4. Preparation

Chapter four

Preparation

London, England ~ June 1810

P aris—the city of love. You might find someone there who understands you, for you certainly haven't found him in London. Or at least someone who will marry you and let you be and let you cultivate your own circle of admirers. That's the kind of marriage your parents had, and they were happy enough.

Louisa had always wanted to visit the place of her mother's birth, but even though some travel still took place between the warring nations, her distracted father had possessed no interest in braving Boney's dragoons. "'Pon rep, Lou-Lou! That Bonaparte's as full of hot air as one of those balloon contraptions. There's no telling whether these Frenchies might confuse the Duke of Warrenton with the Duke of Wellington. And then where would I be, I ask you?"

The possibility of her foppish father being confused with the hero of England had always seemed a remote eventuality, but Louisa had been forced to give up the idea of Paris for the time being. She had learned long ago that the world was a swing that went up and down with her father's mood.

But now that her father was no longer there to object, Louisa considered the matter again. Should she flee to Paris to escape Mr. Digby's nefarious designs? Napoleon's role as emperor there was no deterrent to her , but the difficulty of making a Channel crossing during wartime gave her pause. She wondered how prudent it would be for one who looked so much an Englishwoman to venture to France without male escort. With her golden hair and skin of cream and roses, she would stand out amidst the dark-haired belles of Paris ballrooms. She wondered how unusual it would be for an unmarried woman to set up her own establishment on one of Paris' many boulevards. She wondered how difficult it would be to undertake a Channel passage and then a journey from the French coast to the French metropolis.

After much thought, Louisa discarded the idea of fleeing to France as too impulsive and too impossible without an accomplice. But what other options were available to her? A quick perusal of The Times revealed several advertisements for governess positions. There was one in particular which caught her eye: a situation with three female charges in the northern county of Yorkshire.

Louisa cut out the advertisement with a pair of scissors and burned the rest of the page. If she disappeared suddenly, there was no point in leaving a trail of evidence for Uncle Nigel to find. After composing a careful reply in the secrecy of her bedchamber, she carried her letter to the post herself. That was a new experience for her, but it would have been the height of absurdity to ask her uncle to frank the letter or to leave it on the tray for a footman. She wanted no questions about why she was writing to Yorkshire.

Now she had only to wait for the return post and pray for success. Yorkshire would be far enough removed that her uncle would never find her, and with any luck, she could live out the rest of her minority there until she could claim her inheritance in her own right.

No more Uncle Nigel to worry about. No more Mr. Digby. You'll be free at last to take care of yourself.

While she waited for an answer to her letter, however, Mr. Digby was continuing to pose a problem. His hints about Louisa's desirability had become so monstrously alarming that she was certain the trap would be sprung this very week. If Mr. Digby had the special licence in hand, then it only meant that her own plan must be put into action sooner. She could not wait for an acceptance. She must simply assume that the governess position was hers and travel to Yorkshire to take it.

To fob off any suspicion of her flight, Louisa forced herself to be civil to both Mr. Digby and her uncle at dinner on Thursday.

"Such a charming waistcoat you are wearing tonight, Mr. Digby." The lie sounded false, even to her own ears as she gazed at the aquamarine monstrosity over the first remove.

Mr. Digby gave a ponderous sigh of satisfaction. Ugh! If she ever heard such a thing again, she would cut off her own ears.

"You are too kind, milady. Too kind." His jowls shook as he spoke, and Louisa felt specks of spittle travelling across the dining table.

"Louisa's always the kindest of women," said her uncle approvingly. It was yet another clue that something suspicious was afoot, for when in the last two years had Uncle Nigel ever been so complimentary?

"Will you play the pianoforte for us after dinner?" asked Mr. Digby, taking a drink and swishing his wine about in his mouth before he swallowed. "I'm not much for music myself, but I can turn the pages."

The idea of Mr. Digby brushing her shoulder as he fumbled for the music was as nauseating as spoiled asparagus. "I'm afraid I have a bit of a headache," apologised Louisa. "Unfortunately, I will have to retire early."

It took much convincing and additional protestations of ill health on her part, but eventually Uncle Nigel let her bid an early goodnight. Once safely in her room, she commenced her plan in earnest. She had already taken the precaution of obtaining all her jewellery from the safe and had sewn the necklaces and bracelets into the hem of her cloak and the lining of her bonnet. She had a good eye for jewels and could tell that these pieces from her mother were worth a great deal of money. At least it had not come into Uncle Nigel's head yet to try pawning them. The chief difficulty would come in getting her trunk from her bedroom on the first floor to the outside street where she could hail a hackney. Louisa was tall and well-formed, but she did not have the strength a man would use to heft the trunk. It was a large one and stuffed full like a sausage casing. She had packed it with all her most serviceable dresses—as well as a few more elaborate creations. A woman's clothing was her armour, and she would need all the protection she could muster in the wilds of Yorkshire.

