Letitia tried to imagine this gentleman. Ezra Barrington, the fabled Duke of Banfield. “Well-respected”, her father had said. “Most handsome.” And yet the gentleman her mind conjured up was a cold-hearted, sharp-eyed beast who thought of nothing but his own advancement.
Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps he was a good and decent gentleman. She almost laughed. What good and decent gentleman would take a wife to settle his debts?
I can’t. I cannot marry him.
Letitia felt suddenly, strangely determined. She loved her father, yes, but she could not condemn herself to this life. Could not share a marriage bed with a gentleman who saw her as nothing more than repayment.
She would not do it. And she knew her only way out was to leave.
* * *
Letitia sat up in bed, her heart pounding.
Run away. Am I really to do such a thing?
Did she truly have it in her?
She climbed out of bed and went to the window. She pushed aside the curtain. The night was still thick and dark, though she knew the dawn could not be far away. In the splintered moonlight, she could see the dark plains of the manor grounds. The shadow of the tree glided over her window.
Letitia could barely remember the last time she had left the property. Outside those gates, she knew, was the heaving, dirty mess of London. A place she had had no desire to enter.
When Letitia was six, she and her parents had been riding in their coach along the edge of Hampstead Heath. Two men on horseback had emerged from the trees. They pulled pistols from their pockets and rode alongside the carriage, demanding the Baron and Baroness hand over their money and jewels. When their driver had refused to stop, one of the men had pulled the trigger.
For months, every time Letitia closed her eyes, she saw the crimson stain blooming at the shoulder of the coachman. Could see those men in black throwing open the door of the carriage and yanking the pearl necklace around her mother’s throat. Could feel her father’s arm hard around her shoulder, pulling her into him, trying to keep her from seeing all that was unfolding.
But she had seen. And she had heard. She had come to realize that the world was a dangerous place.
Letitia stared into the darkness, trying to see through the gates. Everything beyond the manor was unknown. Perhaps there were men on horseback waving pistols and shooting at coachmen. And yet what was waiting for her if she stayed?
The thought of escaping terrified her. Yet, the thought of marrying the Duke of Banfield was even more unbearable.
Yes. The decision had been made. Letitia felt her heart quicken with a dizzying mix of excitement and fear.
She had no thought of what she would do, or where she would go. Had no thought of how to even find the city once she left the manor. But it didn’t matter. None of it did. All that mattered was that she got out.
Full of fresh determination, she lit the candle on her nightstand and pulled on her robe. Cupping the flame carefully, she crept out of her bedroom and down the stairs. Down the hallway she went, arriving at the door to the servants’ quarters. She clicked open the door and walked downstairs on soundless feet. The dark passage lay ahead. She made her way past the kitchen, with its heady aroma of old oil and meat, then followed the smell of damp linen into what she assumed was the laundry. How strange, Letitia thought distantly, that she might have lived in this house for eighteen years, yet never set foot in this room.
She held up her candle, letting its flickering gaze fall across the washing board and tub in the corner of the room, over the line of clothes hanging up to dry.
She stepped closer to the clothes line. There were several aprons pegged to the line of twine, along with a small cloth cap. She pulled down one of the aprons and the cap, bundling them beneath her arm.
A good start. But she needed some skirts. Something that might make her look inconspicuous as she slipped from the manor. Something that might allow her to blend into the city around her.
She found nothing more of any use in the laundry. There was nothing for it. She would have to creep into the kitchen maids’ rooms. Steal a dress while they were sleeping.
In spite of herself, Letitia felt a small smile on the edge of her lips.
What am I doing? I’m not this person!
She felt like a character from one of her story books. Felt as though she had stepped into one of her adventure tales. And she did not entirely hate the feeling.
She went back out into the passage and peered at the row of closed doors. Some, she assumed, belonged to the kitchen hands and housemaids, others to her father’s footmen. She had no thought of which was which.
Holding her breath, she pushed open the first door. In the faint light of the candle, she could see two narrow beds, each pushed up against a wall. She could not make out the faces of the people inside them, but she could tell they were men. She closed the door hurriedly.
Tiptoeing down the hall, she reached the next door. Another two beds filled the room, with a washstand in one corner and a chair in another. On the chair lay a gray woolen dress. Letitia’s heart leapt. She lurched forward and snatched the skirts, then disappeared out of the room before the girls in the beds awoke.
Guilt gnawed at her insides.
I’ve not even left the manor yet, and already I’m a thief?
What choice did she have, she reasoned? She could hardly go gallivanting through the streets dressed in her own silky gowns. No self-respecting noblewoman was ever seen without the company of her lady’s maid. She’d be recognized as a runaway at once. Would be marched back to the manor before her parents had even noticed her gone.
With the skirts and apron tucked under her arm, she crept back into her room, heaving a sigh of relief at having not been followed. She peeked through the gap in the curtains again. A pale dawn was pushing at the bottom of the sky.
Good.
She wanted to leave now, before she changed her mind. And she did not want her first solo venture into the London streets to be in blackness.
