Page 43 of The Lady’s Deception

Curiously, the sight of her tears seemed to marshal the girls into action. Bell fished the kitten from the basket and held it out to Rosamund as a source of comfort. Daphne, always ready to demonstrate her status as the commonsensical elder sister, urged her into the chair and began to fan her face with her hand.

By the time some lower member of the ship’s crew came about with water for the washstand and some very dry biscuits with tea, the three of them were piled in a giggling heap on the bed, using the ribbons of Rosamund’s new bonnet to urge the kitten to chase and pounce.

“I’m sorry,” she told the girls earnestly as she dipped Paris’s handkerchief into the water to wipe their faces and hands. Her nonexistent linens were packed away in her nonexistent trunk. Thankfully, she no longer needed the handkerchief to hold her money; the two remaining coins fit perfectly well in the toe of her shoe. “I’m sorry I left without explaining why I had to go. I was—” But why hide it? People hid everything of value from children. “I was frightened.”

“Of what, Miss Gorse?” Bell asked, trying to work out how to eat the hard biscuit with two missing teeth and another that was loose.

Rosamund shook her head. That she couldn’t explain. She would not speak ill of their brother in front of them. She would give them no cause to imagine that any brother could be the cause of a sister’s fear.

“People do remarkably silly things when they’re frightened,” remarked Daphne. She sat beside her sister on the edge of the bed with her feet dangling. Now and then, she swung them, forgetting perhaps her determination to be disapproving.

“Yes,” Rosamund agreed. “Like running away without leaving a note.”

“Or packing a bag,” Daphne countered.

“Or packing a kitten instead!” chimed Bell.

More laughter. It held the hysteria at bay, but only just.

Thankfully the Irish Sea was not in a mood to dance one of its characteristic jigs. The Claremont sailed along smoothly, and neither Rosamund nor the girls showed any sign of seasickness.

It was late—very late, she guessed—when she persuaded the girls to try to rest. Fascinated by the cavern beneath the bed, the two of them camped there with the kitten, their pelisses pressed into service as pillows, with Rosamund’s for a blanket.

She, meanwhile, took the narrow bed. Despite the hour and the lulling motion of the ship, sleep was a long time in coming. The girls giggled over their adventure while Rosamund’s mind flitted from one dilemma to the next, incapable of landing on any solution.

* * * *

The Claremont, suffering from no such anxieties about its best course, landed without incident right where it ought on the following afternoon. When no other options presented themselves, Rosamund herded the girls off the ship and in the direction of a large posting inn, following the crowd of people who had made the identical voyage.

Eileen was once more securely in her basket, but that was all the order Rosamund had managed to impose. Their rumpled and travel-stained dresses were no better for having been slept in, and they had nothing to disguise their sorry state but equally wrinkled pelisses. The girls hadn’t been wearing bonnets when they arrived, and she hadn’t even a comb to fix their hair.

When the bedraggled little crew reached the hotel, Rosamund laid out her sixpence for a loaf of bread for the girls and paper and pen for herself. If she hurried, she could send word of the girls’ whereabouts to Molly when the Claremont set out on her return.

Such a letter would have been challenging enough to write without the clamor of the public room, where a ruddy-cheeked serving girl had taken pity on them and given them leave to occupy a table, though they could afford to give her no custom in return. Rosamund had removed her bonnet and laid it in the center to disguise the table’s emptiness and to shield her work from the girls’ eyes.

More challenging still was the certain knowledge that every word she wrote would also be read by Paris. She labored over each stroke of the pen, careful not to waste the paper that had been so dear.

“Will this letter make it onto the packet yet today?” she asked the serving girl as she passed.

“Dunno, miss.” The young woman glanced out the window with a practiced eye. “The wind does like to turn ’round about now. Why, look—the Peregrine can’t hardly make way.” Rosamund followed her gaze and was shocked to discover how abruptly the weather had changed. The sky was gray now, and in the distance, a flag whipped outward. She watched for a moment as a smaller ship, not a packet but a private vessel, fought the rising tide and the churning waves, struggling to reach the shore.

What would she to do if her letter could not be delivered for days? No help could get to them. Nor could the girls return to Dublin. But they had nowhere to stay here. Some escape she had plotted! Her only consolation, small though it was, lay in the certainty that if they could not leave Holyhead, neither could her brother arrive.

Pushing aside her half-written letter, she picked absently at a crust of bread the girls had left behind. She had no appetite. Carefully she wrapped the remaining mouthfuls in Paris’s dingy handkerchief to save for later. Oh, what was she going to do?

The girls, thankfully, seemed oblivious to their plight. Daphne was busily engaged in studying the great variety of people coming and going at the bustling inn. Bell sat on the floor beneath the table with Eileen, whose mer-r-rowls were a mixture of satisfaction and ferocity as she triumphed over the head of a sturgeon almost as big as she. The serving girl had been kind enough to sneak that scrap out of the kitchen when she’d spotted the kitten poking her nose out of her basket prison.

Rosamund forced herself once more to her task. The letter might be an exercise in futility; nevertheless, it was her last, best hope—and besides, she had to focus on something, or she would break down and weep.

Three sentences, four. Perhaps the words would come a little more easily now. She would not think of him reading over Molly’s shoulder. She would—

Daphne gasped. The sound, quiet but sharp, pierced Rosamund’s consciousness. Probably the outrageous purple hat worn by the lady seated on the other side of the room. Rosamund had noticed it when they disembarked from the Claremont. She would not stall her progress to indulge her curiosity. She would—

Bell bounced up, jostling the table and sending her pen streaking across the page.

“I declare, girls, if I can’t get this letter written, we’ll—”

But they gave no sign of having heard her. Bell squealed and Daphne muttered, “I don’t believe it.” Finally, Rosamund could no longer resist finding out what had caused the stir.