Page 83 of The Gentlewoman Companion

Louisa opened her mouth, her voice met by James’s soft baritone.

Let me kiss off that falling tear,

We only part to meet again.

Change, as ye list, ye winds;

my heart shall be

The faithful compass that still points to thee.

By the end of the verse, Susan rested her head on James’s shoulder, her thumb in her mouth. James rubbed her tiny back as he and Louisa finished the remaining four verses, singing into the quiet night against the sound of a crackling fire.

The boatswain gave the dreadful word,

The sails their swelling bosom spread,

No longer must she stay aboard;

They kiss’d, she sigh’d, he hung his head.

Her less’ning boat, unwilling rows to land:

“Adieu,” she cries! And wav’d her lily hand.

Their voices fell away, leaving cool foreboding in Louisa’s chest. Tomorrow—no, it was two in the morning—later that day, she would speak with Charles. Why did it feel like the first step onto the ship that would take her away from James? From Lady Halverton? From a place where she’d grown and learned so much? She would not allow that to happen.

“Is she asleep?” James whispered over Susan’s head.

“Not quite.” In fact, the little girl’s eyes were wide open, though she was blinking slowly.

“What book do you have?” he asked.

“The Female Quixote. Shall I read you to sleep, Susan?”

“You’ll do the voices?” James asked.

“Is there another way to read aloud?”

James’s smile reached her heart. “What’s the premise?” He settled deeper into the settee.

“It is about Arabella, a young woman whose mother is long dead. She educates herself with French chivalric romances, and upon the death of her father, she becomes heiress to his estate. But she will lose part of her inheritance should she choose not to marry her cousin! However, she is looking for true love under the misguided notion that the novels she grew up reading are historically accurate. Arabella is waiting for knights to fight for her and misconstrues every interaction with men.” Louisa looked down at the little girl. “Susan, this is a very silly story about a naïve girl who becomes quite boring once her misconceptions are brought to right. You must always hold fast to your eccentricities so as not to become tedious.”

James laughed. “Now that you know not to speed through Hyde Park, will you become dull?”

“Unlikely. There is no end to my foibles.”

“Good. I like you as you are.”

She began to read, somewhat lively at first, then subdued her theatrics until the stillness beside her drew her attention from the page. James’s leg relaxed against hers. Susan’s perfect little hand clutched his neck cloth, his chin resting on her downy head, his palm on her back securing her to his chest. A wet circle on his shirt haloed her mouth.

Oh, that she could remain in this serene nest. But she could not be found asleep beside James, so she pulled herself up and took herself to bed.

With a pit in her stomach, Louisa pinned her most humble gown onto a matching stomacher in gray dawn light. From below, the distant murmur of servants only vaguely disrupted the silence. She scribbled a note to Nellie: “Please make my excuses to Lady Halverton. Inform her”—she decided to take a chance—“that my brother Charles is leaving town, and I went to see him. I may not return before the evening meal.” Into her reticule, she placed every farthing she owned. She pressed the clasp of her diamond brooch, opening it to the plaited coil of her mother’s hair wrapped around charred blue silk. Smooth and lustrous to her hand, she tucked the braid and fabric inside a drawer. After surrendering the brooch to its box, she dropped it—the only thing she owned of real value—into her reticule.

Enclosed in a brown hooded cape, she descended the stairs, passing the study without daring to see if James still slept there. She slipped out the front door, walked a block, and hailed a hackney. After giving the driver the address to Charles’s inn, she sat back. Please, Mama, help me find a solution for this.

The inn where Charles resided was more sumptuous than Louisa had anticipated—and in a better part of town. She lowered her hood and entered, addressing the innkeeper.