Poverty is the mother of crime.
—MARCUS AURELIUS
CASSANDRA FOUND her aunt later that day in the morning-room, diligently cutting up old linen sheets and hemming them for handkerchiefs.
“Why do you not tell Mama you will not do such menial work?” demanded Cassandra.
“Because I should be sent packing,” said Miss Tonks calmly, “and it suits me to stay. Tell me, Cassandra, how goes young Edward?”
“He appears to be leading an exciting life in the navy. Ah, that I were a man!”
“I suppose he took all his clothes with him.”
Cassandra looked at her aunt in surprise. “Not all. There are some of his old duds left in his room. His shooting clothes, hunting clothes, things like that. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Tonks. “I often ask stupid questions.”
Cassandra smiled at her and sat down next to her. “Give me a sheet. I may be a dreadful singer, but I am very good with a needle.”
They stitched away in amicable silence until Cassandra said, “Does it not strike you as odd that your parents left all to my mother and virtually nothing to you?”
Miss Tonks sighed. “I have thought and thought about that. How could I have offended them?”
“Could it not be that they left all to Honoria as the elder but naturally expected her to look after you better?”
“I suppose it was something like that. Are you looking forward to the ball?”
“Of course not. It’s all going to end up in the most frightful row.”
“At what time do you set out?”
“Why?”
“I like to know things like that. Silly things.”
“We are supposed to be there about nine, and so I suppose we will be there about nine-thirty so that we can make an entrance without being too vulgarly late. I shall actually be wearing a pretty dress, too, and not that pink fright.”
“And your mama will be wearing her diamond necklace?”
“Not only that, Aunt Letitia, but her diamond tiara.”
“Ouch!”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No,” said Miss Tonks in a trembling voice. “The needle slipped.” The tiara as well, she thought.
“Do you have many highwaymen or footpads around here?” asked Miss Tonks in what she hoped was a casual voice.
“No, it would be too hard for a villain to get away with anything. Everyone knows everyone else in the country.”
“But surely with those diamonds, the coach should be guarded on the road to the Herefords.”
“It is only a few miles to the Herefords and tomorrow is to be a full moon.” Cassandra grinned. “I know what it is. It’s Lady Penelope. You’ve got highwaymen on the brain.”
“Perhaps.” Miss Tonks stopped sewing and fixed a dreamy look on her face. “Did I ever tell you I was septic, Cassandra?”
“Heavens, have you the plague?”
Miss Tonks frowned. “Perhaps that is not the word. I know what is going to happen.”
“Psychic. Or, as they would say in Scotland, the second sight. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell travelled to the Hebrides to try to find proof of the second sight. Do you mean you can actually tell what is going to happen?”
“Not exactly.” Miss Tonks primmed her lips and held a square of sheet up to the light to examine her stitching. “More a feeling. I keep seeing a highwayman.” And that, thought Miss Tonks, might in a way buffer Cassandra from the shock of seeing her family held up.
Poor old thing. Got windmills in her cockloft, thought Cassandra inelegantly.
Later that day, when Cassandra had gone out on calls with her parents, Miss Tonks slipped quietly into young Edward’s room holding a laundry bag. Into it she put a coat and breeches, stockings and square-toed shoes. In a press, she found a large slouched hat. Now all she had to do was hope the clothes fitted somehow and find a mask. She then raided Cassandra’s room and discovered a black velvet mask and tucked that into the laundry bag as well.
She returned to her room. There was no key to the door, so she wed ged a chair under the handle and tried on the clothes. They fitted her slim, flat-chested figure excellently, but they did more than that. She felt like another person, bold and strong and wicked. It was such a pity she could not have a horse. Even if she could get one from the stables, Mr. Blessop would be sure to recognize it. She undressed and put the clothes away and hid the bag under her mattress and then put on a warm cloak and went out, ostensibly for a walk but really to find the best place to lie in ambush.
She reached the end of the drive and then walked along a country road. There were high hedges on either side, rimed with frost. The day was very still and cold, and ice in the puddles cracked under the iron rings of the pattens on her feet.
The servants had told her that the Herefords’ place lay west. Two miles from Chapping Manor, she found the exact spot. There was a bend in the road where the hedges on either side were extremely tall and thick, although devoid of leaves. She did a few practice stand-and-delivers until she felt as good an actress as Mrs. Siddons. Now back to the house to look for some sort of gun.