Since she could not carry the trunk herself, it would be necessary to let a footman in on her secret.

But which one? Can you really trust any of them ?

She had never cultivated any familiarity with the domestics. Even the ones who had been there for years were more attached to their quarterly wages than they were to the lady of the house.

As she trailed her fingers along the bannister, Louisa considered the footmen standing in the entrance hall below. Three of them, unaware of observation, were speaking jokingly with each other while one stood off from the rest, aloof, unincluded. He was an outsider. Just like she was. That would be the fellow to choose.

Later that night, after her fictitious headache had subsided, Louisa announced that her sitting room furniture needed rearrangement. She sent her confused lady's maid to fetch the aloof footman, and once she had him alone, negotiated a rate for the surreptitious service of hauling her trunk down the back staircase in the early morning hours.

"Your uncle will cut up rough when he finds out," replied the footman. He pocketed the earnest money of one shilling that she offered him.

"Perhaps he will," said Louisa, her perfect pink lips set into a firm line, "but I'm sure you're too clever to admit that you were involved with my departure."

"Course I am," said the footman smugly, puffing out his chest. She fixed a steely look on him. "My lady," he concluded in grudging respect, tugging his forelock before he left the room.

Midnight and the conspiratorial footman were a long time coming. The moon had been up for hours before Louisa heard him scratching like a rat on the outside of her door. Swiftly, she opened it, her tall figure cloaked in warm woollen navy, a solitary candle in her hand to light the enterprise. She nodded toward the trunk at her feet. The footman lifted it onto his shoulder with a barely suppressed grunt. Then it was down the stairs with hushed footsteps, Louisa lighting the way, until they reached the lower floor.

Louisa had no intention of risking egress through the front door. Instead, she led the footman to the back of the house, put down her candle, and used her ring of keys to open a small door that led out into the stable yard. "Down the alley and around the corner," she whispered.

"All that way? What d'ye have in this trunk, my lady?" he grumbled quietly. "Rocks?"

Louisa ignored his complaints. She had promised him five pounds, an excessively generous reward for toting a trunk three hundred yards. With the footman trailing behind her, she made her way through the stable yard and out to the side street. There, she hailed a hackney.

This hackney, however, had a fare already inside. As Louisa shrunk back into the shadows, she saw long, lanky Mr. Smythe descend onto the pavement. When he saw her, he stumbled abruptly. Apparently, he was in his cups—a state in which Louisa never hoped to observe Mr. Digby .

"I say there," he said, his midnight vision surprisingly acute for one in his condition. "S'that Lady Lou?" He veered closer to her as if his will was not entirely in control of his legs. "What're you doing outside this time a'night?" He hiccoughed loudly.

"Oh, please, Mr. Smythe," Louisa whispered fiercely. "You must keep quiet." She looked at his simple, inebriated face and took a calculated risk. "I'm running away from home, and you mustn't tell my uncle. "

"Runnin' away?" Mr. Smythe was almost shocked into sobriety by that statement, but the fuzziness of a half-bottle of brandy soon overcame him once again. "That's a bit of a shurprise. He said you weren't keen on me. But didn't know you were that set against it. Runnin' away and all."

"No, no, Mr. Smythe," said Louisa, raising an arm and waving so that the hackney driver would not lose interest in her and drive away. "I am certainly not running away because of you. There's someone else—someone much worse. And I'm determined not to accept him, and so, you see, I must leave."

"Ah, another blighter," said Mr. Smythe, nodding sagely as if he understood. "Worsh than me. Makes perfect shense. An' i' thish your trunk?" He blinked at the footman, the street lamp gleaming off the whites of his eyes.

"Yes, that's it," said Louisa hurriedly. She beckoned to the footman to tie the trunk on the back of the hackney.

"You musht allow me to ashist," said Mr. Smythe. With surprising agility, he took the trunk from the footman and tied it to the back of the public carriage. Louisa gave the grumbling footman his five pounds, and he retreated down the alley to the Lymington townhouse. Hopefully, he would keep his word and keep quiet to her uncle about her departure.

Louisa negotiated her fare and destination with the driver. Impelled by his chivalrously intoxicated instincts, Mr. Smythe came round the hackney to open the door for her. As he did so, however, an alarm bell of warning began to sound in his muddled head. "Now see here, Lady Lou. It's not shafe for a lady to dishappear in th' dead of night. Where're you going to, anyway?"

"That is none of your affair. Good-bye, Mr. Smythe. "

As her erstwhile suitor gaped and waved, Louisa climbed into the hackney and closed the door. The driver would take her to the nearest posting house, and with any luck, she would secure a seat in the morning post up the Great North Road to the Earl of Kendall's estate in Yorkshire.