Nor did she relish the thought of trying to escape the grounds in broad daylight. She knew she had to hurry. The kitchen staff would be waking soon, the housemaids coming to light the fires.
How long would it be until the girl in the bed discovered her skirts had been stolen?
I need to hurry.
Letitia pulled on her underskirts, then slid the coarse woolen dress over her head. With a fat row of buttons down her front, the dress was easy to manage on her own. She pulled her riding boots from her wardrobe—riding boots that only ever saw action when she was traipsing across the muddy manor grounds in winter—then pulled on the apron and cap.
Letitia drew in her breath and looked at herself in the full-length mirror that stood in one corner of the room. The dress was a bit too big for her slight frame, and she appeared dwarfed in the sea of gray wool. She tightened the apron around her waist, using it to hitch the skirts up above her boots. She had pinned her blonde hair in a messy knot at the back of her neck, and left thin strands poking out from beneath the edges of her cap. Letitia managed a faint smile at her reflection. She looked a perfect kitchen hand. Looked nothing like the kind of lady the Duke of Banfield would wish to marry.
She went to her wardrobe. There was a cloth pack inside somewhere, she knew. She had seen Jenny use it to carry her things down to the laundry. Letitia found it at the back of the shelf and stuffed in a few spare shifts and underskirts.
She looked around her bedroom. There were things here, of course, that had great sentimental value. The fine gold necklace her father had given her on her twelfth birthday. The embroidery samplers she and her mother had stitched together. And then there was her enormous library of books; a shelf that stretched from floor to ceiling, each volume read from cover to cover. The thought of leaving them brought an ache to Letitia’s chest.
Still, she could hardly take with her a whole library of books. Sucking in her breath, she took the gold necklace from her drawer and slipped it around her n
eck, tucking it carefully beneath her shift to hide it. She took the book from her nightstand and slid it into the pack.
That’s all. The rest of this life must be left behind. The rest of this life belongs to the Lady who is to become the Duchess of Banfield.
And that, Letitia thought firmly, was not going to be her.
She pulled on her cloak and most faded, threadbare shawl, then went to the window. In the early morning, the grounds were quiet. The property was edged with trees blazing in the autumn, thin threads of mist hanging over the grass.
There was no one around. She could make it out of the gate without being seen, Letitia felt certain. But how would she get out of the manor? If the maids saw her escaping while they bustled through the house lighting the fires, they would go straight to her father.
No, going through the house was out of the question. There was only one thing for it. She would have to go through the window.
Letitia almost laughed.
I truly am becoming a character from one of my story books.
She looked through the glass again. The window opened out onto a flat plane of rooftop. At the edge, Letitia knew, was a wooden lattice the gardener had installed for his climbing roses. Could it be climbed by escaping girls too, she wondered? Or just roses? She was about to find out.
She threw open the window before she changed her mind. A cold blast of air shot into the room. Letitia swung her pack onto her back and gathered her skirts in her fist, then climbed out onto the roof.
For a moment, she hesitated, the wind lashing her hair against her cheeks and stinging her ears.
What am I doing?
She glanced back over her shoulder at her bedroom. It would be easy to step back inside. She could run down to the servants’ quarters and slip the dress back over the chair before the kitchen maid had any thought it was missing.
No. Think of the Duke.
She gripped the edge of her bag and crept to the edge of the roof. There was the lattice, just as she remembered. The roses had withered and crumbled in the cold weather.
Letitia flung her pack off the roof. It landed with a dull thud on the grass below. Then she began to climb, slowly, carefully, one foot after the other. No thoughts. Just climb. It was all she could manage.
And her feet were on solid ground. Letitia found herself grinning. She snatched her bag and began to run, tearing across the frosty garden and slipping out through the manor gates.
Chapter 3
Algernon Fletcher, Marquess of Radcliffe, sat back in his desk chair and rubbed his eyes. The numbers on the ledger didn’t make sense. Eighty pounds for this latest shipment? Could such a sum be correct?
Perhaps the mistake was his. He had been up since before dawn, trying to untangle the mess of the shipment’s paperwork. Perhaps his sleep-deprived mind was simply refusing to cooperate.
Starting work before dawn was not an unusual thing for Algernon. Despite his peerage, he spent long hours at his desk, committed to making his tobacco import business a success.
But this morning, things did not feel like a success. This distributor ought to be paying far more than eighty pounds for his share of the shipment.
Algernon looked up at a frantic knock on the door. “Come in.”
In shuffled Ellen Scott, his daughter’s governess. Her long fingers were knotted together, her face twisted into a deep frown.
Algernon leapt to his feet in alarm. “What is it, Miss Scott? You look concerned. Is Harriet—”
“She’s escaped again, My Lord.” Miss Scott hung her head. “I’m so dreadfully sorry. I just don’t understand how it happened. We’d just begun our lessons. I turned my back for a moment to refill the ink and she was gone.”
Algernon threw down his pen and marched out from behind the desk, a thorny mix of anger and worry bubbling beneath his skin.
“It’s all right, Miss Scott.” He forced himself to stay calm. He knew the governess was not to blame. “It wasn’t your fault. You know this is one of Harriet’s favorite pastimes.”
