“Good God, no!” The earl sounded peculiarly breathless himself. "I believed it was what you wanted. In view of our numerous . . . ah . . . misunderstandings. But I promised you a London Season, and I shall be very . . . very pleased if you consent to stay.”
"Then I do consent to stay,” Bonnie said shakily.
She was weak—almost faint—with relief, and she surmised she must be dreading her confrontation with Aunt Grace even more than she’d fancied. There was no other explanation for her panic—
“Excellent.” David interrupted her speculation, and she thought she detected a tremor of relief in his voice as well. “I trust you will accept my apology for anything untoward I may have said. Or anything I might have done to offend you.” Bonnie glanced at him suspiciously from the comer of her eye. but he looked altogether sincere, and she nodded.
“Yes,” she murmured. “And I should like to apologize if my behavior at Lady Lambeth’s assembly distressed you. I did not intend to take advantage of your largess.”
“Say no more about it,” David said kindly. “I am confident we can complete our project in perfect harmony. We need spend only a few more weeks together after all.”
A few weeks. Bonnie’s relief evaporated, and her stomach once more knotted with panic. In a few weeks, she would return to her own gray world, never to see the infuriating, engaging earl again . . .
It was a magnificent day—warm and bright—but Bonnie felt as though a cloud had suddenly formed above the carriage. A cloud which blotted out the sun and froze her very bones, and she burrowed into the squab and drew her spencer as close as she could.
7
Having been so rudely reminded that the Season would soon be over, Bonnie decided the following morning to advise Aunt Grace of her forthcoming arrival. If she wrote ahead, Bonnie reasoned, she could make it appear that the termination of her employment in the Powell household had been planned. She would explain that Maria and Anne had grown too old for a governess, and Aunt Grace would be unable to utter her dreaded I-told-you-sos.
There was no desk in Bonnie’s bedchamber, but she well recollected the handsome Sheraton writing table in the library. The table at which she and David had sat, hour after hour, while he reviewed the design of Sedgewood and jotted the names and events she must remember . . . She swallowed a peculiar lump in her throat, squared her shoulders, and hurried to the ground story.
As Bonnie also remembered, there was a supply of heavy ivory stationery in the center drawer of the desk, and she plucked out the top sheet and snatched the quill pen from the inkstand. The first paragraph of her letter—the one stating that Mr. Powell no longer required her services—was easy to compose, but Bonnie was compelled to hesitate before she began the second. Since the end of the Season was not inscribed in stone, she didn’t know exactly when the earl
intended her to leave for Cheshire, but she was certain Mr. Powell would have specified the precise date her employment was to cease. The date would fall at the end of a month, she eventually concluded, and surely David wouldn’t object if she remained in the city an extra day or two. She dipped the pen in the inkstand again and informed Aunt Grace she would quit London the first of July and reach Nantwich on the second. She signed the letter, but as she reached into the drawer for an envelope, she felt a tremor of doubt.
Had she ever mentioned the ages of the Powell girls to her aunt? Bonnie wondered anxiously. She believed not, but if she had. Aunt Grace would see through her ruse in an instant. Would readily calculate that even the elder daughter was only fourteen . . .
So it would be better, safer, to fabricate some other excuse for her resignation; and Bonnie crumpled the letter, took a second sheet of stationery from the drawer, and frowned down at it. At length, she determined to tell Aunt Grace that Mr. Powell—-in view of his far-flung business enterprises— had elected to relocate his family on the Continent. Yes, that was very good. She would say that the Powells were removing to France or Prussia or some such place, and she had no wish to accompany them.
Bonnie penned a few opening words to this effect, but as she paused to debate the particular country to which she should exile her former employer, she perceived another— and far graver—problem: the possibility that Aunt Grace would respond to her letter. Indeed, as she thought on it, Bonnie recognized that her aunt could scarcely fail to acknowledge her communication; she must agree to the proposed schedule, suggest an alternate date for Bonnie’s arrival, or decline altogether to receive her niece. And when Aunt Grace’s letter was delivered to Portman Square, Mr. Powell would count himself obliged to send it back with a note advising Bonnie’s correspondent that his erstwhile governess had mysteriously disappeared.
