She had done it.
She had escaped.
And suddenly, the realisation that, against all the odds, she had reached her chosen hiding place came over her in such a great rush that she began to shake all over. The room shimmered around her, the heat, which had seemed so welcome only seconds before, now stifling her.
Tugging at the ribbons of her bonnet, she tottered to the staircase, sat down heavily on the bottom tread and bowed her head down over her damp knees.
She was not going to faint! There was absolutely no need to.
Not now she was safe.
Chapter Two
Somebody, no, two somebodies took her by one elbow each, and hustled her across the hall and into a small parlour. They removed her wet cloak, her undone bonnet sliding from the back of her head in the process. And then they lowered her gently on to an armchair in front of a crackling fire. Again, she leaned forwards, burying her face in her hands to counteract the horrible feeling that she was about to faint.
‘Get some hot tea in here!’ she heard Mr Jago bark, swiftly followed by the sound of feet running to do his bidding. ‘And some cake!’ She heard another set of feet pounding from the room.
Eventually, the lurching, swimmy sensations settled sufficiently for Aimée to feel able to raise her head. Mr. Jago and the wall-eyed man who had held the umbrella over her were watching her with some anxiety.
‘I will be fine now,’ she murmured, attempting a smile through lips that still felt strangely numb.
‘Yes, you heard her,’ Mr Jago said, starting as though coming to himself. ‘And the sight of your ugly mug is not going to help her get better. Be about your business!’
‘Looks like a puff of wind would blow her away,’ she heard the man mutter as he left the room.
‘Aye, far too scrawny …’ she heard another man, who had apparently been lurking just outside the door, agreeing.
And then there was just Mr Jago, assessing her slender frame with those keen blue eyes.
As if she was not nervous enough, that comment, coupled with Mr Jago’s assessing look, sent a new fear clutching at her belly.
‘I am far stronger than I look,’ she declared. ‘Truly, you need have no fear that I am not fit for work!’
Indeed, she did not know what had come over her. She could only assume that the strain she had been under recently had taken a deeper toll on her health than she had realised.
She knew she had lost quite a bit of weight. To begin with, she had felt too sickened by what her father had done to feel like eating anything. And then flitting from one cheap lodging house to another, whilst racking her brains for a permanent solution to her dire predicament, had done nothing to counteract her total loss of appetite.
And the people she’d been obliged to approach, in the end—people nobody in their right mind would trust! She had not been sure they had not double-crossed her until she’d boarded the stage, and it was actually leaving London.
‘I am just tired,’ she pleaded with Mr Jago. ‘It was such a long journey …’ And it had begun not the day before, in the coaching yard of the Bull and Mouth, but on the night she’d had to flee from the lodgings she shared with her father. When she had to finally accept she needed to thrust aside any last remnants of obligation she felt towards the man who had sired her.
For he clearly felt none towards her!
To her relief, Mr Jago’s expression softened.
‘You must rest, then, until you have recovered,’ he said. ‘Do not worry about your position. It is yours. Quite secure.’
The door opened, and the burly man who had taken her trunk upstairs came in with a large tray, which he slapped down on a little side table at Aimée’s elbow, making the cups rattle in their saucers. Mr Jago shot him a dark look, which the man ignored with an insouciance that immediately raised him in her estimation.
Once she had drunk two cups of hot sweet tea and consumed a large slice of rich fruitcake, Mr Jago led her up the stairs to a charming little bedroom on the first floor. On the hearthrug, before yet another blazing fire, stood a bath, already filled with steaming, rose-scented water.
‘You will feel much better for getting out of those wet clothes and having a warm bath,’ said Mr Jago, and then, going a little pink in the cheeks, added, ‘I hope you will be able to manage unassisted.’
‘Naturally,’ she replied, determined to erase the impression of a helpless, weak and foolish woman she was worried might be forming in his mind, after the way she had behaved today. ‘A governess has no need for a maid.’
He cleared his throat, going a tinge deeper pink, then said briskly, ‘Have a lie down, after your bath. There is nothing for you to do until this evening, when the Captain requests the pleasure of your company at dinner.’
Mr Jago had phrased it like an invitation, but, of course, it was an order. Her new employer would want to look her over. And find out what kind of creature his man of business had hired to take care of his children.
‘Thank you. I shall be ready,’ she assured him.
She wasted no time, after he had left, in slithering out of her wet clothes and slipping into the warm bath with a sigh of contentment. She could not recall the last time somebody else had drawn a bath for her! Several large, soft towels had been draped over an airer before the fire to warm. Having dried herself, she wrapped one round herself, toga style, and set about getting herself organised. The first thing she did was to drape her chemise, petticoat and stays over the frame that had been used to warm the towels. Then she went to her trunk, which somebody—the burly man, she assumed—had placed at the foot of the divan bed, which was up against the far wall. She unpacked the silver-backed hairbrush first, an item she had purchased for the express purpose of placing in a prominent position on her dressing table. She did not know much about being in service, but she did know that a governess had to establish that she was no ordinary servant from the outset, by employing such little ruses as this.
Then she took out the gown she had bought in case she ever had to dine with the family. It looked almost new. And not too badly creased, either. She had pressed it again before packing it. She had got a laundress to carefully run a hot iron over the seams the very day she had purchased it, as she was in the habit of doing with every item of second-hand clothing she ever bought, to make sure that no lice the previous owner might have carried could survive to plague her. It was not a very flattering style, and the dove-grey silk did not suit her colouring, but apart from the fact that it was the only thing she had been able to find that struck the right balance between decorum and style, it added to the impression she wished to give, of being in mourning.
She grimaced as she hung it from two pegs on the back of the door. The day she had bought it was the day she had decided her father was dead to her. She had fulfilled her filial duty by making sure he was free of debt before she left town. And paid for one more month’s rent on his lodgings. But that was it. She would have nothing more to do with him.
Her stays and petticoat were still slightly damp when she put them back on later, upon rising from her nap, but she could not leave them lying about her room! The coins she had sewn into the hem of her petticoat bumped reassuringly against her calves, reminding her that the safest place for the amount of money she was carrying was on her person. And that it was where it must remain, no matter what.
Having dressed, and brushed, braided and pinned up her hair in the style she had decided made her look the most severely governess-like, Aimée lifted her chin, straightened her back and left her room.
The burly servant was lounging against the wall opposite, his brawny arms folded across his massive chest.