by Rebecca King
“Can I help you miss?”
Pheony stared in dismay at the inn keeper. She tried to think of a reason to give him for her presence in the staff area. “Please, sir, I need help,” she whispered eventually.
Augusta’s voice grew momentarily louder when Carlotta entered the private parlour. It was deadened again by the closing of the parlour door. Time was short.
“I can’t help you, miss,” the inn keeper murmured, eyeing her bag warily. He guessed what she had planned without her having to say anything.
“Just don’t tell them that you have seen me,” Pheony pleaded. “I don’t expect you to do anything else.”
“It isn’t me you have to worry about miss. The other patrons might have seen you,” the inn keeper replied. “If those women ask my customers about you and someone saw you-” He shook his head sadly as if to warn her that she would be caught.
Still, Pheony hadn’t come this far to be thwarted so easily. “Where can I hide?”
“Well, this is the staff kitchen miss. You can’t hide in here.” The inn keeper looked worriedly into the kitchen before closing the door, trapping him and Pheony into the narrow hallway. “Look, there are two gentlemen from the Star Elite in the tap room. They are sitting down now, about two tables down from the bar. If you are in trouble, go and speak to them. I am sure they can help you.”
“Do you think they would?” Pheony asked hopefully.
“It depends what kind of trouble you are in miss,” the inn keeper replied warily. He wouldn’t ask. He didn’t want to know.
“I haven’t committed any crimes.”
“How old are you?” the inn keeper asked curiously.
“Three and twenty,” Pheony replied seeing no reason to lie to him.
“Who are they to you then?” He nodded toward the door leading to the main tavern area.
“Augusta is my guardian,” Pheony whispered, unaware of how her lip curled when she said her guardian’s name. “But you have seen what she is like. I need to escape.”
“If she is your legal guardian, miss, the only people who can help you are the Star Elite. They will know how the law stands about such things. I don’t want to get into any trouble.” The inn keeper shook his head as if adamant about that.
“I don’t want you to get yourself in trouble for me. Just don’t tell them that you have seen me,” Pheony replied.
The inn keeper, who disliked Augusta vehemently, ordinarily wouldn’t get involved in any family squabbles, but seeing as the young woman before him looked utterly lost and was being used abysmally by the horrible women in his parlour, he was inclined to look upon Pheony favourably. In his opinion, anybody who had to put up with that old harridan needed as much help as she could get. He could only hope that the men at the bar would help her too.
“Just help me stay hidden until they go to bed, then I will get out of your hair.”
“If she is your guardian, miss, she will call the magistrate,” the inn keeper murmured.
“But the magistrate will have to find men to help him look for me,” Pheony muttered. “Hopefully, I will be far away from here by the time Augusta realises I have gone.”
“It isn’t safe for you to go out there by yourself, miss. Not a young woman such as yourself,” the inn keeper argued.
A commotion outside of the door stopped Pheony from replying. When it had all died down again, she asked: “Please tell me where I can hide. I will run now if I must, and they will have to send out the hounds to find me. How can that be safe either?”
“You mean that don’t you?” The inn keeper scowled and glanced at the door.
Neither of them needed to open it to know that Augusta and her daughters had left the parlour and were looking for Pheony thanks to Carlotta. Pheony suspected that Carlotta had been pretending to sleep just so she could betray Pheony when she tried to leave.
“If I were you, miss, I would get myself back upstairs before they get there. I can stall them. Once they have gone to bed, leave it until the early hours before you try to leave again. People are still up and about now because it is still early, but the tavern is about to close. Some of my customers will stay for a good hour or more yet though. If you want somewhere to hide where your guardian won’t find you and my customers won’t see you, you need to get yourself many miles away from here before daylight. I don’t know how. I can’t help you with that. Just stay safe, eh?”
“How do I leave without disturbing people?”
