Chapter Twenty-Two
The inn we found ourselves at was modest but comfortable enough for what was left of the night.
While the innkeeper was far from pleased to be awoken at such a late hour to grant us a room, a generous tip turned his spirits, and he promised us a breakfast before we left.
I did not mention that I hoped we would be long gone before he was awake to cook it.
We were shown up the stairs by a disgruntled maid who lit a candle in the room and wordlessly headed for the door and, no doubt, her bed.
I stopped her just before she could leave and pressed a coin into her hand for her troubles.
The notion seemed to surprise her, but she nodded a shallow curtsey and wished me a good night.
I was going to need to start curbing the instinct to be generous.
As bad as I felt inconveniencing people, my pin money was not an unlimited fund.
My purse already felt a little lighter, and this was now all the money I had in the world.
Until we could find a way to earn more, we needed to rely on it for our shelter, our transport, and our sustenance.
For now, however, I would have paid every penny I had for a handful of hours in Kitty’s company.
Ducking to return the purse to my valise, I turned to find Kitty with her ear against the door.
When she was convinced that the maid who had shown us to the room was gone, she slid across the lock, testing the doorknob to ensure it held firm.
I knew it was a sensible idea. We were two young women staying alone in an unfamiliar place with any number of potentially unsavoury characters just rooms away.
Yet it still felt significant. Deliberate.
Satisfied with the security of the door, Kitty turned, resting back against the door with pious innocence on her face.
“If we’ve learnt anything, it’s that there is no friend to vice quite as firm as a locked door,” she said.
I felt my cheeks heat up with a violent blush, but I couldn’t argue with her words. More than enough people had interrupted me when I’d been seeking a moment alone with a pretty girl.
For someone who had been fighting sleep in the carriage, Kitty was now very awake.
I reached for her automatically, wanting her close after the distance that had been between us.
And she had no protests, crawling onto the bed next to me and wriggling close until her body was pressed against the side of mine.
I thought she was going to kiss my lips, but instead she dropped her kiss to the tip of my nose, then the space between my eyebrows, then my temple.
“Kitty!” I tried to stifle my laughter as she pressed further kisses across my cheeks and forehead.
“Yes?” she asked angelically.
There was so much I wanted to say to her, and I had no idea where to start, so instead I just reached for her and pulled her into an embrace, hiding my face against the curve of her neck.
It was the calmest I’d felt in weeks, and I knew I’d be able to fall asleep within moments the second I let myself go, but I could feel how restless Kitty still was.
I nudged her gently in the ribs to prompt her to share what was on her mind.
If she wanted to go back to her family, I’d understand.
“If one of us were a man, we could go to Gretna Green,” Kitty said with a heavy sigh.
It thrilled me to know she had desires to marry me, but shot me through the heart with a reminder that we would never get that chance.
“If one of us were a man, we would not be running in the first place,” I reminded her.
“True,” she allowed. “Although I am glad neither of us is a man. I think you might not love me if I were, and I love you most exactly as you are.”
“Oh, and what am I?” I teased.
She tickled my waist for my impertinence at seeking compliments, easily overpowering my half-hearted attempts to push her fingers away. When we had both had our fill of giggles and breathless protests, she collapsed beside me, studying me carefully in the candlelight.
“Quiet brilliance,” she said, sweeping an escaping curl behind my ear. “That’s what you are, George.”
I blushed, but did not argue. It seemed far more important to return the sentiment.
“And you are bold adventure,” I whispered, kissing her softly.
I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her in, feeling her relax as she settled her cheek against my shoulder and breathed against my neck.
It almost didn’t matter where we were going the next morning, as long as she was with me.
But if we wanted any kind of real freedom, we needed to be beyond the reach of our families. We needed a plan.
The moment we were in was perfect, but the future would sneak up on us whether we liked it or not, and it was wise to be prepared. Especially since it wasn’t going to be easy.
I knew how I wanted it to look. Kitty and me living together, unburdened and unbothered, the picture of the marriage we could never truly have.
I knew of only one couple who had achieved it, and for that they seemed almost mythical to me.
Only they weren’t. They were real and alive and, according to Charlotte, used to visitors.
“Kitty, those atlases you read—have you ever noted Llangollen?” I asked, sitting up straight so quickly she fell against the pillow with an indignant whine.
She pushed herself up to look at me, seemingly sceptical of my mental state.
“It’s in Wales,” she said, a little wary. “Why?”
I told her everything I knew about Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby. It was woefully little, but even what I could recall from that morning in Charlotte’s parlour lit a fire in Kitty’s eyes, one stoked by hope.
“Maybe that’s where we should go. Llangollen,” I finished. “We could ask them how they have managed it. Even if we go abroad it will still not be easy, so I think we might be in much need of their advice.”
Kitty grinned, taking my hands and squeezing tight.
“I have never been to Wales,” she said, “but I am very glad to be going with you.”
That settled it, then.
I fell asleep with the potential for a future worth living warm and secure in my heart. With Kitty tucked beside me, her breath against my neck and her fingers hooked around mine, I struggled to think of a single regret.
We left before the sun had even started to rise.
