25

She was running away again, yet Lydia couldn’t face another minute in London amidst the suspicions and apprehensions, the disappointments and the failures. She needed clean and sweet air, long walks and open moors.

“It isn’t possible,” she’d told Christien in the drawing room. “There is some explanation.”

She repeated the words to herself again and again throughout the evening, then the night, when she couldn’t sleep. She ended up packing instead. Father had an explanation. She must ask him, confront him, do something before they left town.

Running. Running. Running. Running from fear of the truth. Running from the disaster the Season had turned out to be. Running from her desire to cling to Christien and beg him to run with her.

By the time the Watch called the hour of six o’clock a.m., Lydia’s clothes and paintings resided in trunks and bags. All that remained were two felines that had vanished beneath the bed. They, at least, would find the country more enjoyable.

She herself found the country more enjoyable, so why the reluctance now? The country didn’t show her errors in brilliant light as did the city, where Cassandra’s engagement ended, Honore came too close to disgracing herself, and Lydia fell in love.

Her heart compelled her to stay. Her head said that was the best reason of all to leave. Run. Yes, she admitted, run away to the shelter of aloneness.

Aloneness that suddenly felt like loneliness.

Hearing Father leaving his bedchamber one floor below, Lydia slipped out of hers and followed. She caught up with him in the dining room. Lemster was pouring coffee into a fragile china cup, and Father seated himself at the long table, a newspaper in hand.

He glanced up at Lydia’s entrance. “You’re awake early.”

“I didn’t sleep.” Lydia drew out a chair before a footman could reach her and dropped onto it. “I was packing, but I want to talk to you before you go. Will you send the servants away?” She couldn’t give the order with Father present.

“If this is about Honore—”

“Not yet.” Lydia glanced toward Lemster. He had just poured coffee over the sides of the cup and onto the saucer.

“If you must.” Father gave the command, then scowled at the ruined cup of coffee. “You can take care of that for me.”

Lydia obeyed, pouring coffee, selecting bread rolls and strawberries for both of them.

Once the food was served and she sat adjacent to her father, she gripped the edge of the table, leaned toward him, and asked in an undertone, “Why did you get into a carriage with Gerald Frobisher three blocks from this house?”

Father dropped his coffee cup. It hit the table and shattered. Coffee splattered across his plate, his paper, his pristine shirtfront and cravat. Swearing, he snatched up a serviette and began to dab. “Look what you’ve done, girl. I never make messes like this. It’s you who make a mess of everything, including not keeping control over that youngest sister of yours.”

“You mean your youngest daughter?” Lydia rose, found more serviettes in the sideboard, and brought them to the table. “Or is she only that when she’s being a biddable darling?”

“Something you wouldn’t understand. If you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t have married Charles Gale. But you had to have him. And Cassandra wanted that younger son. Now she doesn’t have that much, even if he is the earl.” Father scooped the broken fragments of china onto the sodden newspaper. “And you came here to see to your sisters, and we’ve had naught but trouble, the least of which being Gerald Frobisher.”

Lydia slapped the pile of serviettes onto the spilled coffee. “A gamester and, at least in attempt, debaucher of young ladies. So what were you doing with him?”

“That, young lady, is none of your concern.”

“It is if you’re involved in treason.”

“Treason.” The newspaper balled between Father’s hands. His face reddened, and he opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. For a moment, he appeared to be suffering an apoplexy. Then he sank onto his chair, grabbed up Lydia’s coffee cup, and drained its contents. “How dare you?” His voice, though soft, held the razor edge of broken ice. “How dare you even suggest, even think—get out of my sight. Get out of my house. And take your troublemaking sisters with you.”

As though the coldness of his tone had frozen her, Lydia remained standing beside the table, scarcely able to breathe, let alone move.

“Get . . . out.” Still with frigid control, Father drew back his hand.

Lydia fled before he struck her. The front door, open to receive the mail, beckoned her. She should run to Christien, tell him of Father’s reaction to her enquiries.

No, no, she should not. She was free of masculine control, of their power to order her out of the house, to strike her, to leave her penniless in a tiny cottage on the moors. Now she held a nest egg with her paintings and a shop that would sell all she completed. She could support herself, help her sisters if need be. She would not run into the arms of another man and lose that power over her own life.

Which includes You too, God.

She raced up the steps and into her sisters’ room. They both slept, looking as innocent as they had when Lydia left home seven years ago, Cassandra with her hair a tangle upon the pillow, Honore’s hair neatly plaited.

Lydia backed from the chamber. She would find a footman to haul down their trunks and begin to pack for them. If Lisette were still there, Lydia would have used her to send a message to Christien. But no, he could manage things on his own. That his sister had been the Bainbridge cook for so long stood against him. He’d left her there to spy on the Bainbridge family. He’d always suspected them. Lang must have always suspected them, especially once he knew about the blackmail and her acquiescence to it without a fight.

How could she have fought it? It threatened her family. Never could she threaten the welfare of her family, no matter the cost to herself.

Yet in compliance, hadn’t she harmed her family? She’d introduced Gerald Frobisher to her sister. She’d been so intent upon Mr. Barnaby at the theater that she hadn’t paid attention to the tension growing between Cassandra and Whittaker that led to their fight and the breaking of the engagement. And she’d been paying attention to Christien while Cassandra and Whittaker had been left alone in the library.