Which wouldn’t do at all, and Bonnie crushed the second letter, tossed it on the writing table beside the first, and withdrew another sheet of stationery from the drawer. If she was to write to Aunt Grace, she must include her new direction in the message, and she groped for an explanation that would encompass her brief sojourn in Grosvenor Street as well as her imminent journey to Cheshire. As she deliberated, her eyes strayed to the window, and she could not but notice the brilliant sunlight coursing through the panes and splashing across the Brussels carpet. Perhaps, she thought, a brisk walk would clear her mind, and she sprang up, crossed the library, and slipped out the front door.
Bonnie strode east on Grosvenor Street, marveling that it was virtually deserted. If she had learned nothing else about London during five years of residence, she had learned that its weather was notoriously foul, and she could not conceive why David’s neighbors were failing to avail themselves of this rare bright day. Not until she reached the intersection with Bond Street, at which point a gust of chill wind whipped the skirt of her walking dress well above her ankles. The sun was radiating a great deal of light but prodigious little warmth, she realized with a shiver, and her lutestring spencer provided scant protection against the cold. She pulled it around her nonetheless and—when the wind once more assailed her— instinctively reached for the brim of her hat.
But she was not wearing a hat, she belatedly recalled, as her fingers found empty air above her forehead. She had left the house without a bonnet, without gloves, and she shivered again when she registered the shocking impropriety of her attire. Or lack of attire, as the case might be. She whirled about, intending to retrace her steps as quickly as she could, but a lone man was now walking toward her on Grosvenor Street. A man who looked familiar, and Bonnie spun back round and ground her fingernails into her bare palms.
Though she had seen the man behind her sufficiently well to ascertain that he was not one of her “suitors,’ she assumed she had encountered him at Lady Lambeth’s assembly. And inasmuch as she had allegedly been the belle of the
evening, she feared he would recognize her if he caught her up. Recognize her and—quite possibly—circulate the small but juicy on-dit that Miss Carlisle had been disporting herself about the town in a most immodest manner. So there was nothing for it, Bonnie judged, but to proceed into Bond Street and hope he would turn in the opposite direction. Or, barring that optimal outcome, hope he would pass her by without obtaining a clear view of her face.
Bonnie rounded the comer and hurried toward Piccadilly, dismally aware that she was compounding her sin. Should she now be recognized, by the man she had glimpsed or anyone else, it would be said that Miss Carlisle had not only been clad in highly unsuitable fashion but had also been observed walking unaccompanied in Bond Street. She turned her face to the shop windows, as though examining the merchandise within, and fervently prayed that none of her acquaintances was peering out from the other side.
Bonnie stopped when she reached the intersection with Bruton, wondering if she dared rotate her head enough to determine whether the man was still behind her or had, in fact, turned north toward Oxford. She gazed into the window of a millinery establishment as she debated the matter and narrowly repressed a gasp of dismay when her unwelcome companion—as she had come t
o think of him—halted beside her, not six feet away, and began to stare into the same window. Fortunately, he seemed quite enthralled by the display of bonnets arrayed before them, and Bonnie seized the opportunity to study his reflection in the glass.
He was a tall, lean, handsome man, with thick dark hair and—Bonnie believed, though she could not be sure—deep blue eyes. Indeed, he was so very attractive that she knit her brows in puzzlement, for she felt certain she would have taken particular note of such a splendid gentleman had she seen him at Lady Lambeth’s. But he was not a gentleman, she suddenly perceived, glancing down at his reflected clothing: his breeches were perhaps a dozen years old, his tailcoat scarcely newer; and even in the window glass, she spied several holes in his neckcloth.
