Where she was going was a secret of the utmost gravity that she hadn’t even shared with Sophie, her most suspicious sister. Not only was Sophie unable to keep any kind of secret, let alone under pressure, she would also feel duty-bound to read her one of her sisterly lectures which were beginning to sound, uncannily, like dear Mama’s. And the truth was, Phoebe’s destination wasn’t in the least bit de rigueur for a young lady of her social standing, at all.
A rueful smile crept across her face, one that mirrored the gleam in her moorland eyes. Of all her schemes over the past eighteen years, this one had to be the most daring, and she could only imagine Thomas’s rage if he could see her now: clad in their brother’s hand-me-downs, unaccompanied, and about to board the common stage. If it were divulged in polite company, it could ruin her and yet Phoebe knew her brother far too well for that. The moment Sophie reported her absence, Thomas would concoct some plausible tale of an indisposed distant cousin, while using every means possible to find her – and all to protect his Monstrous Marriage Masterplan.
Let him search. She’d been dreaming of this adventure her whole life long, and even if it was only for three precious months, it would be enough to sustain her for a lifetime.
It had to.
ChapterTwo
Three months and a quart of devil’s brew until the wedding
‘Thank you.’ Phoebe nodded, as a rosy-faced farmwife and her dimpling daughter shuffled down the worn stagecoach seat.
‘You’re welcome.’ The farmwife beamed. ‘It’s not as if you’ll take up much room, I’ve had roast dinners bigger than you!’
Then she turned to her daughter, chortling in a way that made her entire upper body shake like jelly, as Phoebe slid into a seat nearest the window. She’d paid an extra shilling for a view, but as she turned her face towards the frosted hills she was leaving behind, she was conscious only of another pang of doubt. Knightswood Manor had been her home for eighteen years and, aside from a family trip to Weymouth when Josephine was recuperating from a particularly bad contagion of the lungs, she’d barely left Devon at all. Now she was headed to London, for three whole months, all by herself.
It’s this or marry the earl, without so much as a whiff of adventure your whole life long, she chastised herself, as she stretched out and adopted Fred’s slightly unconscious expression.
‘Excuse me, might I have a little leg room, please?’
Phoebe started as a severe-looking gentleman in the seat opposite glared at her through a tiny, round eyeglass. Flushing, she muttered a low apology. There was, after all, a stark difference between sprawling like a man, and being a totalfoozleras Fred might say.
Fortunately, the coachman chose the same moment to slam the doors with an incoherent shout, and as the coach lurched into a grinding roll, Phoebe drew a deep breath. They were packed in like Cook’s favourite sardines, and it was a far noisier affair than she’d ever anticipated, but nothing could override her silent exaltation. She’d done it, she’d escaped! And now she had three long months in which to pursue every heroic adventure she’d ever dreamed of beyond the border of Knightswood Manor.
‘Fancy an onion dearie? I find it really helps with the knocks and bumps,’ the rosy-faced farmwife wheezed, proffering one of the small, inauspicious roots as though it were a tasty apple.
Phoebe declined politely, noting both the woman and the dimpling daughter appeared to be chomping their way though their market wares with relish. She squeezed her fingers, a sudden memory of the purple-faced earl making her stomach churn; it was not an omen, and she was not going to overthinkit.
The severe-looking gentleman cleared his throat.
‘I beg to differ,’ he offered, with a deprecatory wobble of his eyeglass. ‘I always maintain boiled kidneys are the very best antidote to having one’s bones rattled to within an inch of one’s own grave.’
Several murmurs of agreement reached over the crunch of the wheels, while the farmwife looked the severe-looking gentleman up and down with an expression of avid dislike.
‘Well, I don’t s’pose you’ve a basket ofthoseabout your person now, ’ave you?’ she challenged. ‘And my dear old Uncle Billy, God bless his soul, who used to travel from Tav’stock to Ex’ter regular, swore by his onions for healthandluck against highwaymen! So I reckon I’ll just stick wivthemfor now.’
Upon hearing this persuasive account, the entire coach seemed to undergo a change of mind, with one passenger even going so far as to hold out his hand as though in a pledge of undying loyalty to dear old Uncle Billy. The farmwife beamed her delight as she rewarded his support with an extra-large root, before sitting back in smug satisfaction.
