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“Are you going to warn Miss Partington?”
Lord Debenham raised an eyebrow. “I suspect Miss Partington’s actions are designed to invite just such a warning from me. Thank you for the dance, Miss Hazlett. Here is your cousin. I shall bid you adieu and do exactly as you suggest.”
Lissa’s high spirits came crashing down as His Lordship deposited her with Cosmo before he immediately set off in Araminta’s direction.
“You’ve had your dance and now we must go.” Cosmo was waiting anxiously by the edge of the dance floor, ready to whisk her through the crowd and into a waiting hackney cab while Lissa had had but a mere taste of what she had been hoping would be the substance of her young life before too long. She knew she looked beautiful. That in fact, in looks, she rivaled her half-sister.
What a cruel twist of fate that it was Araminta who was living the life that should have been Lissa’s; Araminta who was anticipating a glittering marriage and a life of ease. For Lissa, the only life-changing event she could anticipate would be to graduate from her role of governess to Cosmo’s two little sisters to that of unpaid companion to her mother in her old age.
With a grim look, Cosmo caged her hand on his arm, as if the touch with someone so lowly were utterly repugnant.
The double doors that opened into the lobby grew closer, and now the bewigged footman was ushering her outside, into the cold. It was not where she belonged. Always on the other side of these doors. Her throat thickened and tears formed behind her eyes.
“Stop looking so Friday-faced. I have fulfilled your wish, Miss Hazlett.” Cosmo turned to her as they descended the stairs. “Now you must fulfill your part of the bargain. I need to give Miss Danvers’ miniature to her in the morning.”
Lissa, who’d not put it past him to steal it, had hidden it beneath her pillow as further protection against him reneging on his promise. She suspected he’d already rummaged through her room trying to find it.
Now, she weighed up whether to push the advantage as Cosmo helped her into the waiting hackney he’d flagged down as they’d rounded the corner from Lady Stanely’s Bruton Street residence, for he couldn’t be observed, in public, putting a lone woman into such an equipage. She decided against it. Cosmo could turn nasty if he felt he was being taken advantage of.
“Never fear, the miniature will be waiting for you in your bedchamber when you return, Master Cosmo. And now you must return to the ball. You won’t want to squander the invitation. As you yourself remarked, they do not happen regularly, do they?” She did not hear him respond to her jibe, for the jarvey shut the door at that moment before jumping onto the box.
With a “Gee-o”, he whipped the horses into movement and as Lissa lurched forward, she was filled with the determination that she would not always be a governess. She’d witnessed enough of her half-sister’s behavior over the years to know that Araminta, vain and proud, did not appreciate her life of ease and plenty.
Well, Lissa was as well versed in the requirements of being a lady, and certainly behaved in a more ladylike manner than Araminta, an observation backed up by her sister, Kitty, who took an even greater interest in their half-sister than Lissa did.
Surely, with her unusual palette of talents, Lissa could carve out a niche for herself that was more rewarding than the usual destiny allotted to the illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter of a peer of the realm?
***
Cocooned alone in the musty, uncomfortable interior of the hackney, now that Cosmo had, with clear relief, washed his hands of her, Lissa had gone only a couple of blocks when she was jerked out of her unhappy musings by a terrified cry, a head-rattling lurch, and the grinding of wheels accompanied by a deafening whinny.
Disoriented, she flailed in the dark for something she could grip as she felt the hackney round a bend on only two wheels. The side window smashed inward as it veered too close to a building and Lissa screamed as she was thrown against the door. For a moment the vehicle slowed, then, suddenly gathering speed, it sped on. Now she could hear the shouts of others in the street as they either leapt clear of the runaway horse or perhaps tried to arrest its progress.
Hunching her shoulders, she covered her face and braced for the inevitable impact, a prisoner in this capsule and under no illusions it would end well.
Despite her flights of fancy, Lissa was pragmatic by nat
ure. Either she would be snuffed out when the hackney came to a final, messy stop or went into the river, or she would be looking for a way to explain her multiple injuries and damage to Miss Maria’s ball gown while hoping she still had a job.
If the outcome were too bad she may have to return home to her mother. She felt ambivalent about this. While she’d never been more lonely than in the six months she’d spent as governess in the Lamont household—not good enough to be spoken to civilly by her employers and too good for the other servants to offer friendship—she did enjoy the bustle of London.
The inevitable impact came, truncated by a terrible sound of splitting wood and grinding metal, and Lissa was thrown against the side of the carriage, hitting her head on the window frame before slumping to the floor.
For a few moments she lay curled up in a ball, breathing heavily and waiting in case there was a dramatic codicil to her terrifying adventure.
Tentatively she flexed her hands and feet and opened her eyes, screaming when she found her right eye without vision as she drew away her fingers, sticky with what she knew must be blood.
Seconds later the carriage door was forced open and she found herself staring at three goggling men, two with blackened faces half covered by filthy, ragged mufflers, the third startling clean by contrast, with chiseled elegant features, a thatch of flyaway brown hair beneath his topper, and an expression of concern that blazed her into renewed life.
“Are you all right, Miss? Here, let me assist you. Are you alone?” The clean, handsome gentleman elbowed his way forward and extended his hand into the gloomy interior, and as she gripped it, she felt an almost overwhelming sense of safety and relief.
Lissa was a quick thinker, and had her excuse ready in answer to his surprise. “The horse bolted before my chaperone had a chance to enter the carriage.”
Now she was outside, being assisted to stand, shivering in the darkness. The young man divested himself of his coat, which he wrapped around her, and as the other two characters melted into the darkness to assist the cab driver, Lissa’s gentleman protector lowered his face to study hers.
“You have a cut just above your eye,” he said, whipping a snowy-white handkerchief from the pocket of the coat he’d just relinquished. “Ah, not deep, fortunately. Now, what shall we do with you? You’re probably in shock, in which case a little brandy would be just the thing, but of course I must return you to your chaperone immediately. She’ll be in a panic. Here, lean against me. You’re shaking.”
Lissa’s knees felt they might give way any moment. A short distance away the jarvey was urging his horse onto all four legs while the two men in mufflers had recruited help with righting the smashed equipage.