So she had not seen him at the ball. Bonnie concluded with a flood of relief, and she could only surmise that he resembled someone she knew. In fact, if one overlooked his shabby attire, he bore a vague likeness to David, but Bonnie was persuaded he more nearly favored someone else. Someone she had recently met . . .
But she was wasting precious seconds in speculation, she chided herself. The man beside her—whomever he resembled— could not identify her, and it was imperative to return to Grosvenor Street before she enountered anyone who could. She spun away from the window and strode briskly up Bond the way she had come.
Still counting it best to keep her face averted from the street and the footpath ahead, Bonnie once more watched the shop windows as she passed them; and she had traversed approximately half the distance back to Grosvenor Street when she caught a reflected glimpse of her "companion” behind her. Her first reaction was one of idle amazement that a man should amuse himself by window-shopping, for shopping of any sort was an activity both Papa and Mr. Powell had resisted with a desperation bordering on frenzy. However, she shortly realized that her mysterious friend could not have been pausing to admire the wares in the windows—he had matched her pace, and she had not stopped since she left the milliner’s establishment—and she entertained an absurd notion that he was following her. A ludicrous notion indeed, but he was rendering her prodigious nervous, and she ground to an abrupt halt at the next window she reached. This chanced to feature the merchandise of a corsetiere, and Bonnie strove to affect fascination with the various undergarments on display while she waited for the now-familiar figure to pass her.
But he did not pass her; he halted as well and inspected the display with every evidence of equal absorption. He was following her then, Bonnie thought, her stomach knotting with apprehension. No man, not even David, could be genu
inely interested in a back-laced dimity corset. Her handsome, out-at-heels companion was following her, and she wildly wondered why. Probably—she answered her own question— because she appeared to be wealthy. Her seedy friend had not observed that she was wearing neither hat nor gloves; he saw only an unaccompanied woman clad in an expensive dress. Though, surely, he had noticed that she wore no jewelry either and was not carrying a reticule . . .
But he had not, Bonnie grimly perceived, or he would not be plotting—as so clearly he was—to rob her. Not here in Bond Street; he wouldn’t confront her in full view of dozens of witnesses. No, he intended to trail her back to Grosvenor Street, hoping to find it as deserted as it had been when he followed her out. His efforts would avail him nothing, of course, but she feared that his very frustration might goad him to violence, and she pondered the best means of escape.
Her initial inclination was to remain at the window; sooner or later the robber would tire of waiting and set out in search of a more cooperative victim. But perhaps he wouldn’t, she realized, her stomach constricting again. Perhaps, instead, he would precede her into Grosvenor Street and lay an ambush. She briefly toyed with the notion of stepping inside the corsetiere’s establishment and pretending to shop, but she soon perceived that this course might well produce the same result. Yes, knowing she must ultimately return to David’s house, the robber also knew he could lurk along her route and launch an attack when she appeared. And since Bonnie could not predict the exact time or place of the attack, he would inevitably gain the advantage of surprise. It therefore seemed best to keep her prospective assailant in view, even if she was required to wander aimlessly up and down Bond Street for several hours.
Bonnie glanced about as surreptitiously as she could, deliberating whether to walk back toward Piccadilly, proceed north to Oxford, or cross the street and amble along the opposite side. Whatever way she chose, she comforted herself, she could, indeed, be confident that the robber would not dare an
immediate assault. The footpaths were fairly thronged with pedestrians, and there was an unending stream of carriage traffic in the street . . .
A carriage! Good God; why had she not thought of it before? She had only to hail a hackney coach, and she would be safely home within the space of a few minutes. The driver would be puzzled— and excessively vexed, she feared— when she engaged his conveyance for such a short journey, but she would provide an enormous tip in compensation for his trouble.
