fellow passengers seemed to find this at all strange, and Miss Asherwood quickly discovered that the hill was considered too steep for the horses to pull a fully-laden coach; the mail itself would stay but people walked, uphill through the mud and in the pitch dark.

  Elizabeth considered it fortunate that she still had both shoes at the end of this experience, although they would never be clean again, and it was with some embarrassment that she re-boarded the coach, as the hems of her skirts were in little better shape than the shoes.

  The coach then continued without incident for a few hours, until a wheel broke outside of Houghton, a small town west of Canterbury. This necessitated a second walk of a mile’s length, that being the distance to Houghton, and more than an hour spent waiting at a dreadful inn for repairs. Miss Asherwood was several times forced to fend off the pawing of one of the other passengers, a fat man with poor teeth, who smelled of garlic and had become quickly drunk. Fortunately the coachman happened to enter the inn’s public room at the last such juncture, and he cuffed the man hard enough to send him sprawling. The coachman, who as it happened had two daughters near to Miss Asherwood’s age, gave a long, hard look to the other inhabitants of the public room, and from then on Elizabeth was left in peace.

  But the repairs had taken precious time, and she worried that she would arrive in Dover too late for the mail packet to Calais, which she understood would leave on the afternoon’s tide.

  * * *

  Chapter 48

  A Letter from the Foreign Office

  Lord Winthrop spent a bad night. His anger with Miss Asherwood had combined disagreeably with the guilt over his attraction to Miss Forbes-Treffy, and he had gone to the club to try and sort it all out over brandy. Peter Matthews was there already, of course, well into his cups, and Viscount Marbrey and Lord Rose soon joined them.

  It didn’t take long for the whole story to come out, and all of Lord Winthrop’s friends agreed, as he knew they would, that Geoffrey now found himself in a bit of a pickle.

  “You poor sod,” said Lord Rose. “Can’t cry off after all these years. You’d look a right ass.”

  “Mmph,” agreed Peter Matthews.

  His own reputation would suffer, thought Geoffrey. That was true, but it struck him that none of his friends had expressed concern over Miss Asherwood’s feelings.

  But why should they? he wondered suddenly. Since I’ve never made an issue of it myself.

  “I don’t suppose Miss Forbes-Treffy would be amenable to an . . . irregular arrangement after you’ve married the Asherwood chit?” said Lord Rose, and this suggestion made Geoffrey so angry that Viscount Marbrey had to step between them for a moment.

  But much later in the evening, after Matthews was snoring softly in an armchair, and Lord Rose had left to pursue his latest amour, Geoffrey had an unexpected conversation with the viscount.

  “Talk to her,” said Viscount Marbrey.

  “What?”

  “Talk to Miss Asherwood. Explain how you feel.”

  “What good would that do?” said Geoffrey, who was feeling quite morose. The thought of spending his entire life without Miss Forbes-Treffy loomed in front of him, barely endurable.

  “Maybe nothing. But she seems a decent sort. I can’t imagine that she wants you to be unhappy. And Geoff—” The viscount paused. “You don’t want to live like that. Nobody does.”

  Lord Winthrop could not quite see his way to the conversation Marbrey suggested, but as he was considering the day’s activities over breakfast that next morning, the first post brought a surprise; a letter from the Foreign Office, in reply to his inquiry concerning Miss du Merveille. Only a month or so had passed since this inquiry had been written, and Geoffrey was frankly amazed to hear from them at all, as he doubted the government’s interest in a fifteen year-old French girl.

  My dear Lord Winthrop, began the letter, written in the hand, no doubt, of the lowliest of under-secretaries.

  The rest was much as he expected; our sympathies and we have the utmost concern figured prominently, as well as unfortunately and if we are ever able, on another occasion. There was no help forthcoming from that quarter, in other words, as he had always known.

  Still, it was something, and Lord Winthrop thought a letter from the Foreign Office would afford a good excuse to visit Elizabeth. He had left her very angry the previous afternoon, and Geoffrey disliked that situation. It must be smoothed over.