As in most country houses, there were guns all over the place, but Miss Tonks wanted something more portable than a fowling piece or blunderbuss. At last, in a drawer in the library, she found a box containing a pair of duelling pistols and took one. She had no intention of priming it. She could only hope that the sight of a masked man with a pistol would be enough.
Perhaps had it not been for Lady Penelope’s Revenge, combined with her sister’s more-than-usual crustiness and bad temper that evening, the spinster’s heart would have failed her, but somehow taking the diamonds became as much a way of getting even with Honoria as keeping the hotel in funds, and before she fell asleep, there was the fantasy world of the novel to bolster her courage.
The day of the ball started quietly enough and then the house became a hive of activity as Honoria began her massive preparations.
Miss Tonks was instructed to take her evening meal on a tray in her room and she accepted the slight gladly. She kept glancing nervously at the chipped marble clock on the mantelpiece. The noise of its ticking seemed to become louder and louder as the moment for her to take action approached.
For one terrible moment, terror seized her by the throat as she fumbled her way into Edward Junior’s clothes. But the minute they were on, she could feel that strange change of character coming over her again. She pulled the slouch hat down over her eyes, slipped the gun in one capacious pocket and the mask in another, opened the window, thankful for once that her room was on the ground floor, and slipped away through the glittering frost-covered shrubbery.
She made her way to the garden wall and climbed over, relishing the new freedom from corset and skirts. Even her walk had altered as she strode down the road. Miss Tonks was beginning to swagger.
She did, however, wish the moon were not so bright nor the frost so glittering. She felt as if she were walking across the centre of a stage.
But soon the road became dark as she reached the chosen stretch where tall hedges blotted out the moon. A fox slid across the road, making her jump. She climbed up the bank and stood in the shadow of the hedgerow and waited.
Cassandra, almost pretty in a gown of white muslin edged with a gold key pattern and with white silk flowers in her flaming hair, waited impatiently for her mother.
But Honoria Blessop was battling with a “divorce” corset, that latest of corsets which actually separated the breasts. She would not believe it was too small for her, would not believe that she had put on weight since it had been sent down from London two months ago, and so three maids pulled and pushed and sweated to try to get her folds of flesh into it.
Cassandra decided to go and show her Aunt Letitia her new gown. But when she pushed open the door of Miss Tonks’s room, there was no one there. Miss Tonks’s gown that she had been wearing that day was flung across the bed, as was her petticoat and corset. Deciding at last that her aunt had changed into something else, Cassandra searched the house and then asked the servants, but no one had seen Miss Tonks.
Miss Tonks was jolted out of her dreams by the sound of jingling harness in the distance and the thud of iron-shod hooves on the frosty road. She said a hurried little prayer and went and stood in the middle of the road, slipped on her mask and held the duelling pistol out in front of her with both hands.
She had chosen her place so that the carriage would turn the bend of the road and see her, but leaving enough of a straight stretch between her and the bend for the coachman to stop his horses.
The coach was very near now. The glitter of a carriage lamp bobbed round the corner like a searching eye.
Miss Tonks closed her eyes and held out the duelling pistol in a firmer grip and shouted, “Stand and deliver!”
“Whoa!” shouted a masculine voice. Horses plunged and then horses were still.
“Stand and deliver!” shouted Miss Tonks again.
“Do you know,” said a lazy voice, “I don’t think I will.”
Miss Tonks’s eyes flew open. She let out a gasp and then sat down in the road and burst into tears. For facing her in a racing curricle and holding a long pistol was Lord Eston.
Lord Eston climbed down and unhitched a lantern from the side of his curricle and approached the sobbing figure. He stooped and took the pistol out of his assailant’s nerveless hand and then untied the strings of the mask. The blotched and tearful face of Miss Letitia Tonks looked up at him.
“Playing games, Miss Tonks?” he asked.
All Miss Tonks had to say was that it had all been a silly joke, but she saw the scaffold at Newgate rearing up above her and heard the jeering of the bloodthirsty crowd. She gasped and hiccuped. “It was not you I meant to rob, my lord, but my sister.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted her diamonds. I need the money. Oh, it will all come out at my trial. I am part owner of the hotel the Poor Relation, only Honoria does not know that. We are in need of funds and I told the others I would go to my sister’s and steal something. Oh, oh, oh!”
He seized her by the elbow and pulled her up. He guided her to his curricle and told her to climb up. Then he jumped in beside her and picked up the reins and urged his team forward. He drove a little way until he saw a farm gate by the side of the road. He opened it and led his horses and carriage through and round until they were hidden from the road by the hedge and then returned and closed the gate again.
