Page 46 of The Gentlewoman Companion (The Gentlewoman #4)

Chapter Twenty-Three

L ouisa’s chest pounded so severely that the pain of it radiated to her shoulders and down her arms until her fingers throbbed.

Her hands ached with cold while her forehead pricked with heat.

She slipped off her dancing slippers and padded toward the stairs, hoping no one would see her as she crossed the parlor door, from which bloomed a glowing light.

As soon as she’d arrived at the ball, she’d been shunned.

After a whispered conversation to which Louisa was not admitted, Mrs. Trelawney and her daughter had turned their backs on her, spreading the truth of her scandal to everyone within hearing.

Louisa had been forced to flee and call a hackney to take her back to Grosvenor Square.

Perhaps she could sneak into bed and pretend the entire evening had been a terrible dream.

“Louisa?”

Lady Halverton. Louisa could not face her. Already her nose stung and her eyes burned. She would burst into tears if she beheld her mistress.

She tried to slow her breath, but it pulsed faster, matching the relentless cadence of her heart. From the doorway, she met Lord Halverton’s gaze as he sat beside his mother. His eyes slipped from hers to the floor near her feet.

He knew.

“I returned early.” Her voice was too loud, too high. “I don’t feel well. Please excuse me.”

“Wait,” Lord Halverton said. His mother put her hand on his knee and glared at him. “I heard your brother is still in town.”

“Yes.” It was all she could say. Tears threatened, the mortification too great. Anger at Charles so hot, it crackled beneath her skin like a fire spreading over tallow. She wrapped her arms around her ribs, trying to press away the discomfort of her stays.

“It’s true, then?” Lord Halverton’s voice was expressionless.

“Yes.” She laid the final element to her destruction. It was no use pretending. Everyone knew or would by morning.

“I see,” Lord Halverton said.

Swallowing, choking, she could not repress her tears any longer.

She ran up the stairs, slammed the door, and bolted it.

She yanked at her gown, ripping it from the stomacher.

Too tight. Too much pressure. She tore and pulled until she’d revealed her stays.

A sewing box lay on a side table. She found scissors and sliced through the laces.

Now wearing only a loose chemise, she collapsed into the pool of her gown, tears dotting her gold petticoat.

Oh! That she had never come to London. Wretched Charles! He’d ruined her. And she’d been fool enough to trust his desperate promise. Curse him!

When her tears were spent, a sharp headache remained.

She drank water and stared at her blotched face in the mirror.

She moved to a chair near the window and watched the night grow colder and deeper.

Desolate mist floated over a full moon, growing thick until the light disappeared altogether.

In the darkness, the chamber walls closed in, reminiscent of the room at the inn where she had locked herself to escape that man .

Charles had stolen her freedom to walk unashamed, while he drank and laughed somewhere in London, spending the money she’d traded for her mother’s brooch.

Curse her stupidity! May a plague rob Charles of his faculties! She should have left him to reap the consequences of his bad behavior. At the very least, their joint fall to infamy would have been just.

Her skin grew tighter and tighter. She could no more remain in the house than she could face the Halvertons.

Louisa retrieved a fresh set of stays, laced them loosely, tied on a plain petticoat, attached her largest pocket, and pinned closed the coordinating robe.

She threw on her warmest cape and grabbed her reticule, stuffing it into the pocket before slipping out.

The hall was empty. Good. It was still too early for a maid to stand waiting for a bell to ring.

Her feet stepped lightly down the back staircase into the kitchen, where three cooks looked up at her.

She mumbled a good morning and unlatched the kitchen door.

Damp, frigid air robbed her breath as she emerged into an unusually foggy morning and made her way to the stables.

“Good morning, Miss Thorpe.”

Blast! She did not wish to talk to anyone, not even the stable hand.

“I shall hitch my donkey myself this morning, thank you.”

As she bridled Nimbus, his warm nuzzling drew a hot tear from her eye. The groom stood too close, checking her every move and rambling about securing the lines. She resisted the urge to bat him away.

“I will thank you to move away from the door,” she said once the little carriage was ready.

“Alone?” He scratched his chin. “I can accompany you.”

