“Let me go.” Amaranthe drew her arm up and twisted, breaking his grip.
He stepped back, but his expression didn’t falter. “Make no mistake,cousin.” His leering gaze traveled down her neck and over her bodice. The smart riding jacket, Favella’s castoff,suddenly felt filthy against her skin. “You and I will reach a new understanding about your freedoms beneath my roof. You have lived on my generosity long enough.”
He didn’t spare a glance for Eyde as he strode away, dropping the whip on the floor. Amaranthe was tempted to pick it up and throw it at him, but it would serve no purpose. She extended a hand to help Eyde to her feet and winced as Eyde gripped the welts on her palms.
“You cannot stay here at Penwellen, Eyde.” Amaranthe tried to keep her voice from breaking with despair. “Do you have someplace to go?”
Eyde’s face crumpled. “Me mum’s whimmy at er best, and me da—ee’ll do whip me proper.” She wiped away tears. “Miss. Ye can’t stay here neither. He won’t be said nay.”
Amaranthe shuddered and pushed away the dark image Eyde’s words conjured. She’d be whipped to ribbons before she took the risk that her cousin would force himself upon her. “It seems we’re both leaving Penwellen, then. But where are we to find aid?”
Amaranthe had no coin; she’d given her last farthing to Mr. Finney. She didn’t dare step inside the house. Favella would fly up in the boughs at the sight of her, dirty and bleeding, and Reuben would deny any accusations. Best to get away quickly and send for her things later. But where to go? Her chest squeezed with panic.
Her brother, Joseph, lived in tiny rooms at Oxford. His stipend barely kept him; it could not accommodate a sister and a maid. Her father’s relatives had sent her to Reuben; they would refuse to support her. Her mother’s few remaining friends were poor and frail. But how was she to flee to a strange place, alone and unaided, and what employment was she fit for, eighteen, gentle-born, with a Cornish girl in her keeping who would never be able to find work with a babe in arms?
No one in Haye or Callington would hide them from Reuben. The baronet might not be admired, but as her legal guardian, he had every right to demand Amaranthe’s return. No one she knew here could protect her. The nodding acquaintances she had made, aside from Mr. Finney, were Favella’s friends, and so was the rector’s wife.
Amaranthe spared a pang for the thought of Mr. Treen, the man who had taken over the printer’s shop in Callington. He was handsome and courteous and while all the girls giggled at him, Amaranthe had thought that once or twice he had looked appreciatively on her. But an acquaintance so slight could not be called upon to intervene between her and a man of the baronet’s standing. She must think how to get herself and Eyde to safety, and survive along the way.
No good calling Thaker for assistance; the boy did not hear. He’d help if he could find them, but he had an uncanny way of keeping himself from the baronet’s path. She would ask at the kitchen door for Cook to wrap them some bread and cheese, and perhaps fetch Amaranthe’s cloak. At least she had not yet taken her book to the house. She still had her most precious possession. It would break her heart to part with it, but she could ask Mr. Finney to return her money. Or, at worst, sell or pawn the book elsewhere for a roof over their heads.
The trap stood parked in its customary place, the pole resting against the ground. The well and the seat sat empty.
The valise was gone. Reuben had stolen her book.
A red wave of fury washed over Amaranthe, followed by an icy rage. That gesture alone—that he would rob her—told her more than anything else he would not be reasoned with. She must flee if she meant to keep her virtue and possibly her life. The welts on her hands burned as she clenched her fists.
After a quick, hurried exchange with the cook at the kitchen door, the two women had their cloaks and a small basket of food, but little else.
“Where do we two go, then, miss?” Eyde whispered, wide-eyed.
“We shall go to my old schoolmistress at Bath. Miss Gregoire will surely help us.”
Amaranthe eyed the sunny sky, that warm, deep-washed blue that belonged only to the south of England. How cruel that such a sun would shine on a day that had taken everything from her, but perhaps God in His mercy would grant them fine weather for their travels. They would catch a farmer’s cart where they may, but most of the path would be spent walking. With a young girl several months pregnant and Amaranthe in her worn half-boots.
“Upcountry,” Eyde said apprehensively. Anywhere beyond Cornwall was a wild, uncharted country to the Cornish natives.
“Somerset,” Amaranthe confirmed. She took the girl’s arm and they set off north.
She wouldn’t miss Favella. She wouldn’t miss anyone here save Thaker and Mr. Finney. She was glad, in a way, to rid herself so resolutely of her poisonous cousin. But what would happen to her and Eyde, if they survived the journey and the footpads and highwaymen along the way, she couldn’t begin to say.
All that she’d miss was her Book of Hours. She would come back for it. Someday she would confront her cousin and she would win back what he had taken from her. He could strip her of everything, home, possessions, income, pride, but he could not have her dream of her future. She would not allow him to take that.
CHAPTER TWO
SIX YEARS LATER: LONDON 1776
“You want to ship off to fight in the American colonies now? Who put this bugbear into your brain?” Viktor Vierling lowered one side of his morning paper to stare across the booth at his friend, Malden Grey.
Mal stared back. “It’s something to do.”
Something active and decisive, with a defined aim in mind. His life was badly missing definitive action at the moment.
“I could afford to buy a cornetcy in the cavalry when my quarterly allowance comes through,” Mal said. “Sail out with Burgoyne and his Hessians to Quebec.” He pointed to the headlines on Vierling’s paper, the news borne on all the printed matter being passed about, and argued over, in the small, noisy coffeehouse.
“With your rotten luck, you’d be killed by some rebel patriot popping from behind a hedge to shoot at a redcoat. Or worse, by some camp disease that turns your guts to water. Who will support your aunt and uncle when you take a musket ball in the belly?” Viktor demanded.
“They could sell my commission, I should think.”
