Page 2 of The Paid Companion

The news of her stepfather’s death was delivered to Elenora Lodge by the two men to whom he had lost everything in a poor business investment. They arrived on her doorstep at three o’clock in the afternoon.

“Samuel Jones dropped dead of a fit of apoplexy when he found out that the mining scheme had failed,” one of the men from London informed her with no sign of sympathy.

“This house, its contents and the land that adjoins it from here to the stream all belong to us now,” the second creditor announced, waving a sheaf of papers that carried Samuel Jones’s signature on every page.

The first man squinted at the small gold ring Elenora wore on her little finger. “The deceased included your jewelry and all personal possessions, with the exception of your clothing, on the list of goods he put up as collateral for the loan.”

The second creditor jerked a thumb to indicate the very large individual who stood slightly behind and to the side. “This is Mr. Hitchins. We hired him from Bow Street. He’s here to make sure you don’t take anything of value out of the house.”

The hulking, gray-haired man who had accompanied Samuel Jones’s creditors had hard, watchful eyes. He carried the Bow Street Runner’s badge of office: a baton.

Elenora faced the three aggressive-looking men, aware of her housekeeper and maid hovering anxiously in the front hall behind her. Her thoughts flew to the stable lads and the men who tended the gardens and the home farm. She knew full well that there was very little she could do to protect them. Her only hope was to make it sound as though it would be foolish to dismiss the staff.

“I assume you realize that this property produces a very comfortable income,” she said.

“Aye, Miss Lodge.” The first creditor rocked on his heels, well pleased. “Samuel Jones made that clear, right enough.”

The second man surveyed the neatly kept grounds with an air of anticipation. “A very handsome farm it is.”

“Then you will also be aware that the only reason the property is valuable is because the people who work the land and maintain the household are highly skilled individuals. It would be impossible to replace them. If you let any of them go, I can promise you that the crops will fail and the house will decline in value within months.”

The two creditors frowned at each other. Obviously neither of them had considered the problem of the servants and laborers.

The Runner’s grizzled brows climbed at that announcement and an odd expression lit his eyes. But he said nothing. Why would he? she thought. The business end of this matter had nothing to do with him.

The two creditors reached a silent accord. The first one cleared his throat.

“Your staff will stay on,” he said. “We’ve already arranged for the sale of the property, and the new owner made it clear that he wants everything to stay just as it is.”

“With the exception of yourself, of course, Miss Lodge.” The second creditor bobbed his head with a wise air. “The new owner won’t be needing you.”

Some of Elenora’s tension eased. The people who worked for her were safe. She could turn her attention to her own future.

“I assume you will allow me time to pack my clothes,” she said coldly.

Neither of the two creditors appeared to hear the acute disdain that laced her tones. One of them hauled a watch out of his pocket.

“You have thirty minutes, Miss Lodge.” He nodded at the big man from Bow Street. “Mr. Hitchins will remain with you at all times while you pack, to make sure that you don’t steal any of the silver. When you’re ready to leave, one of the farmers will take you into the village and leave you at the inn. What you do after that is up to you.”

Elenora turned with as much dignity as she could muster and found herself confronted with her sobbing housekeeper and the distraught maid.

Her own head was whirling in the face of the disaster, but she knew that she had to maintain her composure in front of these two. She gave them both what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Calm yourselves,” she said briskly. “As you just heard, you are to remain in your posts, and the men will keep their positions as well.”

The housekeeper and the maid stopped crying and lowered their handkerchiefs. Both went limp with relief.

“Thank you, Miss Elenora,” the housekeeper whispered.

Elenora patted her shoulder and hastened toward the stairs. She tried to ignore the mean-looking Runner who stalked behind her every step of the way.

Hitchins stood just inside the opening of her bedchamber, hands clasped behind his back, feet braced, and watched as she hauled a large trunk out from under the bed.

She wondered what he would say if she were to inform him that he was the only man who had ever set foot in her bedchamber.

“This was my grandmother’s traveling trunk,” she told him instead, throwing open the lid to reveal the empty interior. “She was an actress. Her stage name was Agatha Knight. When she married my grandfather, there was a terrible uproar in the family. Such a scandal. My great-grandparents threatened to disown my grandfather. But in the end they were forced to accept the situation. You know how it is with families.”

