At least she no longer had to marry the man.
A bark of laughter broke through her lips.Then another and another until she was clutching her belly, tears running down her cheeks.Madness, this riot of relief and horror.Absolute madness to follow a strange man down an unmarked road.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and she wiped the tears away with the heel of her hand as the door swung open.Another dark alley lay beyond, and she gathered her courage with her skirts and put her foot on the ground.“Where to next, Mr.Ned?”
“Right this way, ma’am.”He guided her down the alley and through a door.
The scent of cinnamon hit her first and then soil.And somewhere nearby, but beyond a wall, the muffled roar of busy voices.She must be at Lady Guinevere’s.He’d truly brought her to safety.
She felt safe, the cinnamon scent wrapping round her.She wanted to melt, her muscles sluggish, her head suddenly heavy.But she followed Ned, heard his fist knock against a door or wall in the dark room.
“Lady G,” he called out.“Got another one fer ya.”
The door swept open, and light spilled in.Diana stood in a storage room of some sort, shelves floor to ceiling lined with bottles of all shapes and colors.She barely blinked the details into existence when she noticed the woman standing in the square of light, a dark void of a bird perched on her shoulder.
“Lady Guinevere?”Diana whispered.
The woman’s smile was like the sun after winter—warm and welcoming.“Yes, and you are…?”
“Miss Chester.Diana Chester.”Her name not much more than a sob.Relief crumpled her muscles, and Ned dove in to catch her before the floor did.
“Was a man after her,” Ned said.“The one she’s ’sposed to marry.She seems muddled.Might have knocked her ’ead on something.Think he almost did ’er in.”
Some movement behind Lady Guinevere stole her attention, and she partly shut the door.“Go home, my lord.You have the information you’ve come for.”Said to someone on the other side of the door.
A deep voice rumbled something where Diana could not see.Then another joined in, an argument beyond Diana’s reach.
“I say what happens in this shop.”Lady Guinevere rapped the door once with her knuckles.“And you will leave.Now.”
More low, deep rumbles.Then footsteps, then Lady Guinevere fully opened the door, welcoming Diana inside another room.This one a chaos of color and sunshine.Sun spilled through the large windows, gilding Lady Guinevere’s hair as she pulled Diana over to a low couch across the room.Books were scattered about every surface but for the large desk, and thick, faded rugs softened their steps.Diana sat, and Lady Guinevere poured a glass of wine from a bottle sitting on her desk.She brought it to Diana and sat beside her.
“Drink.It will soothe your nerves.”
Diana did, taking a large swallow, and the familiar burn down her throat helped.
Lady Guinevere tipped Diana’s chin up, her gaze narrowing on Diana’s neck.“We have a wonderful salve for that.”She dropped her hand to her lap and looked across the room.“Mr.Bran, please have Miss Maple concoct a sachet for megrims.”
A shadow separated from the corner, a man, large and lumbering.He left them without making a sound.
“My bodyguard,” Lady Guinevere said with a grin.“Good to have about.”
“You sent a guard to watch me.”Diana knit her hands together in her lap.Pale and small in a sea of pink.Oh heavens, she still wore her wedding gown.Ill-fitting and wrinkled.She should cry.But she felt too hollow for that.“Why?”
“Standard practice when a client mentions certain circumstances.Fears of injury and the like.You are not my first stowaway, and you will not be the last.Now tell me, where I can I help you to?”
“What do you mean?”
“I encourage younotto return to whomever banged your head up.”
“Never.”The word like a blade through skin.“I cannot.”
“Then where to?”
“I… I have nowhere to go.”No family other than her cousin and aunt.No friends because she’d spent the last decade of her life caring for her uncle.
Lady Guinevere could smile brighter than she had before.“You will stay here then.”
“I will?”