Halfway down the back stairs, Lydia paused and leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, her breath catching in her throat.

Perhaps she did need a keeper. Or at least an adviser, a wise counselor. Her own decisions in life, the choices she’d made, led to little success. On the contrary, they led to near disaster, from her marriage to confronting her father about meeting with Frobisher.

To running away from God?

You’ve never helped me, Lord. You let me go my own way and make mistakes, and I’ll just fix them myself too.

Decision made, she continued to the servants’ hall, where she found one footman to bring the rest of the trunks out of the box room, another one to order up the traveling coach, and a maid to assist in the packing. Lydia hurried back up to her sisters’ bedchamber and woke them.

“We’re leaving,” she announced.

“Why?” Honore sounded like a petulant child as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I’m as much of a success as any lady can be without a betrothal. Even my ball was a success despite the assassination and everyone mourning.”

“The Whigs weren’t mourning.” Yawning, Cassandra slipped out of bed. “But I can’t leave today. I have books to return to Hookham’s and an order to collect—”

“A footman can return the books and the order can be posted.”

“But I’ll never catch a husband if we leave London now.” Honore remained in bed.

“From what I’ve seen of London gentlemen,” Lydia said, “you will do better elsewhere.”

“What? Some manure-caked farmer like a man Father wants for me?” Honore’s face twisted with disgust. “You think I’ll find someone civilized in Devonshire?”

“It’s far more civilized than a London gaming hell.” Lydia went to the door. “You have half an hour to get dressed before I have the servants bring in the trunks for packing.”

“I won’t go.” Honore gripped her bedclothes as though they would hold her in town.

Lydia sighed. “You will if you don’t want Father’s wrath as I received it this morning.” She touched the cheek he had intended to slap, and tears welled in her eyes. “Please, I want to be away from here this morning.”

“Lydia, what happened?” Honore and Cassandra stared at her.

She shook her head. “Nothing. We had a row. It’s always the same. He wants us wed and off his hands.”

Because unmarried daughters embarrassed him, or because wed, he needn’t worry about them if something happened to him?

The former, of course. Nothing would happen to her father. He wasn’t any more guilty of treason than Mama was.

Mama was still sleeping, and Barbara refused to wake her. “She isn’t well enough to travel today. You’ll have to wait.”

“Father says we cannot. Mama will have to follow later.”

“Disgraceful, running away like this, like you’ve something to hide.” Barbara sniffed.

Lydia wished she didn’t agree.

“We’ll be gone before noon.”

They were, in fact, gone before eleven o’clock. Despite being dismissed from the dining room, Lemster must have listened at the keyhole and overheard Lydia’s conversation with her father, for he sent up every footman and maid to assist in the removal. If Cassandra and Honore hadn’t hastened to dress, they might have found themselves bustled out the door in their night rails. They did hurry, however, and once Lydia and Cassandra managed to coax Hodge and Noirette out from under the bed, with the assistance of two footmen moving the heavy piece of furniture to make the refuge less appealing, the three Bainbridge sisters and two cats crowded into the traveling coach and headed south, another carriage following behind with their luggage.

“Why,” Honore asked for perhaps the hundredth time, “do we have to go?”

“Because Father told us to,” Lydia responded for as many times.

“But why?” Honore persisted. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

But perhaps Father had.

The idea of that set Lydia’s stomach to roiling. Perhaps Mama knew, and that was why she kept to her bed or sitting room when she should have been chaperoning Honore.

No, not even her father would she believe of committing treason. Even if he found liking his daughters difficult, he wouldn’t harm his family, see them disgraced and dishonored, shunned from Society, perhaps forced penniless into exile. As his title and estates were attainder by the Crown, he would be declared to have a corruption of the blood, and all his family, his heirs included, would be made a pariah in England.

So why, Lydia asked herself, feeling like Honore, did he want them gone from town so suddenly, when getting them husbands had been his reason for allowing them all to go to London in the first place?

No answers came from her own head, from her sisters, from the city or farms or daunting edifice of Butser Hill, with its peak ominously titled the Devil’s Cleft. None of them wishing for the steep descent to the downs of Hampshire inside the coach, they chose to stretch their legs and walk along the chalky outcroppings. Rolling hills dotted with sheep and copses of trees spread out below, all the way to the sparkling expanse of the English Channel.

Once again inside the trundling vehicle, they dozed. Cassandra even read or stared out the window. Only ten hours to Portsmouth from London with fine teams along the posting road. They reached the coastal city by dusk, dusty, quiet, too weary to eat.

“I have to walk the cats,” Lydia said once they were settled into a room at the George. Neither sister offered to accompany her.

She clipped leashes onto the collars of each feline and carried them downstairs. At the door, she hesitated, remembering the last time she’d walked cats in that garden. One cat in the rain after dark. But Barnaby was dead. She need not fear anyone pouncing on her.

Shivering despite the mild night, she slipped out the side door of the inn and hesitated beneath the lantern hung over the entrance. Its yellow glow created a pool of light that reached the head of the path, an illusion of warmth. Lydia waited there, inhaling the aroma of lilacs and thyme, rosemary and recently mown grass. She listened to the whisper of the breeze passing through the shrubbery, the singing of passing sailors—

And the crunch of gravel just beyond the pool of lantern flame.

“Good evening, Lady Gale. I see we meet again.”