Hitchins grunted. Either he did not have any experience with a family or else he found her personal history extremely dull. She suspected the latter.

In spite of Hitchins’s lack of conversation, she continued to chatter nonstop while she dragged her clothes out of the wardrobe. Her goal was to distract him. She did not want him to become curious about the old trunk.

“My poor mother was mortified by the fact that her mother had gone on stage. She spent her entire life trying to live down Grandmother’s notorious career.”

Hitchins checked his watch. “Ye’ve got ten minutes left.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hitchins.” She gave him a steely smile. “You’re being very helpful.”

The Runner proved to be inured to sarcasm. He no doubt experienced a lot of it in his profession.

Elenora yanked open a drawer and took out a pile of neatly folded linen. “You might want to avert your eyes, sir.”

Hitchins had the grace not to stare at her chemise and nightgown. But when she reached for the small clock on the bedside table, his thin mouth tightened.

“Ye’re not to take anything except your personal clothing, Miss Lodge,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yes, of course.” So much for sneaking in the clock. Pity. It might have been worth a few pounds to a pawn dealer. “How could I have forgotten?”

She slammed the lid down and locked it quickly, a chill of relief shooting down her spine. The Runner had not shown the least bit of interest in her grandmother’s old theater trunk.

“I am told that I look just like her when she was my age,” she said in conversational tones.

“Who would that be, Miss Lodge?”

“My grandmother, the actress.”

“Is that a fact.” Hitchins shrugged. “Ready, are ye?”

“Yes. I trust you will convey this downstairs for me?”

“Aye, ma’am.”

Hitchins hoisted the trunk and carried it down to the front hall. Outside, he loaded it into the waiting farmer’s cart.

One of the creditors stepped into Elenora’s path as she made to follow Hitchins.

“That little gold ring on your hand, if you please, Miss Lodge,” he said sharply.

“Indeed.”

With a bit of precise timing, she managed to remove the ring and drop it just as the creditor reached out to take it from her. The circlet of gold bounced on the floor.

“Damnation.” The annoying little man leaned down to retrieve the ring.

While he was bent over in a parody of an awkward bow, Elenora swept past him and went down the steps. Agatha Knight had always emphasized the importance of a well-staged exit.

Hitchins, showing an unexpected turn of manners, handed her up onto the hard, wooden bench of the farm cart.

“Thank you, sir,” she murmured. She settled herself on the seat with all of the grace and aplomb she would have employed getting into a fine carriage.

A gleam of admiration appeared in the Runner’s eyes.

“Good luck to ye, Miss Lodge.” He glanced into the rear of the cart where the trunk loomed large. “Did I mention that my uncle traveled with a company of actors in his younger days?”

She froze. “No, you did not.”

“Had a trunk very similar to yours. He said it was quite useful. He told me that he always made certain he had a few essentials packed inside in the event that he was obliged to leave town in a hurry.”

She swallowed. “My grandmother gave me the same bit of advice.”

“I trust ye heeded it, Miss Lodge?”

“Yes, Mr. Hitchins, I did.”

“Ye’ll do all right, Miss Lodge. Ye’ve got spirit.” He winked, tipped his hat and walked back toward his employers.

Elenora took a deep breath. Then, with a snap, she unfurled her parasol and held it aloft as though it were a bright battle banner. The cart lumbered into motion.

She did not look back at the house where she had been born and had lived all of her life.

Her stepfather’s death had not come as a great surprise, and she felt no grief. She had been sixteen years old when Samuel Jones had married her mother. He had spent very little time here in the country, preferring London and his never-ending investment schemes. After her mother had died three years before, he had rarely showed up at all.

That state of affairs had suited Elenora quite well. She did not care for Jones and was quite content not to have him underfoot. But of course that was before she had discovered that his lawyer had managed to shift her inheritance from her grandmother, which had included the house and surrounding property, into Jones’s control.

And now it was all gone.

Well, not quite all, she thought with grim satisfaction. Samuel Jones’s creditors had not known about her grandmother’s pearl and gold brooch and the matching earrings hidden in the false bottom of the old costume trunk.

