former life, but this was definitely a step up. She was going to have to write her brother a very nice thank-you note.
She sank down on the little bench set under the window and looked at the people walking along the street below her, going about their business as if they had every right to. She watched them for a moment or two, then leaned her head back against the side of the window and closed her eyes.
She hadn’t dared think about it before, on the off chance that her plans went awry, but she was in the middle of perpetrating a strategy. It was almost ridiculous to think that at the ripe old age of twenty-six she was trying to figure out a way to cut the old apron strings, but that’s what it boiled down to. It wasn’t that her parents were bad people; they were just . . . difficult. Her older siblings had been a disappointment, so the burden of perfection had always rested on her.
She’d had enough of that, actually.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried over the years to assert her independence. It was true that she was still living in the bedroom she’d grown up in, but she had recently begun to refuse to sleep on a sleeper while accompanying her mother to conferences, insisting instead on a bed of her own.
She paused. All right, so it had been an extra bed in her mother’s room. She had put her foot down about penny loafers. She had gotten her master’s in historical textile preservation with an emphasis on Elizabethan offerings instead of Victorian. And she had begun to insist that her mother pay her for help with exhibitions instead of simply offering her room and board. She knew she should have gotten an apartment long before now, but every time she made noises about moving out, her parents looked as if she’d said she was going to ditch her conservative uniform of tweed and polyester for tie-dye and dreads. What was the last child to do but try to keep the peace?
The truth was, her parents weren’t terrible people. They just always both seemed to need an audience. Unfortunately, unlike her older brother and sister, she’d never managed to get out of the front-row seats, much less the theater.
Until two days earlier, that was.
She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She had cash, a debit card, and a map Lydia had given her earlier that morning with useful places marked in red. Lydia had invited her to take the day and investigate the environs so she would be comfortable when they left her alone in their house for the summer. Life was good.
She jogged down the stairs, feeling remarkably fresh for it still being the middle of the night on the East Coast, and almost ran into Lydia bodily in the entryway.
“Oh,” Samantha said in surprise, “I’m sorry—”
Lydia put her finger to her lips quickly. “You have company,” she whispered. “I think you might escape—”
Or maybe not. The door to the salon opened with a flourish and there stood Theodore IV, ready to set sail for points she didn’t want to know about. She managed to suppress a flinch only because she’d had so much practice.
“Off we go,” he said brightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Cooke, for your hospitality.”
And that was that. Before she could say anything, Samantha was hustled out the door and herded toward a taxi. She balked at that.
“I can’t afford a taxi,” she said firmly.
Dory drew himself up. “As if I would ask you to pay,” he said huffily. “I’m treating today.”
Unless things changed later on, of course. Samantha was half tempted as he got in first to simply jump back, shut the door, and run down the street, but she supposed he would just follow her. She sighed, then climbed into the back of the cab with him. Last time. Honestly.
“Where are we going this morning?” she asked reluctantly.
“The Castle,” he said, checking his phone, “then lunch, then the bridge, then the Discovery Museum.”
Her feet hurt just thinking about it, but she supposed she wouldn’t waste breath saying anything. It would just add to her already unwholesome reputation for fragility.
The thing that surprised her the most as they approached Newcastle’s landmark castle was the fact that the taxi dropped them off on a sidewalk that was immediately adjacent to the steps that led up to an enormous wooden set of doors. She stood on that sidewalk