“Give me your hat,” he said.
Sniffling miserably, Miss Tonks pulled it off. He put on her mask and pulled her hat down over his eyes and buttoned his long greatcoat up to the neck. Miss Tonks gazed at him bleakly, too frightened now to cry. She thought he was going to execute her there in the field.
His next words startled her. “Now, sit here, Miss Tonks, and pull a carriage rug about you and I will show you how it should be done. Are you sure they will come this way?”
“They have to,” said Miss Tonks. “But …”
“Don’t make a fuss.” His eyes glinted with amusement in the moonlight.
He vaulted over the farm gate and strode down to where he had come across Miss Tonks. He felt amusement bubbling up inside him. Honoria Blessop was such a monumental horror, she deserved to lose her diamonds.
He heard the coach approaching and moved closer to the shadow of the hedge. He did not want to emulate Miss Tonks’s mistake by holding up the wrong coach.
“And you will behave prettily to Lord Eston,” Honoria Blessop was saying to her daughter. “He is a great catch and we mean to secure him before he reaches those harpies in London. Remember, you cost us a great deal of money with that Season. It is your duty to repay us.”
“Mama,” said Cassandra, “why is it that you are so rich and Aunt Letitia is so poor?”
“Because that’s the way God ordained it,” said Honoria. “Everything that happens is the hand of God.”
The coach lurched to a stop. “Stand and deliver!” shouted a gruff voice.
“My diamonds, oh, my daughter, oh, my diamonds,” shouted Honoria like some sort of female Shylock. “Get down from the box,” they heard that same terrible voice ordering the coachman, “and you too,” to the groom at the back.
It flashed through Cassandra’s frightened mind that Aunt Letitia must really have the second sight. Then the carriage door was opened and a tall figure ordered them all out.
“Those diamonds,” barked the highwayman. “Put them on the ground.”
“No,” shrieked Honoria.
He raised the pistol and balanced it across his arm and took aim.
“Take them off, you silly woman,” shouted Edward Blessop.”
Cassandra faced the highwayman. “Will you go away and leave us unharmed if we give you the jewels?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
She unfastened the necklace from around her mother’s neck and flung it on the ground and then lifted off the tiara and dropped it beside the necklace. Honoria was making gasping and moaning noises.
“Into the coach,” ordered the highwayman. “You”—he pointed the pistol at Cassandra—“stay where you are.”
Any doubts he had had about thieving the jewels from Mrs. Blessop disappeared when he noticed how she dived into the shelter of the coach, followed by her husband, neither of them making a stand to protect their daughter.
Cassandra drew off the pearl ring she was wearing and threw it at him. “This is all I have,” she said contemptuously.
He thrust the pistol in his pocket and seized her in his arms. “You have other treasures,” he murmured, and his mouth came down on her own. Shock kept her still in his arms. And then he released her and, scooping up the jewels, moved quickly up the road until he was lost to view. Cassandra stared after him in a dazed way. Then she picked up her pearl ring, which he had left lying on the ground. Through all her confusion and fright came the one clear thought: Mama will not expect us to go to the ball now.
But her mother had recovered now that she was safe and was in a blazing temper. Cassandra noticed that she did not pause in her tirade to ask if her daughter was unharmed. “We are going to the Herefords,” she shouted. “Yes! For they can send out the militia.”
“My dear,” said her husband. “What is this? Poor Cassandra has been frightened out of her wits and we are in no fit state to—”
“We go,” said Honoria, now icily calm. “And Cassandra will see that she charms Lord Eston.”
Now was the time to warn her mother that she had every intention of giving Lord Eston a disgust of her, but Cassandra was still too numb and shocked to make any sound.
Miss Tonks looked in awe at the sparkling diamonds in her lap. “I do not know how to thank you, Lord Eston,” she whispered. “But I feel guilty. I have involved you in crime.”
“I involved myself,” he said. “Now I must go to the ball. You cannot walk down the road carrying those diamonds. Here! Wrap them in this rug.”
“You are a hero,” said Miss Tonks, gazing up at him. “I shall never tell anyone what you have done. No, not if they drag me and whip me at the cart’s tail.”
Lord Eston bit back a smile. He felt sure that the customary punishment for prostitutes would never fall on Miss Tonks’s thin shoulders.
“Tell me,” he asked curiously, “are you all such practised villains at that hotel that you will be able to sell these valuable gems and not be discovered?”
