Twenty-eight

L iam first went to Peasedown Park on the slim chance she had not yet left. But as he suspected, she was long gone, and Lady Peasedown was quite upset. She assumed, of course, that her friend had suffered some slight and had returned to London. He did not correct her.

Liam reached the public coach station well after the morning coaches had left. The clerk did not recall seeing a woman and a young girl in the morning rush. "Ye're certain of it, are ye?" Liam asked sternly, his fist on the counter, leaning across so that he could look directly in the man's eyes.

"Quite certain, sir!" he assured him, leaning back.

Liam pivoted sharply, stalked out of the station and stood on the porch, thinking. There were only three avenues out of King's Lynn: through Norwich, Peterborough, or Cambridge. Cambridge was south, which, he thought, would be too close to London to suit Ellie the Thief. Peterborough was inland, a crossroad to several different towns, but he thought those towns too industrial for such a delicate flower as Conniving Ellie. There was Norwich, then, which he knew the least about, other than it was in the direction of the sea. If she intended to make a quick escape, that seemed the likeliest destination. Then again, who could possibly guess what was going through the reprobate's little mind ?

Nevertheless, he decided he had to at least take his chances. The fact of the matter was, his fury had subsided somewhat on the long walk out to Peasedown Park, and one thing had become unquestionably certain—he was more determined than ever to get that accursed beastie. But this time, he was doubly determined to retrieve Ellie first, the statue second. This woman, regardless of who she was, or where she belonged (or what she had done, damn her!), was, regrettably, perfect for the likes of him, for he was, fundamentally, a man who relished adventure and excitement, and with Ellie, he could rest assured that there would never be a dull moment. Not a single one. This particular cat-and-mouse game was outrageously exasperating, but his hat was off to her, for she played the game exceedingly well. He loved her. Truly, completely, and deeply. And he'd be damned for all eternity if he made the mistake of letting her go again.

Just one small change in his thinking was in order, apparently. He simply had to stop underestimating her!

Liam booked fare on the next public coach to Norwich, which would not, unfortunately, leave until the following morning. Which led Liam right back to the horrid little inn he had endured these few days, and to more ale than he had a right to buy, given his dwindling resources. But when he was well into his cups, he begged a piece of crude paper from the innkeeper and wrote his mother.

Greetings from bloody rotten England. Spot of trouble previously mentioned now a fat blot, and causes me to curse the fairer sex in all her many froms . forms. How the good Lord above created such an indescribably treacherous creature, I shall undoubtedly still be wondering when they plant me in my grave. Femles Females should not be presented into society unless accompanied by a stern warning for all men, to wit, have a care, sir, for she will lie and cheat and steal your bloody heart while she's about. And your kilt. Home son . soon. L.

He managed to seal it, gave the innkeeper a half-shilling to post it, then fell into a dead sleep. His dreams, full of trolls and Ellie and Lord Peasedown who, by some troublesome transformation, had become Nigel, woke him shortly before dawn. His head throbbing, his belly roiling, Liam was the first passenger on the coach bound for Norwich.

With five hundred twenty-three pounds in her little pouch and safely put away in the pocket of her traveling gown, Ellen felt like a new person of sorts. The weight of worrying about where their next meal would come from had been lifted from her shoulders…to be replaced by the new, heavier weight of worrying how she might ever live with herself after what she had done. She did not want to be a thief, would have said three months ago it was entirely impossible for her to be a thief. It was, therefore, appalling to discover how astonishingly easily she had become a thief.

Ellen made the final preparations to leave Cambridge for France while a listless Natalie sat in the window seat staring morosely at the street below. There was nothing to be done for it, so Ellen went through their things. Having no conception of how long their journey might take, she decided that it would be wise to purchase some dry provisions to see them through. They had an hour before the scheduled departure of the public coach that would take them to Ipswich, where they would board the first vessel to take them south, where they would board a second vessel that would take them to France .

A cold north wind was blowing when Ellen stepped outside of the little hotel. No doubt from Scotland, she thought wryly, as she began walking at a brisk pace down the crowded thoroughfare to the small dry goods store she had seen on her earlier excursions. Her head down, her thoughts on Liam, it was a miracle that she heard anything at all, much less something as simple as a laugh, and an even greater miracle that she even recognized it after all these years. Yet somehow the familiar sound of that laugh pierced her thoughts; she jerked her head up, quickly scanned the crowd, and her heart climbed right into her throat and filled it, choking the air from her.