“I will leave the side door open for you until I go to bed, but you must be gone by half past one or I am going to lock and bolt the door anyway, and I take the keys to bed with me, so you won’t get out until the morning,” the inn keeper replied firmly.
When the commotion outside the door growing louder, the inn keeper edged around her. “I will stall them. You go upstairs. If you can come back down later, and the men from the Star Elite are still in the tap room, it might be an idea to have a word with them. Maybe they can advise you, but I warn you now that they won’t allow you to break the law or help you escape your legal guardian. If anything, they will be more inclined to make you return to her.”
Pheony stared at him in horror. “I am not staying with her,” she whispered.
“Then you had better find yourself somewhere to hide and don’t leave it too long before you go. Right now, they know you are not in bed where you should be and will probably want the tavern searching. Best get back to bed so you don’t alert them to what you are doing, eh? If they ask where you have been, tell them that you have been to fetch a drink,” the inn keeper muttered.
Before Pheony could ask him anything else, the inn keeper threw her a worried look before easing out of the door. He met with the muttering women on the stairs.
“Have you seen her?” Augusta demanded. “My stupid ward. She was supposed to be in her bed chamber but isn’t there.”
“Will you please keep your voice down, madam?” the inn keeper snapped. “I have other patrons in the tavern who are sleeping, and you are disturbing them.”
Pheony gasped when the kitchen door suddenly swung open and a maid appeared.
“Can I help you, miss?” she gasped, looking shocked at finding one of the patrons lurking in the staff area.
Pheony eyed the outer door over the maid’s shoulder, and the stable yard beyond it. “No, thank you,” she smiled, before edging around the young woman and scurrying out of the back door.
After tucking her bag neatly behind a large barrel beside the back door, Pheony hurried across the stable yard to the stricken carriage the family had arrived in a few hours ago. There, she found Bert lying on his back, working on something underneath the carriage.
“Have you found the cause of the problem?” Pheony asked, doing her best to pretend that she had been there for a while.
“Don’t creep up on me like that,” Bert growled with a muffled curse. “How long have you been standing there?”
Pheony prayed that God would forgive her for lying so brazenly. “For a while,” she replied, sniffing, and stamping her feet as she would have done had she been outside for a while. She tugged her cloak tighter about her shoulders. “Do you think you are going to be able to get it fixed so we can leave tomorrow?”
“Why, do you have a pressing engagement to attend?” Bert asked sarcastically.
“No, I would prefer it if I never went back.”
Bert lifted his head off the floor to look at her. “So go. Get out of the house. Leave that lot behind.”
“Why do you stay with them?” Pheony asked.
“I thought I needed the situation,” Bert muttered in disgust. “But the damned woman is an ass. Taking a position with her was the worst mistake of my life. She is always threatening me with releasing me from my situation if I don’t do this, or do that, or can’t move mountains for her petulant demands.”
“Leave,” Pheony snorted.
Bert glared at her. “Would you go?”
“Yes,” Pheony repl
ied simply seeing no reason to lie to the man.
Bert stared at her as if finally realising that she meant it. “Where would you go? What would you do? How would you look after yourself?”
“I have a year and a half before I receive whatever inheritance I have left. I can survive.”
“Doing what?” Bert challenged looking sceptical.
“I don’t know,” Pheony replied with a nonchalant shrug. “But I don’t eat much, am prepared to work hard, am honest, and reliable. There has to be something I can do.”
“You have no idea what to do, do you?” Bert snorted. “How would you go about getting a situation without a reference? Who would vouch for your good character?”
“You could,” Pheony suggested.
“I am just a coachman. Nobody would care about my opinion on anything,” Bert replied dismissively.
“I do.”
“Aye, but that isn’t going to get you a situation somewhere, is it?” Bert sighed and sat up so he could glare at her. “I will fix this thing but only because I want to go back and fetch my worldly goods.”
“Do you plan to leave too?” Pheony wasn’t sure what compelled her to ask but when Bert hesitated her gaze sharpened.
