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Chapter Nineteen
Paddy left for London by public coach that same afternoon. The men had arranged with Lady Josephine that Charley would go on meeting her in the church every day after lunch. So she would be safe. Paddy could rest easy.
Paddy stopped first at the dilapidated boarding house where he and Charley shared a room. He located a certain loose floorboard near the fireplace, and he used his pocket knife to pry it up. In the empty space underneath were Paddy’s treasures: a letter from his favorite little sister, a couple of gold guineas his father had given him when he was leaving Ireland and a thin gold ring with the tiniest chip of a diamond in it. That had been his mother’s ring.
He recalled the day he left County Kerry for England. The farm was barely covering the family’s rent of the land from a landlord they never saw. So he knew his father did not have much put aside. Still, his father walked him out to the road gate as he was leaving. The older man shoved the two gold guineas into Paddy’s hand.
“Ah, no, Da, won’t ye be needin’ that yerself, for the rent? No, I couldn’t take it.”
His father had assured him he could spare him the money. “For I sold off one of the milk cows. Now, there’s no tellin’ how things will be for ye when ye first get to London. Ye may need a few shillings in yer pocket, till ye find work.”
Reluctantly, Paddy took the money. But since coming to London, he had never spent it, and he hoped to bring the same coins, unused, back to his father one day.
His mother, too, had done her best for him. The night before he left for London, she pulled the thin gold ring, worn thinner with years of hard work, off her finger. “For there may be a girl ye’ll meet in London who’ll be the right lass for ye. Ye can give her this, when the time comes. I’ll be prayin’ for ye, meanwhile.”
His parents were giving him all they had, so he could make a fresh start in London. His eyes filled with tears when he thought of them, of how much they had sacrificed over the years for him and his sisters.
But they would be happy for him now. Happy for himself and Mary too—if all went well.
Paddy arrived at Clover House just as the servants were having their breakfast. He assumed that Lady Hermione would still be visiting there, to comfort Lady Seraphina about the situation. He asked Mr. McTavish if he could speak with Lady Hermione alone, on urgent business for the Lady Josephine.
Mr. McTavish looked puzzled. What sort of “urgent business” could young Paddy have with the gentry? And did this mean Lady Josephine had been located? For everyone, even the servants, had been talking among themselves about Lady Josephine’s unexplained absence over the past several weeks. Still, none of the staff, even Mr. McTavish, knew yet that there was any serious problem. Lady Josephine’s reputation had to be protected for as long as possible.
Paddy held his tongue in response to Mr. McTavish’s pointed questions. “Lady Josephine sent me with a message for Lady Hermione alone, sir,” he addressed the butler. “So, much as I’d wish to oblige you with any news, it’s Lady Hermione I’ll be talkin’ to.” Paddy didn’t know just how much the servants knew, or were supposed to know.
Mr. McTavish hesitated as to where to put Paddy—he was roughly dressed, and he certainly didn’t belong in His Grace’s drawing room! Yet he could hardly order him to wait below stairs, when Paddy didn’t work for him. In the end, he compromised and put Paddy to wait in a small sitting room off the drawing room.
Lady Hermione was not long in joining Paddy, once she got the message from McTavish. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting, Mr. O’Connor. I was breakfasting in my room, and I hadn’t expected any visitors. Is there news?”
She looked so worried, and yet so hopeful, about her friend Lady Josephine’s welfare that Paddy could gladly have hugged her, were she a girl of his own station in life.
“We found her, my lady,” he said. He told Lady Hermione about the condition in which Charley and he had encountered Lady Josephine at the Ship and Anchor, the Earl’s imprisonment and cruel treatment of her, her hair all cut off and her now working as a scullery maid.
“Oh, my poor Jo,” Lady Hermione said. “That evil man….”
He also told her that under the Earl’s orders, Ace had been kidnapped by Navy sailors and was now on the high seas. And the Duke, of course, was on his mission in France, and presumably knew nothing of any of this.
“She’s all alone, Lady Hermione,” Paddy explained. “She doesn’t want to come back to Clover House or go to Cloverdene, because those are the first places the Earl will be looking.”
“You can’t imagine he still wants to marry her, after all that has happened!” said Lady Hermione, shocked.
“He certainly does, my lady. It’s the money he’s after—Lady Josephine’s big inheritance from His Grace. Once he’s married to her and gotten the legal rights to her money, he’s told her he’ll have her killed or locked up at Worthington Hall for years. All he wants is the money.”
Lady Hermione thought for a moment. “We have to get her away someplace safe—someplace that man doesn’t know about.”
“Indeed, my lady,” Paddy said. “There’s a cottage in Cornwall that belongs to Madame Vallencourt—”
“—the milliner!” Lady Hermione said.
“Aye, my lady. Madame knows all about Lady Josephine and Ace, begging your pardon for mentioning it—I know it’s supposed to be a secret. Madame told Lady Josephine that if she and Ace ever needed to run away from Society, they could use her cottage.”
“The French certainly like ‘les affaires du coeur,’” Lady Hermione smiled.
“Except you probably know she’s not really French, my lady. Lady Josephine told us that Madame’s as English as you and she are. It’s a disguise to help her business, I guess.”
Paddy told Lady Hermione the location of the cottage. “But the problem is, Lady Josephine has no money. She says it’s expensive to take a coach across the whole breadth of England. She sent me to ask you—”
“But of course!” Lady Hermione understood right away. “Wait here for me.” She dashed out of the sitting room, and her footsteps could be heard on the stairs leading to the family bedrooms.