“Oh, we shall break them up into single gems or get them reset,” said Miss Tonks blithely. “But we are all very respectable, I assure you. It was being poor relations that drove us to such straits. You have no idea of the petty humiliations to which one is subject. So much more worthy to be in trade.”
“I agree. But stealing is hardly being in trade.”
Miss Tonks looked miserable and then brightened. “But we shall only be borrowing the value of the diamonds, you see. As soon as we are in profit, we shall send Honoria the money anonymously and she can buy more. As a matter of fact, she is so very rich, she could buy more tomor row. Oh, since you have done me such a very great service, I feel I should warn you.”
“Of what?”
“Poor Cassandra is being bullied into setting her cap at you. She has decided to put an end to matters by being very rude to you at the ball. Please do not think badly of her.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I shall not even blush. Off with you, Miss Tonks. You are a very wicked woman.”
He went to the gate and looked up and down the road before opening it for her. With the diamonds muffled in a large bearskin rug, and the duelling pistol she had borrowed safely back in her pocket, Miss Tonks whispered a farewell and marched off down the road.
She felt very elated and brave. Already she was rehearsing how she would tell the others of how she had turned highwayman, and of course as she had to protect Lord Eston’s good name, they would never know she had not committed the robbery herself.
Honoria Blessop created a sensation on arrival at the Herefords by standing at the entrance to the ballroom and shouting, “I have been robbed by a highwayman!”
Then she manufactured a swoon, collapsing into her husband’s arms, who tottered under her weight. Mr. Hereford sent servants off to alert the parish constable and to call out the militia. Only when Honoria heard Mr. Blessop being urged to take his family home did she pretend to rally, saying that her darling Cassandra must enjoy the ball. No highwayman should be allowed to spoil her daughter’s evening. Cassandra found it all very embarrassing and could only be glad that Lord Eston had not put in an appearance. But no sooner had all the inquiries as to details of the highwayman’s appearance been dealt with, no sooner was she seated beside her mother, than Lord Eston appeared.
Mr. Hereford spoke to him. He looked across at Honoria and her daughter and then crossed the ballroom floor towards them. “Smile!” hissed Honoria. “Here he comes.”
Cassandra scowled dreadfully.
“I am shocked to learn you have been robbed, Mrs. Blessop,” said Lord Eston. “You must have been dreadfully frightened. Should you not be at home?”
“Alas, my lord,” said Honoria, “my puss here was so determined to dance with you that nothing would prevent her from coming.”
“I trust the highwayman did not harm you in any way?” he asked Cassandra.
“He kissed me,” said Cassandra.
“He what?” shrieked her mother. “You did not tell me that!”
Cassandra looked at her with cold eyes. “And yet you and Papa went back into the carriage and left me with him and did not think to ask me if anything had occurred.”
“How dreadful for you,” said Lord Eston.
“As a matter of fact, it was quite pleasant.”
“Cassandra!” wailed Honoria, but there was worse to come.
“May I have this dance, Miss Blessop?” asked Lord Eston, his eyes dancing.
“No, you may not,” said Cassandra. “I do not want to dance with you, now or at any other time.”
“You have broken my heart,” he said solemnly and turned and walked away.
Honoria sat stricken. Her husband had gone into the card-room. She must go and get him and tell him to take them home, but she felt her legs would not move.
“Where’s that sister of yours?” demanded a dowager on her other side. “Heard she was staying with you.”
“Letitia is well, I thank you,” said Honoria, her great shock at Cassandra’s behaviour being replaced by white rage.
“Brave of you to give her house room,” said the dowager, “and tactful of you not to bring her here.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Honoria shrilly, giving the dowager her whole attention for the first time.
“Well, she’s sunk to trade, ain’t she?”
“Explain yourself.”
“Partner in that hotel in Bond Street, the Poor Relation, that’s what she is.”
Honoria’s face cleared. “You are mistaken. I called at the hotel myself and the Miss Tonks who is a partner there is a frightful old woman.” Honoria had in fact met Sir Philip in a cap and gown masquerading as Miss Tonks.
“No, no,” cackled the dowager. “Ask Hereford. He and Mrs. Hereford dined with the Rochesters there last year. Miss Tonks was acting as a sort of chambermaid, so Rochester said.”
Enough was enough. Outrage gave Honoria strength to move. “Come,” she said, taking Cassandra’s arm in a strong grip, rising and then marching her like a jailer to the door. “Mr. Hereford,” she said, “we are after all a trifle too shaken to stay. Please have our carriage brought round and my husband summoned from the card-room.”
