I leaned back on the bed and suddenly opened my eyes to find the room darker, the candle a mere stub. Must have dozed off. I heaved myself off the sagging mattress and rummaged through my trunk for a clean nightgown, relieved that sleep was actually coming to me, even if it was in this Godforsaken place.
Just before I blew out the candle, a solid knock sounded on the door, startling me. I didn’t move an inch. Visions of a hulking man who broke doors and bones like twigs clouded my eyes and better judgment. I dove under the bed. It was dusty, the air rank, and the bed’s horse hair mattress poked into my back.
Another, louder knock rattled the door and rumbled the room. An eternal silence followed as I dared not breathe. Finally, some rustling, and a slip of paper slid under the door. The footsteps and the orange glow of the lamp slowly faded back down the stairs.
Ashamed, I crept out of my hiding place and snatched up the paper. A note from Miss Lodge? She had been made aware of my situation and was already on her way in a carriage to pick me up. She somehow knew I was here. My note to Sebastian. Damn him.
I pulled off the nightgown and stepped back into my crumpled day dress. Within a half hour, I received another knock, and the overly excited footman from earlier informed me that Miss Lodge was waiting downstairs. Besides a sleepy look in her eyes, she appeared to be in good health again and clasped me to her warmly.“Are your things ready, Miss Wyndham?” she asked.
“I am perfectly settled here. I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you at so late an hour, but truly, it is not necessary that you host me.”
Miss Lodge turned to the footman who had followed me downstairs and made some kind of sign to him. He nodded furiously, seemingly awed by the pretty young girl, and brushed by me upstairs.
“What’s going on?” I asked, rushing to follow him.
She sedately climbed the stairs behind us. “This is no place for you to stay overnight and unaccompanied. Considering you have restored my health on two separate occasions, I refuse to take no for an answer. If you do not wish this obliging footman to pack your trunk, I suggest you run ahead and do it yourself.”
For someone I was so used to seeing sickly, she had a resolve to be reckoned with. She waited on the bed while I managed to snatch an underthing back from the footman and inform him that his assistance would be most unnecessary. After he finally retreated and I squeezed in the few items that had spilled out of the trunk, we were ready to leave. Tom (Miss Lodge had sweetly asked the footman his name and received his entire life story) struggled back down the stairs with my trunk. He assured me he would inform the sleeping innkeeper that I had departed, and happily, if clumsily, handed Miss Lodge and me into the waiting carriage.
She hardly spoke the entire trip, except to make sure I was well. No intrusive questions, demanded explanations, or conditional promises. Given the scrutiny I’d endured from Lady Kent, it was oddly unbearable, and I was forced to break the silence.
“Miss Lodge, are you not curious about the reasons for my strange situation?”
“Only if you wish to share them,” she responded politely.
“It’s just—I’m not exactly the company anyone would like to keep now.”
Her expression was rather calm and businesslike. “No matter how catastrophic the rumor, people always adjust and find it dull in hindsight. Or they forget about it altogether.”
“I highly doubt society will forget. There’s always someone to keep reminding everyone else. God, I’m so foolish. I brought it all on myself because I didn’t care. All society did was irritate me. Now I can’t help but wonder, what else is out there?”
“There is plenty out there. You need not worry about London society.”
“Do you not care for it?”
“I have neither a low nor high opinion. It seems ideal for those who love doing nothing and keeping things that way. But I think it’s best to treat it as one of those disposable matters of life where you learn something and move on.”
“Learn what?”
“Who you are, who to marry, who to remain friends with, where to live. But I’ve had all that settled. When we marry, we shall go back to the country, and it will all be peaceful.”
The world went sharp, all colors and sounds heightened, and my tongue dried. “Marry?”
She looked cautiously at me. “You didn’t know?”
“I, do you mean, you, you mean Se—Mr. Braddock?” His name came out more breath than sound.
“Yes, we have had an understanding for years.”
“And you love him?”
She stared at me with those large gray eyes, seeing everything. “Don’t you?”
A whipcord of tension ran between us as I stared into her composed face. “Of course not! Where did you ever get such an idea?”
“Do you have any idea what you were like the night you brought him to me, unconscious?” she asked. “I thought you would go mad with worry.”