Daniel.

The sight of him was so shockingly unexpected, so incredibly unreal that she hadn't even realized she had stopped, mid-step, until a man gruffly reprimanded her for it as he was forced to step around to avoid colliding with her. But Ellen scarcely heard him; her mind and heart were spinning in savage turmoil. Her first pathetically deranged thought was that he had come for her. But she quickly realized that in addition to that being absolutely ludicrous, it couldn't possibly even be true, for how would he have known where to find her? Which meant, then, that this was nothing more than one of those strange little coincidences that rarely happened in a lifetime, something almost too odd to be true.

Yet there he was, flesh and blood. Ellen watched him walking with a woman. Two small boys trailed behind them, arguing and occasionally hitting one another. He was heavier than when she'd known him, his jowls fleshy like a soft-bellied country gent. With the woman on his arm, they strolled casually down the lane toward her, pausing to look in the different shop windows and seeming, Ellen thought angrily, perfectly at ease. Seeming like a gentleman who had earned the right to be happy, one who had, presumably, lived an honorable life. He did not look like the dishonest bastard that he was.

How astounding it was to be looking at him now, she thought, as he casually moved closer. How astonishing, after all those years of pining for him, praying and hoping that he would come back, that she could be so frightfully happy that he hadn't. The blackguard had plunged her into hell, but Ellen was suddenly quite certain that it might have been far worse had he come back. He had never loved her, not like Liam. He had no honor in him at all, as did Liam. In fact, he was blatantly insignificant compared to Liam, reprehensible and pathetic.

The stabbing pain that rent her heart, then, was not for Daniel, it was for Liam, and she marveled at how much she missed him. More than all the days and weeks and months and years she had missed Daniel. Which only made her guilt soar to the point that she felt quite ill again.

Whatever possessed her to step in Daniel's path, she likely would never know, but there she was, suddenly darting around people just to stand in front of him, to see his expression. She was not to be disappointed; he recognized her almost immediately, and just as immediately tried to put a gap between him and the woman on his arm by dropping her elbow and stepping away from her.

"Daniel," she said, the name bitter on her tongue.

"My lucky stars, if it isn't Ellen Farnsworth! What a delight!" he said, and smiled that charming smile that had ensnared her as a girl. Except that now she didn't see it as charming in the least—she saw it for the oily, rapacious smile that it was. "Are you in Cambridge now?" he asked cheerfully, as if there were no history between them, as if there were no child between them, as if he had not forsaken her.

I'm nowhere now. I have no home. "London," she managed to choke out as she looked at the straining buttons of his waistcoat, the stained neckcloth. The trousers, threadbare at the pockets. Scuffed boots. He was paunchy, and his fleshy face showed none of the signs of beauty she had once seen in him. God in heaven, what had she ever loved about this man?

"I must say," he said, taking another step away from the woman and two boys, "that I'm rather surprised—"

"I'm quite sure that you are," she said acidly, and hearing her tone, the two boys stopped their fighting and looked at Ellen.

"Daniel?" the woman behind him mewled, and for the first time, Ellen looked at her. She was nondescript and rather plain in the face. Her figure was square, undoubtedly made so by the two little hellions now hanging on her skirts. Two ill-mannered urchins who could only be Natalie's brothers. That thought sent a cold shiver down her spine.

"Oh!" Daniel said, laughing, unable to distance himself from his wife. "Rather impolite of me. Darling, this is Miss…?"

Ellen said nothing, just looked at him, let him guess.

"Ah…well, Miss Ellen Farnsworth. And this, of course, is my wife, Mrs. Goodman." He smiled thinly at his cow of a wife. "Miss Farnsworth and I were acquainted many years ago, one summer when I was in London."

"Acquainted?" Ellen echoed, incredulous. "I beg your pardon, but is that what you tell yourself so that you might sleep? That we were acquainted? Do you mean to say that you never pause to consider what a despicable rake you were, preying on a na?ve debutante?"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Farnsworth!" Mrs. Goodman snapped indignantly, her back stiffening as she moved to stand next to her husband. One of the boys squeezed through the gap between his parents and stood directly in front of Ellen, looking up at her curiously, almost gleefully.

