cut this very noticeable hair short, dye it black—and we’ll have to get some dye before the stagecoach leaves—”
Bennet wavered between horror and indignation. “Cut your hair? I suppose you’ll cut your pretty nose off, too . . . oh, Miss Kathryn, it’s wicked you’re having all this trouble, and being driven out into the world, when it’s none of your fault, whatever!” She began to cry.
Kathryn placed a gentle hand on the older woman’s arm. “Come on, Bennet, you’ve given me such a wonderful way to escape being sent to Ireland, so far away from the portrait—” she caught her breath. “The portrait! Without it, I haven’t a chance of getting back to New York!”
Bennet pulled herself together, blew her nose, and set herself to considering this latest problem. After a few minutes she said, “There’s a way. I’ll send the picture to Elsingham Manor. Lord John ordered the footman to ‘store the damned thing out of sight somewhere.’ ” Bennet quoted primly. “I’ll tell the man it’s to go to the Manor. Then when it arrives, I’ll have it hung in a room no one uses—and smuggle you in one night to—try again,” Bennet concluded awkwardly. She trusted and pitied Kathryn, but she felt very uncomfortable with the idea that the portrait was a doorway into another place and time.
Kathryn was deeply grateful to this little woman, so loyal to the manchild she had been brought from Scotland to nurse, so grateful for his continuing kindness to her when he left her care. It was Lord John’s father who had established the Bennets on the farm near the Manor, but it was Lord John Himself who had begun the practice of bringing his old nurse to the great London mansion for a few weeks every year as a special treat. Of course, Bennet adored him, thought Kathryn. The wonder was that she had not rejected Kathryn out of hand, after the gossip in the servants’ quarters. Bennet was a just woman, enough of a pawky Scot to insist on making her own independent judgments. A compassionate woman, too, as Kathryn could testify.
“Bennet, are you sure you want to get involved in this? Lord John will be very angry with you if he finds out you have helped me defy his orders. He’ll want to strangle both of us!”
“Then want must be his master,” retorted Bennet stoutly. “That’s a saying we have in my country, when someone says he wants something unreasonable. It means he’s got to deal with his problem himself.” She set her lips firmly. “I had little patience with tantrums when he was a child, and I have less now.”
Kathryn chuckled. “Bennet, you’re too much. And that’s a saying we have in my country! But getting back to the plan: I’ve been wondering if the Manor won’t be the first place Lord John will look for me, when he hears we’ve gone off together?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Bennet explained. “We shan’t go together. I’ll whisk you out of the house and onto the stagecoach before anyone is up and about. Then I’ll come back here. I’ll be standing in the hall when they unlock this door and find you gone. I’ll follow his lordship into the room, and pretend to find this note from Donner. Everyone will believe you’ve gone to Ireland with her!”
“Bennet, you’re a genius!” said Kathryn, giving her a hug one-armed. “But I still can’t agree to stay indefinitely with your long-suffering brother. After a few days I’ll apply for a job in some large house in the neighborhood—”
“Doing what?” sniffed Bennet. “It’s not likely you could manage heavy work, you being brought up like Quality, at a school and all. And you’re far too pretty to be hired as a governess, even if you had letters of reference, which you have not. Besides, in any of the great houses, you’d be at hazard of meeting someone who’s met—Lady Elsingham.”
Kathryn was forced to agree. She sighed. “Very well, then. Help me dress and lead me to your stagecoach! You’d better write that letter to your brother. And you’ll have to lend me the money for the fare, you know.”
“I’d be happy to, Miss Kathryn, but you’ve got far more than enough in your reticule.” She indicated a frivolous purse on the bureau.
Kathryn set her jaw stubbornly. “I shall not take one penny of That Man’s money—” she began, but Bennet interrupted briskly.
“Then I shall, and give it to you. Now Miss Kathryn,