“But, Mary, you will not leave me? I’m sure it isn’t far from here.” Birdie’s voice raised in pitch. She hated that there was a note of pleading in her voice.
Mary pressed her lips into a disapproving line. “What you are doing is reckless and foolhardy. If your mother ever finds out, she’ll not be pleased.”
Good gracious, her mother! Birdie pinched the skin at her throat in nervousness.
Mary gathered her belongings as the coach pulled to a halt. “The agreement was to accompany you to Newcastle, only,” she said firmly. “I came all the way to Inverness against my good judgement. This is as far as I’m going.”
Her tone indicated that no amount of bribery would change her mind. Not that Birdie had a huge amount to offer. Mary joined Birdie for some refreshment in the taproom, where she waited for the stagecoach back to London.
Because Birdie couldn’t shake the feeling that she may never return to England, she wrote a last letter to her best friends Lucy, Arabella, and Pen. She handed the missive to the landlord with some coins.
“A carriage for a Miss Burns is waiting,” the man grumbled as he took the letter.
Miss Burns! That was her. Birdie stepped outside and eyed the carriage with steaming black stallions.
Birdie swallowed. “That’s it, then, Mary. Goodbye.”
Mary nodded and handed Birdie’s luggage to the hostler. “Goodbye, miss.” She hesitated, and her face softened a fraction. “Godspeed.”
Birdie felt a lump in her throat, and for a brief moment, she felt the urge to cling to Mary’s skirts. Mary, however, showed no reluctance to leave, turned and marched back to the inn.
“Are ye comin’ or no?” asked the coachman, a terrifying specimen with bushy whiskers, a black greatcoat, and a hat that shadowed his face. He held the carriage door open.
Birdie climbed up and sank into velvet cushions. The carriage set in motion and pulled out swiftly from the courtyard.
This is it, Birdie thought.
No way back.
She must have sleptfor a while. When she awoke, she saw a desolate landscape of barren heather spread out in front of her. As the carriage rattled down the road, a queasy feeling overcame her.
Burns. She was now Miss Burns. Birdie picked at her dried, flaky lips. Was it actually ethical, what she was doing? She was deceiving Cecily’s fiancé.
What on earth are you doing, Roberta Charlotte Talbot? Are you completely out of your mind?
Apparently so. She hadn’t thought twice when she’d jumped on Cecily Burns’ offer to swap. Cecily would have arrived at the Willowburys by now, as herself.
Birdie checked her conscience. All she felt was relief that she did not have to travel to Newcastle.
She was a completely unethical person, with no conscience.
But Birdie decided she could live with that fact, if it meant that she didn’t have to resign herself to her fate and lower herself to the position of governess.
“Good riddance,” Birdie mumbled. She meant her job. Maybe also her conscience.
She looked out of the carriage window, where the landscape had grown increasingly desolate. Where was this place?
Raindrops pattered on the window.
Perhaps she was foolhardy, reckless and ridiculous. Mary was right; what she was doing went against every fibre of Birdie’s practical nature. She’d always been the practical, reasonable one in her group of impetuous friends.
Birdie had spent some of her most wonderful years with her friends at Miss Hilversham’s Seminary for Young Ladies. They’d grown up together; they’d shared joys, trials, tears, and laughter. Then, Lucy had married a duke, Arabella’s brother. Who would’ve thought that this would ever happen? And then Arabella had gone and married a duke as well.
In their last year, Arabella had thrown four coins into a wishing well; she wished that all four of them would marry dukes. It was, of course, a coincidence. But odd, anyhow, that a duke so conveniently came along for both their friends. Pen, poor Pen, was still at Miss Hilversham’s as a student teacher. Her guardian had all but forgotten about her. And she had no other family to turn to.
She, Birdie, had a family. But by Jove, she wished she didn’t. Her family was the reason she could never have a season. Her father, Baron Tottingham, had gambled their entire fortune away. That included not only her and her sisters’ dowries, but the entire estate, and their house. Then he shot himself. The family moved into the dower house, the only property that still belonged to them. Her brother Freddie was now Baron Tottingham and blithely trotted in his father’s footsteps. The only way to regain their fortune, he said, was to gamble even harder.
Her entire prospects, and her season, were cancelled. Instead, she had to work. She made a paltry income, which she’d sent to her family, who spent it all as soon as they received it. Then they turned to Birdie to solve their remaining problems.
