“This is where I live, Your Grace.”
She didn’t need to remind him. He had already reached up to knock on the roof, a signal for the driver to stop, and it was a good thing because she was shocked to spy her bandboxes out in front of the building where she lived.
And the papers? They were her precious plays, scattered by the wind and the rain, the ink on them all but vanished.
“Wait and I’ll help you out—” he started, but Sarah had already turned the handle and was climbing out almost before the coach stopped, leaving Widow on the seat.
Her bandboxes were open and what was left of her clothes was a sodden mess. They’d been rifled through and the very best items taken. The Siren costume had been trampled into the muddy street.
But what brought her to tears were her plays. What had not blown away still lay next to what was left of her possessions. Sarah fell to her knees in horror at the damage. She gathered the pages to her chest. Her work. All her work was ruined.
Hot tears mixed with the rain down her cheeks.
She sensed him before she heard him speak. He stood beside her. “Mrs. Pettijohn, Sarah, please, come back to the coach,” the duke said gently.
“The landlord has tossed me out,” Sarah said, stating the obvious as if she could not believe it. “I was late by only a month. I’ve been later in other places . . .” Places where she’d been put out, such as her precious home on Mulberry Street.
And then her confusion turned to anger. She was overcome with rage.
“That building is a complete hovel. Even the rats have rats,” she shot out as if she could wound the building with words. Or as if the landlord cared what she thought.
He didn’t. He was a miserly character who lived in the country and sent some gruesome figure named Parsons around to collect the rents.
Sarah struggled to her feet. The duke’s hand came to her elbow to help steady her. “If I had money, do you know what I’d do?” she informed him. “I’d buy this place, burn it down and build a new one without rats and where there aren’t holes in the walls or mildew forming dark stains in the corners. And I wouldn’t let anyone rent from me who drank gin.”
But she couldn’t buy it. She couldn’t even pay the paltry rent.
Nor did anyone care what she thought. No one had ever cared. “Why is life so bloody hard?”
In answer, the skies seemed to open up above them, pouring down upon her, muffling her cry.
Rain sluiced off of the duke’s hat. “Come.”
One word.
Her life was spread out on the street around her, and he was asking her to leave.
Then again, the path of her life had always been carrying her to this moment. Her mother had told her more than once that there was only one calling for women like them. She’d laughed at Sarah’s belief that she could be something more than what her mother was.
And now Sarah conceded defeat. She didn’t have the heart to fight any longer. The hopes, the dreams, the hours she’d spent believing in herself . . . she’d never had a chance.
Sarah let go of the wet papers. They fell to her feet. She let the duke guide her to the coach’s open door. The Widow in its leather folder still sat on the seat where she’d left it. Sarah reached for it, ready to toss it out and let it join her other plays. Her other follies.
Baynton took it from her, held it away from her. “Let us go.”
With a prod, he encouraged her into the coach. She was vaguely aware that she was a muddied mess and Mr. Talbert stared at her as if she was mad, and perhaps she was. Yes, this is what madness would feel like. She ignored him. He didn’t matter in her life. Nothing mattered.
Baynton closed the door and came around to the other side of the coach. Sarah tried not to pay attention. Instead, she huddled down in her wet clothes, closed her eyes and wished she could vanish from this life. Then all her problems would be solved.
The coach started moving. She didn’t ask where. She didn’t care. She was busy trying to disappear. Mr. Talbert sat across from her, his attention on the folders on his lap as if he, too, wished she would be gone. She ignored Baynton.
When the coach stopped, she didn’t move. The duke and Mr. Talbert climbed out and she assumed they were at Westminster for the “vote.”
She sat alone. She thought about opening the coach door and just leaving, but that called for more energy than she currently possessed and so she stayed where she was.
The door opened on her side. Baynton offered his hand. Sarah took it. Since she had no will of her own, why not use his?
He led her forward and she was fine, until she recognized the façade of the Clarendon Hotel. It was an elegant establishment, one that catered to the wealthy.