Daniel laughed nervously, pulled his son back and behind him, then tried again to step away from his plain wife. "It's a long story, dear," he said dismissively over his shoulder, then looked at Ellen again, his lecherous gaze wandering her body. "Are…are you in Cambridge long, Miss Farnsworth? Might we have a chance to renew our acquaintance?"

Ellen's shout of laughter startled several passersby. "You must be out of your mind! I shouldn't renew my acquaintance with you, sir, to save my very life! Haven't you any idea what you did—" She caught herself, stopped there, the image of Natalie suddenly looming in her mind.

"What I did?" he asked, laughing nervously, his eyes darting to everyone around them. "Why, I'm certain I've no idea what you mean! Your very own cousin Malcolm has never given me cause to believe that you were anything but perfectly well!"

He knew. The rotten bloody bounder knew! No. No, no, no, she would not sully Natalie's life any more than it had been with the likes of him. She could now readily accept what she had known all these years, in spite of the lies she had tried to tell herself. She had been used by this man. Terribly. Unconscionably. The attributes she had ascribed to his character had been hopelessly na?ve and dead wrong. He had used her up and tossed her aside, and she would die before she would allow this…this snake to do the same to Natalie. As far as she was concerned, he had given up his right to Natalie when he abandoned her mother more than ten years ago.

"I beg your pardon, madam, but I cannot possibly imagine what you think my husband has done to you," the woman chimed in.

"Mary, hush," Daniel snapped, then turned that oily, loathsome smile to Ellen again. "Clearly, there has been a terrible misunderstanding, Miss Farnsworth. Perhaps if you would consent to allow me to call on you on the morrow—"

"Shut up, Daniel," Ellen said easily, and turned her gaze to his wife, who looked at Ellen as if she were a madwoman. That was quite all right, really. She was a madwoman. Mad to have ever fallen in love with him. Mad to have ever pined for him. Her mother and father had been quite right. He was nowhere near good enough for her, not then, and certainly not now. "I'd be quite careful if I were you, Mary," she said calmly. "For if you sleep with snakes, you will most surely get bit." She turned away then, ignoring the woman's cry of outrage and Daniel's patronizing, "My dear Miss Farnsworth, please don't dash off in such bad humor! You've clearly misunderstood!"

Ellen kept walking, her head high, her indignation raging, oblivious to everything and everyone in her path. She should have felt liberated, freed at last from the heart sickening memories. She should have been relieved! At peace .

But she wasn't any of those things.

No, she was sick unto death, because she knew, with all certainty, that she was, in her own despicable way, just like Daniel. She had betrayed a man who loved her deeply, just as Daniel had betrayed her. She had left him without explanation, just as Daniel had left her. She was no better than the snake she had left slithering behind her, and she had never despised herself as much as she did at this moment.

Ellen continued on to the dry goods store, bought several provisions, then dragged herself back to the small hotel, her heart shattered, her mind blank .

Natalie was pacing the floor. "The coach leaves soon, Mother," she said anxiously as Ellen walked into the room and tossed aside her cloak.

"I know," she said softly, and continued to the bed, where she withdrew the money pouch from her pocket and dumped the contents on the coverlet. Staring down at the roll of bills, Ellen felt the nausea roil about in her belly, threatening to erupt. How was it she had ever managed to convince herself that she had reasonable cause to do what she did? Even if that money gave her the freedom she craved, even if it freed Natalie from a certain untenable future, it simply did not belong to her. It was Liam's money; Liam's hope. It belonged to him, and she had betrayed his trust…did she really think she could steal from him, too?

"Mother, what are you doing?" Natalie cried. "We'll miss the coach!"

Ellen sighed, sank onto the edge of the bed, and held out her hand for Natalie. Reluctantly, the girl put her small hand in her palm. "Do you want to go to France, Natalie?" she asked softly.

Natalie dropped her gaze, looked at her boots. She did not answer for a long moment, but finally said, "No," her voice barely above a whisper.

"Then we shan't go," Ellen said emphatically. "I've a better idea."

Natalie's head snapped up; she looked at her mother suspiciously. "May we go home? To London?"

Ellen shook her head and gave her daughter a smile that shone straight from her heart. "No, Natalie, not London. We are going to Laria."