“I had a feeling it wouldn’t help persuade you,” Diana said with innocence.
Francis let out a growl of frustration and hung his head forward as he rested his elbows on his knees. Lady Ridlington’s connections only made what the punishment could be if their deception was discovered all the worse. He felt Josiah clap his shoulder in comfort.
“Please tell me you are not regretting your decision, Francis,” Diana said pleadingly, prompting Francis to look up at her again.
“No,” he said, certain of it. Seeing that bruise around Lady Ridlington’s neck and the long-sleeved dress had made up his mind. He would leave no woman to the hands of a beater, least of all one who would march their own wife across an assembly room with their hand clamped firmly around their wife’s arm.
Francis’s jaw had dropped to watch it. He knew most people at the assembly wouldn’t have noticed it, Lord Ridlington had made a point of trying to disguise his action, and other guests were far more concerned with their own merriment. Yet the moment Francis had seen Lady Ridlington marched across the room by her husband, he had looked for the grasp, and he found it. Lord Ridlington was holding so tightly onto his wife that he had crumpled her sleeve and made her wince.
“I wouldn’t leave her to a man like that,” Francis could hear the determination in his voice make it even deeper and darker than before.
“For someone who is usually so humorous and takes life with a pinch of salt, you can sound scary at times, Francis,” Diana pointed out with a giggle.
“Well, that happens when we’re talking about a man hurting his wife. As soon as we’re far away from here, I will be humorous again, once I can be certain Lord Ridlington will never know that I am the one who is hiding his wife,” Francis said, sitting back in the carriage seat again.
“We’ll work hard to ensure that doesn’t happen,” Josiah said with a smile upon his features.
“You’re plotting something,” Francis said with a smile pointing at his friend.
“I was thinking, to make our plan convincing, Diana and I should offer our help to find Lady Ridlington after she goes missing. By offering him our help, he will have no idea that we conspired against him,” Josiah said with a smile.
“Clever man,” Francis said with a slow nod.
“Thank you. I’ll play my part. Ready to do yours, Francis?” Josiah asked.
“As much as I can ever be,” he sighed, looking out of the window. He could peer through the graveyard and out to the road on the other side, but in the moonlight, he could see no one. Lady Ridlington and her maid were not there yet.
* * *
“Wait here, my Lady, for just a minute,” Louisa begged.
Phoebe did as she asked just as Louisa hurried off down the servants’ staircase. Phoebe waited at the very top of the thin spindly staircase in the house with her portmanteau under her arm as she stared down the steps. Elsewhere in the house, she could hear a few servants’ moving around, preparing for their master’s return where he would take up his usual place drinking port in his study. Phoebe knew they had to be gone soon, before Graham could return and find her making an escape.
A minute or so later, Louisa’s face appeared at the bottom of the staircase, urging Phoebe to follow. She lifted the small portmanteau carefully and hurried down, being careful not to make a sound on the steps. When she reached the bottom, Louisa’s smile told her that their plan was working.
“This way,” Louisa urged her to follow. They pushed through a wooden door, into a room banked with worktops on one side and herbs that were hanging from the ceiling and drying on the other. In the center of the room was the cook, currently fanning her face with the bottom panel of her apron.
“If I am discovered for this…” the cook trailed off, shaking her head.
“No one need ever know,” Phoebe said quickly, “but I am eternally grateful for the kindness.” The cook smiled briefly at her.
“I’ll take comfort in you being away from here, my Lady. No one in this world deserves pain like my master has delivered on you. Least of all someone as kind as you.” The cook’s words touched her greatly. Phoebe dropped a quick kiss to the cook’s cheeks, urging another smile to fall from her, before Phoebe followed Louisa toward the door. “Do you know your way?” the cook asked, following them to the door.
“Through the alley and the back of the graveyard,” Louisa said as she hitched her own bag further up her shoulder, to which the cook confirmed with a firm nod.
“God speed!”
Phoebe and Louisa exchanged a smile before they hurried outside. It was a warm night as it was the height of summer, meaning there wasn’t a breadth of breeze or a chill in the air. As the door closed behind them, Phoebe looked back to the rear of the house just once.
“Goodbye, house,” she murmured.
“Not goodbye home, my Lady?” Louisa asked.
“No, it never felt like home,” Phoebe said, holding the portmanteau higher. “Let us be gone.”
Together, she and Louisa hurried through the alleyway that backed onto the graveyard, as they had discussed. Part way through the graveyard, she saw a carriage waiting at the far end of the street, under the steeple church tower.
“They’re here,” Phoebe said excitedly, rushing toward it. She didn’t even have time to knock before the door of the carriage opened and she was greeted with the face of the Duke of Hayward staring back at her.
