Pen took the hemp bag. It was heavy.
“And tell her to write no more letters to this address.”
“I will. Thank you,” Pen whispered.
The woman nodded and turned to close the door.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Pen said hastily. “Can you recommend some affordable lodgings in the area?”
“Why, yes. I believe the Dancing Willow rents some rooms.” She pointed down the street.
Pen picked up her leather bag, tucked the hemp satchel under her arm, and left.
She stood, defeated, in the middle of Bird Street with hundreds of letters she’d written over the years. None of which Marcus had ever read. She wished she could cry, but her eyes were as dry as the Great Indian Desert in Rajasthan. Whatever scratched her throat was merely dust from the streets.
Pen hadn’t cried since that fateful night in India when her parents died. She hadn’t cried since the day her entire life had been buried under rubble and stone. She hadn’t cried when life had stripped her of everything she’d ever known and held dear.
She’d only survived the earthquake because Marcus had hauled her out of the rubble. She’d clung to him, choking on soot and smoke and ash, but the tears hadn’t come. She’d stood dry-eyed by her parents’ grave, clinging to Marcus’ hand. And she certainly hadn’t cried when Marcus dropped her off at her school in this foreign and damp country, even though she’d howled inside.
If she could, she’d cry and scream and holler now, in the middle of this London street. She’d throw a tantrum that would make a toddler proud; never mind that she was nearly twenty-one years old, and ladies weren’t supposed to throw tantrums. But then, for now, she was no lady, but a man.
Pen found the Dancing Willow, a mediocre inn. The pale green colour peeled off the shutters, but the floor inside was swept and the tables were polished. Pen supposed it would do.
The landlady rattled off a list of rules, then handed her a key. The room was an attic room—tiny, seedy, and dark—but it was hers. It had a bed, a nightstand with a pitcher, a small fireplace, and a closet. She would not stay here long. Two, three nights, maximum.
Once she’d found Marcus, he’d surely take her away to better lodgings.
After she deposited her luggage, she ventured forth into the street again.
This neighbourhood was not unfamiliar to her.
How often had she walked here with Marcus? After they’d returned from India, she’d stayed in London for several weeks. Pen wouldn’t have minded continuing her life like this. But Marcus had grown quieter and more preoccupied as the days passed.
“You have to go to school, Princess,” he’d told her one day. “I can’t abide governesses. But there is a seminary for young ladies in Bath that seems to have a reasonably good reputation.”
She’d protested violently.
He’d insisted.
She’d sulked.
He’d been adamant.
Then he said something that took any kind of argument out of her mouth. “If you care for me, you will go to that school.”
“This is blackmail,” she’d said darkly.
But she’d gone. To please Marcus. She believed she’d be done with school in a few years and could then return to him. She’d believed he’d visit her once, maybe twice.
But he never did.
Not even once.
He deposited her in Bath and disappeared out of her life. He never wrote. He never came on visiting day. He never invited her to London for the holidays. How she’d spent hours after hours sitting by the window in the library, her nose pressed against the glass, waiting for his carriage to arrive. It had been her most secret fantasy that he would show up one day and take her away.
It had never happened.
She was nearly twenty-one now, and not knowing what else to do with her, Miss Hilversham had taken her on as a student teacher. She was an indifferent teacher. Teaching was not her vocation. She would inherit her father’s legacy when she was twenty-five. What should she do until then? Or, for that matter, afterwards? Her life was a gawking blank.