“Not today.” She pulled Nimbus forward, pushing past the man and into the street, where a measure of calm swept through her. The leads imparted a sense of control and anchored her to sweet, reliable Nimbus, the lone creature who would never look at her with consternation.

Early sun spilled milky light through the misted street, making it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. Louisa kept Nimbus at a slow walk and arrived thirty minutes later at the carriage house Mrs. Beecham and Miss Fischer shared with their neighbors.

“I won’t be long,” she said to Nimbus, shutting him in with a collection of carriages.

She knocked on the front door and waited.

It was far too early for calls. Should she take Nimbus for a long drive?

Perhaps it no longer mattered. Not having a reputation to concern herself with allowed freedoms she had not considered.

But the sovereignty lacked the glitter and allure it might have held in different circumstances.

She watched down the street and listened for movement inside the house.

From down the lane, a cloudy shape emerged from the haze.

A winged woman? As the figure approached, Louisa identified a milkmaid with a yoke over her shoulders, large pails hanging heavy to each side.

She nodded at Louisa, then turned into an alley that went behind the houses.

Louisa followed her to the back door, which was opened by an expectant cook.

Louisa was barred from entering the kitchen, but after explaining her desperation to see the sisters, she was left to wait in the drawing room.

“It might be some hours before they emerge. I’ll not call them from their beds unless this is some emergency.” The housekeeper brought tea despite her apparent disapproval.

Louisa watched December fog lift from the street as it filled with life.

The voices of peddlers vying for attention reached Louisa.

“Oysters, rare meltin’ oysters,” shouted a woman balancing a huge basket of shells on her head.

In a cheerful sing-song voice, an old man bellowed about watercress while pushing a cart of vegetables.

The cogs of the great metropolis turned, rousing its inhabitants, pulling them into the streets as partakers of the struggles and joys of daily life.

Louisa wished to walk among them, unnoticed and unabashed.

She longed to once more browse the shops with her mistress or ride beside Lord Halverton in a phaeton.

But she could not disgrace the Halvertons by remaining the countess’s companion.

Even if that kind woman begged her to stay, Louisa would not watch Lady Halverton be persecuted.

Havenwood was the answer. For the benefit of everyone she held dear, Louisa must retreat to the country.

There, she would study and attempt to make sense of life.

At Havenwood, she would learn to be industrious and purposeful.

Most of all, she would not be alone or cast out, ignored or looked over, as she had been the previous evening at the ball.

Miss Fischer entered. “Louisa! What is wrong?”

“Oh! All is at an end.”

“Is Lady Halverton ill?”

“Nothing like that. Only I must tell you something.”

They moved to a pair of chairs near the fire, and Louisa told her story as Miss Fischer listened with palpable interest. “I wondered if you would have me at Havenwood. I would work, learn to cook. I’ll even learn Latin if I must.” As Louisa spoke, Miss Fischer’s brows pinched, and her eyes seemed to lower.

A pit stretched in Louisa’s stomach. “Oh, Miss Fischer. Don’t look at me with pity. Compassion yes, but not that.”

“We cannot take you.”

“But where else will I go? I was led to believe Havenwood housed women like me.”

“We take women who are outcasts for circumstances outside their control—disabled women, women of illegitimate birth, women abandoned by cruel husbands. But society looks more harshly on women who have chosen ill fates and made their own mistakes. We depend on the generosity of benefactors who will not provide for us if we house the unworthy—or those perceived as such—to partake of their charity.”

Unworthy . Was that what she was? Louisa refused to accept the word.

Misunderstood. Misguided. Impulsive. All of that.

But if she had learned a singular truth in her time as Lady Halverton’s companion, it was that she was a person of value.

She held the capacity to learn and invent original ideas.

She had tried to improve her decorum and poise, had abandoned her Cornish accent and grown confident in expressing her opinion.

She was unafraid to jump a horse or steer a racing carriage.

Did all this not indicate the value of her person?

Miss Fischer was still speaking, and Louisa tried focus.

“…learn to stand alone, make your own way. Take responsibility for what you’ve done and go home to your father.”

Her father, who had rejected her? “I cannot. I will never.” She withdrew her handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes.

“Save your energy and push forward.” Miss Fischer patted Louisa’s arm. “What family do you have? What resources?”