  * * *

  Chapter 49

  A Fast Boat to Calais

  The wind was strong on deck, and Elizabeth held the envelope tightly as she took another careful look at Monsieur Rabaillat’s address, which was written on the back. The letters were faint but, as she had written Penny in her note, she could make out the words rue du Havre, followed by a number which might have been seventeen.

  It would have to do. Surely she could find the rue du Havre, and someone nearby would know of Monsieur Rabaillat. Miss Asherwood inhaled the salt air of the Channel with appreciation and wondered if she would ever be able to untangle her hair. She had worried that she might feel quite ill on such a vessel, but the movements of the mail packet felt natural to her, and not at all unpleasant.

  She hoped that Penny had gone to Aisling House by now and informed Pivens and Mrs. Talliaferro of what she had done. She did not want the servants to be anxious for her, and had considered simply leaving word that she would be staying at the Perrin house, but without knowing exactly how long she would be in France, it seemed a risk.

  They would be worried, of course, but Miss Perrin could be counted on to put the best face on things. In her note Elizabeth had suggested that Penny inform Miss Cavendish before the rest of the household, and to tell her aunt that she would travel only to Dover, to wait there for Marguerite, thus omitting any mention of France. Miss Cavendish was ostensibly the individual in charge at Aisling House, and Lizzie felt confident that once her aunt was informed of Miss Asherwood’s absence, she would know what to say to reassure the servants. There was no help for it, in any event. She had waited long enough, and it was time to find Marguerite.

  Lizzie’s courage had faltered during the prolonged journey in the mail coach; it revived now over the mists and deep of the sea.

  * * * *

  Lord Blakeley galloped through the streets of London, cursing himself, cursing Miss Asherwood’s stubborn naiveté, and—for good measure—cursing the wretched, toad-eating Monsieur Jacques Rabaillat, who had the inexcusable nerve to not exist, on the rue du Havre or anywhere else.

  What was she thinking?

  He couldn’t help imagining Elizabeth Asherwood in some godforsaken coach of the royal mail, along with heaven knew whom else, some male with dirty clothes and a bad vocabulary. And the packet! Alone, on a ship, in the middle of the English Channel—

  His lordship spurred his horse. He gained the Dover Road within an hour of Henry and Miss Perrin’s side-trip to Aisling House, and was already planning a first change of mount at Crayford, where he knew the innkeep at the sign of the Eagle and Baby. He was unlikely to catch Elizabeth in Dover, true, but there was a full moon t
hat night, and fair weather, and with any luck at all he would find at least one of his many marginally-reputable sailing friends in port; Peregrine knew all the places one went to find a fast boat to Calais.

  * * *

  Chapter 50

  Miss Cavendish Informs

  Lord Winthrop arrived at Aisling House several hours after Henry and Miss Perrin had left, and found the household a bit at sixes and sevens, a situation for which he could not immediately account. Pivens, who looked worried, called Miss Cavendish down immediately, and left Geoffrey to wait for her in the library.

  “Ah, the young gentleman,” said Miss Cavendish as she entered. “Let us have some tea.”

  Bessie was given her instructions, and they waited in silence—as the lady showed no inclination to conversation—until the maid had returned with the tea and then left again.

  Two cups, he saw. Not three. Where was Elizabeth?

  “I must speak to Miss Asherwood,” said Lord Winthrop, who was pacing the room in his impatience.

  “She is not here.”

  “She’s staying with Miss Perrin? Again?” Geoffrey found this exceptionally annoying. He needed to talk to his fiancée.

  “I think, Lord Winthrop, that you should sit down.”

  “I will stand, thank you,” he replied, in pique.

  Miss Cavendish then explained what had occurred. It took Geoffrey a few minutes before he understood, and somewhat longer before he came entirely to grips with the situation, that Elizabeth had left, alone and in the middle of the night, to travel—as Miss Cavendish said—to Dover. He was a careful thinker more than a quick one.

  “But I don’t understand—” he sputtered.

  “She will wait there for mademoiselle du Merveille, and Miss Perrin informs me that she should return in a few days. You needn’t be concerned.”