have…”
“It was you? The robbery?”
“I had his keys,” Lady Isabella said impatiently. “If Henry could be fooled by the objects Phelps produced, why not others? Then there was no house key, and I made a noise, and you began to shout. You, again!” She turned to glare at Charlotte. “You will give those earrings back to me!”
She made it sound as if Charlotte had stolen them. Under the circumstances, however, this seemed the least of her worries. She simply nodded.
“I sold the mates for a pittance, because what can one do with one earring? And now I shall have to do the same with the others. It is not fair!”
She was so fierce that an idea penetrated Charlotte’s confusion. “We could go back and fetch them.”
Briefly, it seemed that Lady Isabella might do exactly that. Then Martha leaned forward and put a hand on her arm. “No, of course not. I will get them… later.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Charlotte couldn’t help but ask. She received no answer, and she began to suspect that Lady Isabella had no idea. But whether that was good news or bad in this insane situation, she didn’t know.
It was nearly dark by the time they pulled up before a sizable country house. Charlotte got only glimpses of the brick façade and a few pieces of sheeted furniture as Martha hustled her inside and up two sets of stairs. The place felt empty, however. The ancient housekeeper who’d hobbled out to meet them was obviously surprised by the visit.
Martha took her to an unused maid’s room, barely lit by one tiny window under the eaves, empty but for a sagging bed. She pushed her down on the iron bedstead, which creaked under her weight.
“Please,” Charlotte said as the woman turned away. “You must see that this is mad. You cannot keep me here.”
With an uneasy look, Martha simply left her in the growing dark. The lock that clicked behind her sounded sturdy. But she did not give Charlotte any more laudanum, and for that at least she was thankful. She began to tear at the twine on her wrists with her teeth.
***
Battered by the endless rocking and bouncing of the stagecoach, Ethan and Lucy stumbled into the inn and found a small table in the corner of the common room. It was low-ceilinged, smoky, and crowded; the coach had been jam-packed, too, and poorly sprung. If he was worn out, how must Lucy be feeling, Ethan wondered? The long hours crammed in with other passengers, nosy ones and rude ones, had been hard enough for him. He was big, and he had a thick skin. Lucy was more delicate, and eaten up with worry as well. He’d shielded her as much as he could by sitting between her and the rest, but there was only so much he could do. He looked her over, saw the dark circles under her blue eyes. You couldn’t sleep on the stage, not unless you were half dead already, which they weren’t, quite yet.
The barmaid plopped down plates of stew and mugs of ale. Ethan paid with what he feared was pilfered coin. He hoped Miss Anne wouldn’t mind, in the end.
“Somethin’s got to be done,” railed a drunken voice from the other side of the room. A man in a much-patched coat banged his tankard on the tabletop. “Twice-damned gover’ment wants to let us starve, I say take what we need, any way we can, and let ’em shove that down their fat gullets.”
There was a growl of agreement from other tables, and Ethan was torn between further worry about Lucy’s safety and a reluctant understanding. Just yesterday, he might have disapproved of the outburst. But he’d seen a thing or two since then.
The farther north they went, the worse it got. They saw ragged people trudging along the side of the road with their meager belongings piled in hand carts. Skinny children with hopeless eyes followed as they could, the youngest riding atop the carts. Evicted, one of the passengers had explained, for not being able to meet their rents, there being no work or no decent wage to be earned. Some of the villages they passed through had an abandoned air, like the war had been here in England rather than foreign parts. In one of them, children had flocked ’round the stagecoach when it slowed, hands out, begging. Begging! Beggars were creatures of the city, to Ethan’s mind, created by the filthy,