She maintained a grim silence until they were all seated in the carriage and then she began to rant and rave. Cassandra herself was now horrified at the enormity of what she had done, but she sat with her lips folded in a firm line and said not a word. “And there is worse,” went on Honoria to her husband. “Letitia is in trade. She hoodwinked us. She is in fact working in that disgraceful hotel. No, no, that must have been someone masquerading as her we met. But I shall get my revenge. I am throwing her out this night and she can walk to the nearest inn for shelter.”
“It is very cold,” volunteered Edward timidly.
“I don’t care if she freezes to death. And as for you, miss, you will go away as well. Yes, I know what to do with you. There is a seminary in Bath run on very strict lines for wayward females. By the end of this week, I shall take you there.”
Cassandra felt weak tears rising in her eyes. She wished with all her heart that the highwayman would hold them up again and take her away.
Miss Tonks heard the carriage arriving and assumed that the shock of the robbery had made her sister forgo the ball. She setded down to finish Lady Penelope’s Revenge.
Her first thought when Honoria burst into the room was gratitude that the diamonds were safely hidden, as were the men’s clothes she had used for the masquerade, and that the duelling pistol was safely back in its box with its fellow.
“You,” said Honoria, pointing at her, “have sunk so low that I heard a report this night that you were working as a chambermaid.”
Miss Tonks gave a weak laugh. “What nonsense.”
“Are you or are you not a partner in that hotel in Bond Street?”
Miss Tonks took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said.
“How dare you stoop so low!”
“I was nigh starving,” said Miss Tonks.
“Fiddle. Get out of my house this moment, you slut. You can walk to the nearest inn.”
“Very well,” said Miss Tonks with a calmness she did not feel, for she was wondering how she could manage to walk the miles to the nearest inn on a freezing night carrying her trunk.
“It is your malign influence in this house that made my Cassandra behave so dreadfully tonight,” Honoria went on. “I was held up by a brute of a highwayman who stole my diamonds, and Cassandra had the temerity to tell Lord Eston—Lord Eston!—that the highwayman had kissed her and she liked it. Then she said she did not want to dance with him. She will go to a seminary in Bath and have the nonsense whipped out of her.”
“You,” said Miss Tonks in a trembling voice, “are a low, horrible, vulgar woman who kept me on such short commons that I had to sink to trade … no, not sink … to elevate myself to become partner in a successful venture. At least have the decency to get out and leave me in peace to pack!”
The slamming of the door answered her.
Miss Tonks rose and dressed. She felt cold and calm and brave. She had the diamonds and her friends would be proud of her. She dressed in a wool gown and warm cloak after packing the diamond tiara and necklace at the foot of her trunk. She looked ruefully at the bearskin carriage rug belonging to Lord Eston. She would need to throw it away out on the road, or better, hide it in some field. It was too bulky to go in her trunk. She could not leave it behind to cause inquiries as to where it had come from.
Perhaps Cassandra’s adventures would have ended in a seminary in Bath if Miss Tonks had not decided to stay her departure until she had finished Lady Penelope’s Revenge. She had just reached the last chapter of the last volume when her door opened and Cassandra slipped in. Her face was blotched with weeping.
“Sit down by the fire, my dear,” said Miss Tonks. “This is a sad business. Could you not tell your mama that you were so overset by the highwayman that you were rude to Lord Eston?”
Cassandra shook her head. “I have decided to come with you, Aunt, if you will have me.”
“Of course I will, and gladly. But I shall be accused of kidnapping or something.”
“Not if I leave a letter.”
“But it is so cold and such a long walk to the nearest inn, for Honoria is not letting me have a carriage.”
“As to that,” said Cassandra, “the coachman, Philip, will do anything I ask. I shall slip over to the stables and ask him to help us and then pack a few things. Shall I work in the hotel with you? I shall not need pretty ballgowns for that.”
“We now have servants in the hotel.” Miss Tonks thought quickly. In order to have more rooms for guests in the newly refurbished hotel, the poor relations had taken an apartment next door for their sleeping quarters. There was a spare little room next to her own. That would do very well for Cassandra.
“My dear,” she said earnestly, “much as I would love your company, please think carefully of what you are doing. You are ruining all chance of making a good marriage, possibly of any marriage at all.”
“Good,” said Cassandra fiercely. “Now I will go and rouse Philip.”
“I would have thought Honoria would have locked you in your room.”