“I have thought about it,” Bert edged.
“So have I,” Pheony whispered mournfully. “I want to go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere,” Pheony announced flatly. “As long as it is away from them.”
“Well, make sure that harridan cannot catch you when you go.” Bert nodded toward the tavern.
“Will you leave?”
“Yes,” Bert looked cagey. “Look, don’t tell her, but I have already been offered a situation with my cousin. I just want to get home so I can fetch my things, then I am leaving. I am sorry, miss. I have worked for your father for a long while and thought I would be alright with her once your father had died, but I was wrong. She is just impossible.”
“You are leaving?” Hurt, Pheony looked at Bert in disbelief. It was the last thing she expected him to say. Deep inside, she was horrified that she was being abandoned by the only person in the house who treated her with any respect. She wanted to rage, weep, and plead for him to stay – until a warning voice reminded her that she had made her own plans to leave anyway and couldn’t expect him to stay if she wasn’t going to.
“I don’t blame you,” she whispered eventually.
“Don’t tell her, miss. I want to,” Bert replied.
“You know that she is not going to pay you what you are owed when you tell her, don’t you?” Pheony knew that Augusta would refuse to pay the man because Bert couldn’t do anything about it.
“Which is why I am waiting until I get paid to tell her. Once I have my pay, I am going to tell her and will leave there and then. What about you?” he asked, lying back down to disappear back under the carriage.
“I am leaving,” Pheony whispered. “I just need to pick my moment.”
“I won’t tell them,” Bert muttered.
“She is going to be livid.”
“Aye, but it is not all about her, is it? She is a nasty one and uses her age as an excuse to be spiteful and cruel, but it isn’t her life and she shouldn’t be trying to control you like you are a prisoner,” Bert argued. “If I were you, I would tell her to go to Hades. It isn’t for her to try to tell you how to live your life the way she does. She was asked if she wanted to be your guardian not your prison warder. Seeing as she has controlled every element of your life and left you with few choices of your own, it is up to you to do what is right for you no matter what that bullying woman or her misfit witches think.”
Pheony grinned. “Bert, you are incorrigible. She will fire you if she hears you speaking about her precious daughters that way.”
Bert sat back up again. “I know you have had no choice in the matter, but has it not occurred to you to ask yourself why those precious brats of hers haven’t married yet? Despite their primping and preening, strutting, and gloating, none of them are married, are they? They still trail around after their mother like a pack of stray mongrels.”
“Bert.” Pheony was astonished but grinned openly.
“It would be a damned foolish man indeed who deserved every day of the misery he got if he married any one of those damned nags,” Bert snorted. “I for one shall not criticise you for wanting to take some of your life back. You know what your life will stay like if you allow them to keep controlling you and stealing your life. You will have nothing. No money, no home, no marriage, no choices, and no voice. You will be a servant. It is your life they are stealing. It is for you to choose what you want to do with your days. Seeing as they try to bully you to stop you from living your life, they aren’t worth having in your life, are they? While I don’t condone you running around the countryside or anything like that, it isn’t a crime to find a situation somewhere. People work to live, even women these days. You will be doing nothing more than every other humble person does and working to look after yourself. That isn’t illegal.”
“It is only for the next year and a half. Then I can have what is left of my inheritance and decide what I want to do with the rest of my life,” Pheony whispered. “For now, I have to get away from here.”
“Do it now,” Bert suggested. “If you go home with them again, you know you are going to get stuck in that house, unable to move or do anything without having to account to them for every thought, action, and second of your day.”
“How do I get out of here without them seeing me?” Pheony demanded, hoping that he would offer to help her.
“Run.” Bert stared steadily into her eyes. With a sigh, he dug around in his pocket for a moment then held his hand out to her.
Curious, Pheony took the contents of his clenched fist off him and stared in amazement down at the pile of coins in her hand. “It isn’t much, but it will buy you a room and a few meals. Take it and get out of here.”