Algernon’s daughter had always loved to hide. Even as a young child, she’d often have the house in a panic, as they threw open cupboards and peered under beds in an attempt to find the little girl.
Now, at ten years old, Harriet’s hiding escapades had grown into far more intricate escape attempts. It was a game to her, Algernon knew, sneaking out from behind her governess’s back, just as lessons were about to begin.
Usually, Harriet would be found hiding somewhere on the grounds; lying among the rose bushes or halfway up a tree. But the last time she’d escaped Miss Scott’s watchful eyes, his daughter had made it out of the manor gates and all the way to the garden square, five blocks away from the house. Algernon’s stomach tightened at the thought. He hated the idea of his daughter roaming alone through the city.
“Have the grounds been searched?” he asked tensely.
“As we speak, My Lord. Mr. Henderson and the other footmen are looking for her.”
“Good.” Algernon ushered Miss Scott from his office and made his way downstairs. He sent up a silent prayer that Harriet was safely ensconced on the manor grounds, not strutting unaccompanied around London. If anything were to happen to his daughter, Algernon Fletcher feared it would be the end of him.
* * *
Letitia walked and walked. She had no thought of where she was going, but there was something calming about keeping moving. Wherever she was headed, it was taking her further and further away from marriage to the Duke of Banfield.
And taking me further and further away from everything I know…
Each step was taking her further from the Mullins manor into a world she knew so little of. Each step would make it harder to find her way home again. At the thought, a fresh wave of fear cascaded over her, making her skin hot and her thoughts swim. Letitia tightened her fist around the strap of her pack.
I ought to go back. How can I survive out here? I don’t even know where I am.
She shook the thought away hurriedly.
It didn’t matter where she was, she told herself. She was not going home. As far as she was concerned, she had no home. She swallowed hard to push aside the sudden, dizzying swell of fear. And then she kept walking.
The streets had changed, she noticed. Outside her father’s manor, the houses had all been large and whitewashed. Neat townhouses and sprawling manors, all with manicured gardens and polished windows. Here, the city was grayer, dirtier. The houses were far closer together and the streets much narrower. Men and women wove along the road, dodging each other, dodging carriages, weaving past vendors who stood on street corners, hollering at passers-by.
Letitia felt as though her every sense was heightened. The city was so unfamiliar. What a strange notion it was that this place might have existed outside her father’s gates for so long without her having any thought of it.
She walked until her feet began to ache. Her boots, so rarely worn, were stiff and rubbed against her toes and heels. How long had she been walking? An hour? Perhaps two? She couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that the way to the Mullins manor was now completely lost to her. Her old life was gone.
And then came a second realization.
No one is looking at me.
No one was paying her a single, fleeting moment of attention. In her stolen skirts and apron, she seemed to blend into the eternal gray of the city.
The thought was a buoying one. Letitia kept walking, despite her aching feet. It was the thought of being looked at, she realized, that had terrified her the most about attending the balls. She hated the thought of men peering over wine glasses, scrutinizing her on their quest for a wife. But now she felt pleasantly invisible; no chaperone at her side, no lady’s maid hovering at her shoulder. And with that realization, a little of her fear began to fade. Suddenly, the city did not seem quite so overwhelming.
She felt utterly directionless. And utterly free. Where she was to go from here, she had no thought, but just for now, it
didn’t matter. Just for now, she would revel in the fact that she had escaped the Mullins manor. Revel in the fact that she had escaped a future as the Duke of Banfield’s wife.
She had a little money in her pocket. Surely it would be enough to buy her a bed for the night. She had no thought of where she might go to secure such a thing, but surely there were people she could ask. And, she thought, as the colorful chaos of a market appeared before her, the money in her pocket would also buy her a little food.
Letitia realized she was famished. She had not eaten since supper the previous night, an hour before her father had dropped the news of her betrothal at her feet.
She made her way into the market, her eyes darting as she took in the stands of colorful fruit and vegetables, the eggs, the meat, the spices. The smell of freshly-baked bread made her stomach growl. She followed the aroma towards the baker’s stand.
Laid out in front of her were loaves of every size and color, along with cakes dotted with raisins and biscuits sprinkled with sugar. Letitia’s mouth watered at the sight of them.
She reached into her pocket and clasped a hand around her coin pouch.
How much is one expected to pay for a bread roll?
Letitia had never bought anything in her entire life. She dug a hand into the coin pouch. She knew there was five pounds inside. Enough for a bread roll, surely.
“How much?” she asked the baker shyly, pointing to the roll.
“Ha’penny,” he said. “Three for a penny.”
Letitia smiled to herself. “Just one please.” She handed over the money and carried her roll back into the crowd of the market.
A small victory. She bit into the bread, the warmth of it exploding deliciously in her mouth. She wished she had bought three. But such a thing had felt excessive when she had no thought of how she would manage to get by in this strange new life. Surely it would be wise to save every penny.
The Viscount Who Seduced Her (Steamy Historical Regency) Page 29