Having glimpsed an avenue of escape at last, Bonnie was now inclined to move to the edge of the footpath. But it wouldn’t do to reveal her plan too early, she decided; the robber, in desperation, might act prematurely as well. She consequently leaned toward the window, as if wishing to study the garments within more closely, and watched the reflection of the traffic.
inasmuch as everything was backward, Bonnie found it prodigious difficult to get her bearings. At length, however, she adjusted her perspective, began looking left rather than right; and shortly after that, she spotted an approaching hackney coach. She should wait as long as she could to signal the driver, she reminded herself, and when she estimated the coach to be some twenty feet away, she whirled around, dashed across the footpath, and raised her hand.
But her sense of distance had also been distorted, Bonnie belatedly realized: the carriage was nearer thirty feet away than twenty. So far away, at any rate, that the driver had evidently failed to see her because the coach showed no sign of stopping to take her up. Bonnie stepped into the street, frantically waving her hand, and—to her immense relief—the carriage began to slow. Began to slow, but it was still traveling quite briskly, and she instinctively retreated to the footpath
Well, she tried to retreat to the footpath; in the event, she was most rudely jostled by one of her fellow pedestrians. Though perhaps, Bonnie owned, the fault was hers, and she started to turn and murmur an apology. She was halfway round—slightly off-balance, her head tilted at an awkward angle—when she felt a strong hand in the small of her back and another between her shoulder blades. And before she could register what was happening, the hands gave her a mighty shove and sent her stumbling toward the hackney coach.
It was precisely like the day she had crashed into David’s curricle, Bonnie thought wildly as she fought to regain her equilibrium. The hackney driver was shouting, as David had then, and desperately attempting to rein in his horse, but the carriage was rolling relentlessly closer. Closer and closer until, at the end, the scenario changed. With inches to spare, seconds to spare, Bonnie’s left ankle twisted beneath her, and she fell to the cobblestones not a foot from the horse’s hooves.
“Good God, miss!” the driver shrieked. He clambered down from his perch, his face ashen, and stalked to her side. “I seen you well enough,” he said furiously, glaring down at her. “You didn’t need to run into the street and nearly kill me horse.”
“I did not run into the street,” Bonnie snapped. “I was pushed by that man on the footpath.”
She rotated her upper body and extended an accusing finger, but the robber had disappeared. No, not the robber, she amended grimly; the man she had foolishly supposed to be a robber.
“Well, it’s good ye weren’t hurt,” the driver gnidgingly muttered. “Get in the coach, and I’ll take you wherever it is ye were in such a rush to go.”
He extended his hand, tugged Bonnie up, and she moaned as her
ankle once more buckled beneath her.
“I ... I cannot walk,” she gasped, literally breathless with pain. “If you would perhaps assist me . . .”
In point of fact, the driver scarcely could assist her; he was several inches shorter than she and, Bonnie estimated, at least a stone lighter. But he eventually managed to drag her to the coach and shove her inside, and Bonnie, for her part, managed to groan out David’s direction. As she had anticipated, the driver was not at all pleased to be engaged for such a short journey, but—apparently conceding that the circumstances were somewhat unusual—he contented himself with only a small, dark scowl of annoyance.
As Bonnie had also expected, they reached David’s house within a few minutes, at which juncture the driver announced that he really did not judge himself strong enough to wrestle her out of the carriage, across the footpath, and up the front steps to the door.
“No,” Bonnie agreed, biting her lip against a new onslaught of agony. “No. go up to the house and ring the bell. When Kimball answers, explain what has occurred, and he will help you.”
The driver nodded and trotted away, and Bonnie gazed in his wake a moment. But her pain had grown so excruciating that her vision was beginning to blur, and she wondered if her ankle was broken. She looked down, gingerly lifted the skirt of her dress, and gasped again when she beheld the mass of blue flesh which had swollen well beyond the collars of her shoe. She could not determine whether her ankle was broken or not, but the mere sight of it set her stomach to churning; and as she glanced quickly back up, David rushed out of the house and bounded to the carriage.
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