“Bert.”
“Go. Do whatever you need to do because nobody is going to help you in this life, Pheony. You have to help yourself,” Bert hissed. “Now go.” He cursed when movement in the tavern door heralded the arrival of Francis.
“She is here,” Francis called to someone who was hovering in the hallway behind her. “She is talking to Bert.”
“She snuck off to see someone,” Carlotta sneered. “I don’t believe she has just been out here all this time.”
“Believe what you want. I don’t care,” Pheony retorted coldly.
“How dare you talk to her that way?” Augusta boomed, glaring angrily at Pheony.
“Be quiet, Augusta. You are going to end up hated by everyone in the tavern if you carry on making so much noise. People are already fed up with you shouting for me every few seconds,” Pheony drawled.
“Where have you been hiding? If everyone has heard me shouting, so have you. I will not have you ignoring me, you impudent gutter snipe. How dare you?”
“I have not been feeling well,” Pheony replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Would you prefer me to be sick on your boots?”
Augusta’s scowl deepened. “You haven’t been sick.”
“I am afraid that I have,” Pheony argued, pointing to a large patch of what she hoped was vomit on the floor beside the tavern door.
Francis shrieked when she saw it and immediately stepped away before glaring hatefully at Pheony. “Why on earth did you be sick there? Clean that up at once, do you hear?”
“You shouldn’t really expect someone of her ilk to have any,” Augusta sneered, raking Pheony with an insulting look.
“Sodding witch,” Bert hissed from beneath the carriage in a voice that only Pheony could hear.
“Mind the way,” the inn keeper boomed from the tavern doorway.
To Pheony’s delight, Augusta was shoved roughly between the shoulder blades and propelled forcibly into the stable yard. She barely had the time to regain her balance before the owner of the establishment threw a large bucket of water over
the pile of vomit. Shrieking wildly, Augusta glared down at her soiled skirt, but the inn keeper grinned unconcernedly at her as if enjoying being able to annoy her. He then looked at Pheony and said kindly: “There you are, miss. I told you it was no problem. It can’t be helped if you are unwell.” He then glared maliciously at Augusta. When he spoke to her, his tone was condemning as he said: “And I have asked you and your brood to keep the noise down, madam. If you can’t then I am going to make you spend the night in your carriage whether it is broken or not.” With that, the inn keeper retreated to the tavern and slammed the door closed behind him leaving a stunned Augusta and her daughters in the yard.
A strange noise that sounded surprisingly like a muffled laugh came out from under the carriage, but Pheony daren’t look at him. She was struggling to contain her own mirth. If her eyes met his, she was going to start laughing and would be unable to stop. She hadn’t expected the inn keeper to readily support her, or actively help her like he had, or be so adept at putting someone like Augusta so firmly in her place. But he had, and it had been wonderful to watch because it proved to her that she wasn’t the only person who found Augusta and her brood spiteful, arrogant, and atrocious to be around. While it assured her that she was doing the right thing by leaving them, Pheony was aware that she still needed to find a way to escape.
In the back of her mind, the men at the bar hovered like spectres waiting to haunt her. She suspected that she was going to have to at least try to enlist their help.
If they refuse then I am going to have to beg them for their protection and hope and pray that Augusta doesn’t tell them any lies about me.
That, as far as Pheony was concerned, was the biggest problem of them all because she knew from experience that Augusta had a nasty habit of lying to people about her. When Augusta chose to be spiteful, she had no qualms about telling people that Pheony was selfish, strange, a liar, wayward, spiteful, and lazy. To people she was familiar with, Augusta went further and hinted that Pheony was also a thief who couldn’t be trusted or left alone for a second. It was all nonsense, but Augusta genuinely believed that her and her daughters could do what they wanted because Pheony had no way out of the house she was living in, no real money to call her own, and no opportunity to put the truth forward.