The matter settled, Phoebe turned her attention back to the shadowy peaks of Dartmoor, just visible though the smeared window. It was almost three hours until they stopped to change horses, and she was starting to feel the effect of having risen before dawn. Exhaling slowly, she rested her head backagainst the worn leather seat and let her thoughts drift toLondon.
There was no way her meagre savings would last three months, which had narrowed her few choices into two even slimmer options: masquerading as a governess for some respectable, yet highly reclusive, family – or joining a theatre company. And since the former was much more likely to result in exposure, she was convinced a short theatrical career was just the thing, with the added bonus of bringing her closer to every fictional heroine she’d ever loved.
Her eyes misted as the many stories she and her sisters had performed to entertain Josephine flitted through her mind. They always made her laugh – and cough – before Mama banned them, but they’d sneak back, anyway, and begin all over again. Back then, she believed she coulddoanything andbeanyone. She still did – it was only the world who disagreed on account of one tiny fact of birth that decided everything in her life.
Of course, she had no real desire tobeone of her brothers, she just wanted the same freedom. She wanted to travel, climb trees, swim wherever she liked, and wear trousers withmiracle pocketswhenever she chose – which explained her current choice of country attire. She knew the world would take a lot less notice of a young, bourgeois gentleman of no particular fame or fortune, than a young gentlewoman. Thomas was much less likely to discover her this way, and she could cover her tracks by signing Fred’s name with a very credible flourish, which was actually much more pleasing to the eye than his own hasty scrawl, when needed. And while she knew it wouldn’t be as simple as walking into the Covent Garden Theatre and demanding an audition for Kemble’s new King John, it was still preferable to presenting as a hopeful actress, which would likely bring all sorts of undesirable problems of its own.
Phoebe exhaled as the relentless jolts and bumps began to soothe her heavy eyelids closed, recalling her plan for a character reference, should one be required. Their highly unfortunate and much misunderstood pianoforte tutor, Monsieur Dupres, now resided in London and would undoubtedly furnish her with something suitable if she reminded him of the debt he owed. She was, after all, the one who’d persuaded Thomas to let him go without a hint of scandal, and with full recommendation to future employers. And, if he was at all reluctant she could simply share that she still had his elopement proposal in her possession – as well as the postal address of theSociety Matters Circular.
She allowed herself a small, wry smile.
As an actor, she could earn her own money and perhaps even tour a little, see a few sights she’d only ever heard or read stories about. Her head filled with the multitude of exotic-sounding places Fred had visited on his Grand Tour last year. He’d had such a splendid time visiting all the European cities with his Oxford friends that they’d taken on somewhat of a fictional gleam for her: Paris, Venice, Rome,fair Verona… Perhaps she’d be lucky enough to be cast in a dramatic stage duel to the death; she’d always been better than her brothers at fencing. Or a witty comedy, where she was a female disguised as a male, playing a male actor playing a female… She stared out at the receding silhouette of Dartmoor as her woolly brain tried to compute the layers of dress should such a role ever be offered, and before she knew it, they were cantering through the moorland woods with a carpet of bluebells underfoot, and a chorus of wood warblers for company…
‘Taunton! All passengers descend at The Swan. We depart again at one o’clock sharp!’
The coachman’s bark stirred Phoebe from a wistful dream about stretching out on the Fairfax-family chaise’s fully sprung seats, while her old governess recounted the many times the stagecoach made her bones rattle like an old ghost. She and her sisters used to dissolve into laughter when she said such things, but today Phoebe had new sympathy. Travel by the common stage was not turning out to be quite the experience she’d hoped.
Stiff and aching, she climbed down the worn step and onto a cobbled courtyard, where she was greeted by a hive of midday activity. Two young ostlers ran to hold the panting horses’ heads, while passengers continued to disembark from every corner of the coach. Phoebe couldn’t help but stare. She’d boarded so swiftly, she hadn’t realised there were just as many people travelling on top of the coach as there were inside, and they looked twice as relieved as she, if that was even possible.
