however she felt. “F-four pounds,” she managed finally, holding out the reticule.
The innkeeper’s wife took it and examined the contents. “Tch. The blackguard! He might have left you something more.”
“He only cared about getting my money,” murmured Diana brokenly.
The other’s eyes sharpened. “Indeed? Well, miss, my advice is to put him right out of your mind. He’s no good.”
Diana gazed at the carpet.
“You should go back to your family,” added the woman. “They’ll stand by you and help scotch the scandal. You haven’t been away so very long, I wager.”
Diana shuddered at the thought of her father. She couldn’t go back to face his contempt. Yet where else could she go?
“Tom and me could advance you some money. Not for a private chaise, mind, but for the stage. You could send it back when you’re home again.”
“W-would you?” She was amazed.
Something in the girl’s tear-drenched brown eyes made the landlady reach out and pat her shoulder. “You’ll be all right once you’re among your own people again,” she said. “But you’d best get ready. The stage comes at ten.”
In an unthinking daze, Diana paid the postboys and dismissed them, gathered her meager luggage, and mounted the stage when it arrived. A young man sitting opposite tried to get up a conversation, but Diana didn’t even hear him. Her mind was spinning with the events of the past few days. As the miles went by, she recounted them again and again. Why had she not seen Gerald’s true colors sooner? Why had she allowed him to cajole her into an elopement? What was to become of her now? She was surely ruined forever through her own foolishness. How could she look anyone in the eye again after what she had done?
Wrapped in these gloomy reflections, Diana was oblivious until the stage set her down at an inn near her home in Yorkshire. And once there, she stood outside the inn’s door, her small valise beside her, afraid to reveal her presence.
“Yes, miss, may I help you?” asked a voice, and the innkeeper appeared in the doorway.
Diana tried to speak, and failed.
“Did you want dinner?” he added impatiently. She could hear sounds from the taproom beyond. “Are you waiting for someone to fetch you? Will you come in?”
“No,” she answered, her voice very low. “I…I am all right. Thank you.” She would walk home, she decided. The house was four miles away, but all other alternatives seemed worse.
“Wait a moment. Aren’t you the Gresham girl?” The man came out to survey her, and Diana flinched. “I’ve seen you with your father. They managed to get word to you, then, did they? There was some talk that Mrs. Samuels didn’t know where you’d gone.”
Diana frowned. Mrs. Samuels was their housekeeper. What did she have to do with anything?
“You’ll just be in time for the funeral. It’s tomorrow morning. Was you wanting a gig to take you home?”
“Funeral?” she echoed, her lips stiff.
“Well, yes, miss. Your father…” Suddenly the innkeeper clapped a hand to his mouth. “You ain’t been told! My tongue’s run away with me, as usual. Beg your pardon, miss, I’m sure.”
“But what has happened? Is my father…?”
The man shook his head. “Passed away late yesterday, miss. And I’m that sorry to tell you. I reckon Mrs. Samuels meant to do it face to face.”
“But how?” Diana was dazed by this new disaster.
“Carried off by an apoplexy, they say. A rare temper, Mr. Gresham had…er, that is, I’ve heard folk say so.”
He had died of rage at her flight, thought Diana. Not only had she ruined herself, she had killed her father. With a small moan, she sank to the earth in a heap.
The furor that followed did not reach her. Diana was bundled into a gig like a parcel and escorted home by a chambermaid and an ostler. Delivered to Mrs. Samuels and somewhat revived with hot tea, Diana merely stared.
Finally Mrs. Samuels said, “I told them you had gone to visit friends.”
Diana choked, then replied, “But you knew… I left the note.”
“I burned it.”
“Why?”
“It was none of their affair, prying busybodies.”
The girl gazed at the spare, austere figure of the only mother she had ever known. Her own mother had died when Diana was two, but she had never felt that Mrs. Samuels cared for her. She did not even know her first name. “You lied to protect me?”
The housekeeper’s face did not soften, and she continued to stare straight ahead. “’Twas none of their affair,” she repeated. “I don’t