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Chapter 2
A Surprising Introduction
“A few days!” exclaimed Alicia and Herbert at the same moment.
“And there is no nearer town?” asked Herbert. “Nowhere else we might get our carriage repaired, or another horse or…orsomething?”
The handful of men and women who now surrounded them murmured their confirmation of this prediction.
“But he…I can’t…what would Jenny and I…?” Alicia found herself babbling, her heart tightening in her chest. She pictured herself and Jenny, holding one another close on the dark road as they were surrounded by all manner of terrible danger. All the perils of the countryside began looming over her once more.
Laurence squinted and looked off into the distance in thought, running a hand through his shock of yellow hair. Alicia could only look on, oddly captivated by the sight—whoever this Laurence Gillingham fellow was, she could not shake the thought that she had misjudged him somehow. His physique and his rough-spun clothing suggested he was little more than a common labourer, yet his gentility and his intelligent manner of speaking belied that conclusion.
At last, he sighed with an air of resolution falling upon his shoulders before he fixed her once more with that powerful blue gaze.
“I know it may not be proper, Miss, but I’d like to offer you and the other lady a room in my house. For a few nights, at least, while you wait for your man to get your carriage fixed or get a new one.”
Alicia scoffed, feeling on secure footing for the first time in what felt like ages. “Out of the question,” she said breathlessly. “Absolutely not. I could not possibly accept.”
She gave the man another quick up-and-down, confirming her initial opinion of him as a bore. Then she felt a pang of guilt, seeing his face fall at her words.The man does seem a simple country sort. He must really have no idea how unacceptable a proposition this is.
“Sir, I truly appreciate your offer,” said Alicia in a gentler tone. “But you are a stranger, and we are two unwed women. No matter your intentions—which I’m sure are innocent,” she added, unsure of why she was so sure of this point, “it would be disgraceful for us to be known to have stayed at your house. Surely there must be some other solution.”
Laurence looked off into the distant sky once more, then turned to his neighbours in puzzlement. From their indistinct muttering, they seemed to have no such alternatives
“Is there not some nearby inn, perhaps?” asked Jenny from her spot beneath the tree.
“Or another carriage that may be lent to us?” said Alicia.
They were met by the crowd of country people with naught but stony silence.
“Even…even another horse?” Alicia asked, but swallowed the sound of her words in trepidation of their plight. Just as well, she would later reflect, as neither Jenny nor she was able to ride, so far as she knew.
Her vision was clouded by a wellspring of tears, and she felt her legs tremble dangerously beneath her.What will become of us?Alicia wondered, struggling to stay upright.
Then a clear, feminine voice came chiming up from amid the throng. “Under the circumstances, Miss, staying at the Gillingham residence is without a doubt the best course. For your bodily safety as well as your reputation.”
Alicia’s ears perked up, detecting a more familiar manner of speaking. Her eyes fell upon a well-dressed woman not much older than her—though still sun-kissed from time spent in the sun, it appeared—who stepped forward and lifted the corners of her skirts in a delicate curtsy.
“Mary-Anne Stanhope,” the woman said, her yellow hair pinned up attractively beneath a broad sun hat.
Alicia smiled with surprise. The name was a familiar one in her circle; she had heard Grace batting about the name of the Stanhope family for as long as she could remember. “Alicia Ramsbury,” she answered, giving a curtsy of her own. “But—surely you are not Missus Stanhope, wife ofEdwardStanhope? Of Boothby Lane, in Whitehall?”
“I have that pleasure,” said Mary-Anne with a smile. Then the smile twisted at the corner of her mouth, her eyebrow arching. “Well, whether or not it is a pleasure is a matter for another time—for now, I can confirm that whatever it is, it is mine.”
Blinking, Alicia was unsure what to make of this development. She was most unaccustomed to such rapid changes in her fortune, and the Stanhopes were as old and well-regarded a family as one could ever meet. She may as well have run across a turbaned king of India as Missus Edward Stanhope in this backward English field.
Forgetting her tact amid all the confusion, she stammered, “But you—but the Stanhope house is in London, not far from my own. What are you doinghere, of all places, amid these common labourers?”
Mary-Anne stepped forward and took Alicia’s arm, and before the stunned young woman could protest, the two were walking slowly away from the ruined carriage. “I know this part of the countryside—we call it Dunwood, as that is the nearest village—may not look like much, Miss Ramsbury, but…well, everyone has to come from somewhere. And this is where I came from before marrying my more-or-less dear husband Edward.”
Alicia gasped as she stopped in her tracks, suddenly casting her gaze about at the onlookers. She covered her mouth in shame with her free hand. “Oh, Missus Stanhope, I do apologize, I didn’t mean to offend you or—or your countrymen. I just—”
Reaching forward a gloved hand to pat Alicia’s own, Mary-Anne shushed her good-naturedly. “Not at all. There is a reason I left this place, after all, just as there is a reason I come back from time to time. And what lucky happenstance that I should happen to be back here for the summer, paying a visit to the most upstanding, reputable pillar of our tiny community.”
Hardly daring to let herself believe the woman’s words, Alicia blinked away tears of relief. It was then that she realized Mary-Anne had led them more or less in a circle, and standing silently before them with folded arms and a curious smile was the same golden-haired man called Laurence who had made such an improper proposal. Mary-Anne rested her hand on the man’s sweat-stained shirt with great familiarity.
“Oh!” Alicia blurted. “Is this…?”