Agatha Knight had given her the jewelry right after her mother had married Samuel Jones. Agatha had kept the gift a secret and had instructed Elenora to hide the brooch and the earrings in the trunk and not tell anyone about them, not even her mother.

It was obvious that Agatha’s intuition about Jones had been quite sound.

Neither were the two creditors aware of the twenty pounds in bank notes that were also inside the trunk. She had kept the money aside after the sale of the crops, and had tucked the notes in with the jewelry when she had realized that Jones was going to take every penny from the harvest to invest in his mining scheme.

What was done was done, she thought. She must turn her attention to the future. Her fortunes had definitely taken a downward turn, but at least she was not entirely alone in the world. She was engaged to be married to a fine gentleman. When Jeremy Clyde received word of her dire predicament, she knew that he would race to her side. He would no doubt insist that they move the date of the wedding forward.

Yes indeed, she thought, in a month or so this terrible incident would be behind her. She would be a married woman with a new household to organize and manage. The prospect cheered her greatly.

If there was one skill at which she excelled, it was that of organizing and supervising the myriad tasks required to maintain an orderly household and a prosperous farm. She could handle everything from arranging for the profitable sale of crops to keeping the accounts, seeing to the repairs of the cottages, hiring servants and laborers, and concocting medicines in the stillroom.

She would make Jeremy an excellent wife, if she did say so herself.

J eremy Clyde galloped into the inn yard later that evening, just as Elenora was instructing the innkeeper’s wife on the importance of making certain that the sheets on her bed were freshly laundered.

When she glanced out the window and saw who had arrived, Elenora broke off the lecture and rushed downstairs.

She went straight into Jeremy’s open arms.

“Dearest.” Jeremy hugged her quickly and then put her gently away from him. His handsome face was set in lines of grave concern. “I came as soon as I heard the news. How dreadful for you. Your stepfather’s creditors took everything? The house? All of the property?”

She sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

“This is a terrible blow for you, my dear. I do not know what to say.”

But it transpired that Jeremy did, indeed, have something very important to say. It took him some time to get around to it, and he prefaced it with the assurance that it broke his heart to have to tell her, but he really had no choice.

It all boiled down to a very simple matter: Due to the fact that she had been stripped of her inheritance, he was forced to terminate their engagement immediately.

He rode away a short while later, leaving just as quickly as he had come.

Elenora climbed the stairs to her tiny room and sent for a bottle of the innkeeper’s least-expensive wine. When it was delivered, she locked her door, lit a candle and poured herself a brimming glass of the tonic.

She sat there for a long time, looking out into the night, drinking the bad wine and contemplating her future.

She truly was all alone in the world now. It was a strange and disturbing thought. Her orderly, well-planned life had been turned upside down.

Only a few hours before, her future had seemed so clear and bright. Jeremy had been planning to move into her house after the marriage. She’d had a comfortable vision of herself as his wife and lifetime partner; a vision in which she managed the household, raised their children and continued to supervise the farm’s business affairs. Now that shimmering bubble of a dream had burst.

But very late that night, after most of the wine in the bottle was gone, it came to her that she was now free in a way she had never been before in her entire life. For the first time ever, she had no obligations to anyone. No tenants or servants depended upon her. No one needed her. She had no roots, no ties, no home.

There was no one to care if she made herself notorious or dragged the Lodge name through the muck of a great scandal, just as her grandmother had done.

She had a chance to plot a new course for herself.

In the pale light of the new dawn she glimpsed a dazzling vision of the very different future she would craft.

It would be a future in which she would be free of the narrow, rigid strictures that bound one so tightly when one lived in a small village; a future in which she controlled her own property and her own finances.

In this grand, new future she would be able to do things that she could never have done in her old life. She might even allow herself to sample those uniquely stimulating pleasures that her grandmother had assured her were to be found in the arms of the right man.

But she would not have to pay the price that most women of her station in life paid to know those pleasures, she promised herself. She would not have to marry. After all, there was no one left to care if she ruined her good name.

Yes, this new future would be glorious indeed.

All she had to do was find a way to pay for it.