Cassandra grinned like a schoolboy and held up a ring of keys. “I have been locked in so many times in disgrace that I had these keys copied.”
Soon she and Miss Tonks were jogging along in the second-best carriage under the burning stars.
“It was very bold of you,” said Miss Tonks, “to tell Lord Eston that you had liked the highwayman’s kiss. Do you not think, my dear, that Lord Eston might be able to kiss you like that?”
“Pooh! Men like Lord Eston are made by their tailor. But is it not marvellous that you really do have the gift of the second sight? You saw a highwayman and a highwayman appeared!”
Miss Tonks was almost tempted to tell her about the diamonds, to tell her that the highwayman and Lord Eston were one and the same. But just in case she was ever discovered guilty of the theft, then there must be nothing to implicate Cassandra.
Lord Eston called at Chapping Manor the following afternoon, ostensibly to pay his respects to Mr. and Mrs. Blessop but in fact to find out how Miss Tonks had fared and if she had the diamonds well hidden. Also, it would be amusing to tease Cassandra a little. She deserved it for being so rude.
After being kept waiting for a full quarter of an hour, the butler told him in a hollow voice that Mrs. Blessop would receive him in the drawing-room. Lord Eston began to feel guilty. The house was so dark and still and quiet, as if someone had died. He hoped he had not shocked Cassandra so much in his highwayman’s guise that she had gone into a decline. He had an aunt who went into a decline if she saw a mouse.
Mrs. Blessop was alone in the drawing-room. He felt disappointed.
“My compliments, ma’am,” he said, bowing low. “I trust you have recovered from your ordeal?”
“Thank you, but I fear my nerves are very delicate.”
“Is Mr. Blessop at home?”
“He has gone out hunting.”
“Miss Blessop is well?”
“Yes, my lord, although I fear her sensibilities were so shattered by that highwayman that she was rude to you.” Honoria had no intention of even hinting that her daughter had left with Miss Tonks.
“All is forgiven,” he said with a smile. “I should very much like to pay my respects to Miss Blessop.”
“Alas, she is lying down with the headache.”
This was said in a very grim voice so that Lord Eston began to wonder whether Mrs. Blessop was beginning to suspect he had been the highwayman. She did not offer him any refreshment, so after a few more courtesies he took his leave, feeling very disappointed.
He drove slowly along the road, remembering how Miss Tonks had tried to hold him up. What a dreary day it was, with a leaden sky threatening snow and a chill wind whistling through the hedges on either side with a thin keening note.
And then, as he approached the farm gate he had opened the night before, he heard a high voice singing drunkenly, “Tol rol, diddle dol.”
He stopped his carriage and jumped lightly down, tethering his horses to the gatepost. He vaulted over the gate and looked around.
Exactly where he and Miss Tonks had hidden the night before lay Edward Blessop on the frosty ground, a bottle in one hand and singing tunelessly.
“Good day, Mr. Blessop,” said Lord Eston. “No sport?”
“Lost ’em all,” said Edward, waving the bottle. “All gone. All the pretty birds flown.”
“You lost the hunt?”
“Lost, lost, lost. Letitia lost, Cassandra lost. All gone.”
Lord Eston crouched down beside him. “Where’s your mount?”
“All gone,” said Edward, looking at him stupidly. “Threw me in the six acre and trotted back to his stable. Gone, gone, gone.”
“I had better take you home, old man, or you will die with the cold. What will that pretty daughter of yours think if she sees you in this state?”
“All gone. Gone with Letitia. Gone in the night. Flown the coop,” said Edward as Lord Eston helped him to his feet.
“Do you mean your daughter has left with Miss Tonks?” demanded Lord Eston sharply. “No, throw the bottle away, there’s a good chap.”
“Shan’t,” said Edward. He took a swig out of it. “Whassat? Cassandra? Little Cassandra’s gone to that hotel. Ruined forever. Gone.”
“I have my carriage. Now through the gate we go,” said Lord Eston, propelling Edward. “Up you go. But you really should get rid of that bottle before your wife sees you.”
“Don’t care,” said Edward and then giggled and hiccuped.
He was fast asleep when Lord Eston reached Chapping Manor, so he told the anxious servants that their master had taken a toss on the hunting field and should be carried to bed without disturbing Mrs. Blessop.
Then he drove off in a high good humour. So little Cassandra had gone to the Poor Relation Hotel with her aunt!
How dark and cold the country was in winter. The lights of London beckoned—and a warm sweet pair of lips and a snub nose covered in freckles. He began to whistle as he went home to pack.