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The next afternoon, Lady Josephine arrived about a half hour late. “We were starting to worry, my lady,” Charley said. “We thought maybe somethin’ ’ad ’appened to you.”
“I’m sorry,” Lady Josephine said. “The lunch crowd was large today. I’m not allowed to leave until they finish up.”
Lady Josephine thought for a minute or two, then said to them, “I have a plan. There’s a place I could go to, a cottage in Cornwall, that’s owned by the milliner I used to work for.”
“You mean when you met Ace? When you were in disguise, you and Lady Hermione?” Charley asked.
A fond smile crept over Lady Josephine’s face, as she recalled for a moment the first time she had met Ace—and Paddy and Charley too, of course—in London. “Yes, that’s right. Her name is Madame Vallencourt, and she has a shop on the outskirts of Knightsbridge.”
“We know the shop, my lady. We used to walk with Ace there, when he would wait on the street corner to meet you.”
“Well—I am sharing her secrets with you now, so you must promise to keep this information to yourselves.”
They nodded gravely.
“Her real name is Sadie Brown, from the dockside of the Thames. She owns a little cottage under her real name,” Lady Josephine said. “She found out about Ace and me—never mind how, but she did. She said that if we ever found ourselves in trouble and had to run away and hide from Society, we could stay in her cottage as long as we liked, and no one would look for us there.”
Lady Josephine proceeded to tell them the location of the cottage and the name of the woman living next door who held a spare key.
“Why don’t you go there, my lady? You’d be safe, at least. And we could tell Ace where to find you, once he comes back,” Paddy suggested.
“Oh Paddy, do you really think Ace will be back sooner than in five years’ time? But you’re right, at least I’d be safe in the meantime.
“I’d go back to Clover House in London, or even Cloverdene in Norfolk, but I’m afraid those are the first two places where the Earl will be looking for me. If there are only women there—Lady Seraphina and Lady Hermione—he might bully them or harm them. So I can’t go home.
“I think going to Cornwall is my best bet right now. But I have no money, beyond the few shillings I’m earning here for a week’s work. It would cost a lot more than that to hire a carriage to take me to Cornwall. It’s clear across England.
“I need you to go back to London and tell Lady Hermione you found me. Tell her the predicament I’m in. Ask her to lend me, oh, say...fifty pounds. That will cover a carriage to Cornwall, plus I’ll still have most of the money left to live on when I get there. Can you do that?”
“Sure we can, my lady. One of us will go to London, and one of us will stay behind in case you need him. This should only take a couple of days,” Paddy said comfortingly.
Thanking them profusely, Lady Josephine ran back to her job down the street.
“And I guess I know which one o’ us is going to London, and which one is staying be’ind,” said Charley to Paddy.
“Charley, would you mind if I went again? It’s the only way I’ll see Mary. She told me one of the grooms has been eyeing her, and he asked her to go walking with him on her afternoon off, but she said no. I don’t want to lose her, Charley—she’s my girl.”
“Oh, all right,” said Charley begrudgingly. “I suppose I’ll just ’ave to settle for the girls of Worthington Town while you go a-courtin.’”