I was keen to put as much distance between us and Longbourn as possible, especially with a destination in mind.
Kitty’s knowledge of the country’s geography came in useful as we secured ourselves passage to Llangollen.
Thankfully it came at a price less than the coins I had in my purse, but only just.
I had plenty of questions for the Ladies of Llangollen, but near the top of the list was money—how did they afford their life together when no one was willing to pay a woman what they paid a man, or even let them do the same work?
It was the biggest barrier to having the future I wanted, and I was hoping they could share their secrets.
We boarded a Royal Mail coach with four other passengers, who mercifully seemed to have little interest in us.
An older woman and her male servant spoke neither a word to each other, nor to anyone else.
The other couple seemed to be a husband and wife, perhaps newly married.
They were cheerful and talkative, but were interested only in each other.
I watched the woman embroider a handkerchief, her face pinching when a rocky turn in the road caused her needle to slip and prick her skin.
Regardless of the less-than-ideal situation, she made quick work of a delicate, scrolling pattern as a monogram took shape beneath her fingers.
“I don’t know how to embroider,” I whispered to Kitty. “At least, not well.”
She turned to look at me, confusion heavy in her eyes, before the corner of her lip quirked up.
“It’s good to know you’re not perfect,” she said with a grin. “Why do you mention it?”
“No, I mean… I cannot neatly mend clothing or embroider linens.”
“You think I care about embroidered linens?” Kitty asked.
“I ran away with you in the middle of the night, without a linen or a handkerchief or even a needle in my bag. I care about you, George. And if we suddenly find ourselves in dire need of embroidery or mending, I think you will find me quite adept with the skill.”
It had not occurred to me that my deficiencies would be solved with Kitty’s talents, even though it should have done.
She matched me perfectly. I told her as much in a low whisper, careful that the words not be overheard by any of the other passengers, and I knew from the look in her eyes that she wanted to kiss me.
It was undeniably an expression mirrored in my own features, but it was too dangerous a risk.
Instead Kitty reached for my fingers and looped them with her own, hiding them within the tucks and folds of our skirts.
That was as good as we could get until we found ourselves another locked door.
The Royal Mail coaches took us as far as Llangollen, changing horses and speeding away as we were left staring up at hills carpeted with thick forests.
Buildings were few and far between, all in the shadow of the ruins of a once large building clinging to the tallest peak.
Dark and ominous, it stood in a bleak reminder of whatever had felled it.
I shifted closer to Kitty, unsettled by the feelings of stepping into one of my books.
None of them ever ended well for people like us, after all.
Llangollen’s coaching inn was nothing ornate, but seemed respectable enough.
A room there would no doubt be beyond the few coins I had left in the bottom of my purse, so it was all I could do to hope that the ladies Charlotte had spoken of would be kind enough to let us stay, at least for one night.
I quashed every fear I had of them slamming the door in our face and channelled the anxious energy bouncing around inside me into something useful.
The boy who had helped turn over the horses had walked them around behind the inn and, before I could stop myself, I hurried after him with Kitty in tow.
“Excuse me,” I called as soon as I saw him across the yard, brushing down one of the horses. “Do you know this town well?”
The ostler raised one eyebrow in surprise at the sight of two young women who had both forgotten to pack a hairbrush and were in desperate need of a good night’s sleep, but he didn’t stop what he was doing.
“You could say that, miss. Lived here my whole life.”
The rhythmic sweep of the currycomb across the horse’s back was an accompaniment to the lilt of his accent, a strong Welsh tone that I’d never heard so prominently before.
I should have expected it, but the notion of how far we’d truly travelled struck me silent long enough for the ostler to clear his throat.
“Can I help you with something?”
Silently pleading he wasn’t going to ask for money in exchange for information, I nodded.
“Do you know of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby?” I asked.
It didn’t take a verbal response to convey his answer.
Both his eyebrows raised this time as he looked between Kitty and me, sceptical and appraising.
I tried my best to give nothing away, glad I had not given in to the urge to hold Kitty’s hand.
Clenching my jaw and squaring my shoulders, I stared back at him, daring him to accuse us of something.
Thankfully he seemed to think better of it.
“Aye, I know of them,” he said.
“We don’t have any money.” Kitty stepped up beside me. “We can’t pay you. We just… have come a long way.”
Every word of it was honest, but it was still a risk to say it.
She wasn’t admitting to anything, but the unspoken truth was sitting just underneath each word.
We could still deny it all, but we weren’t hiding like perhaps we should have been.
I could guess where Kitty’s courage came from, because I felt it, too.
No one knew us here. We weren’t a Darcy and a Bennet to this boy; we were just two wayward girls out of their depth.
The ostler took too long to consider his options, still brushing out the horse’s coat as he looked at us the way I looked at a chessboard.
Deciding we would be best off seeking help elsewhere, I turned and grabbed Kitty’s arm, ready to hurry both of us away before he could form too accurate a mental picture and get us into trouble.
“Wait,” he called before we could get more than a few feet. “You go off walking ling-di-long, and you’ll end up at the castle before you find Plas Newydd.”
I ignored the first of the expressions I didn’t understand in favour of the second.
“Before we find where?” I asked, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice.
With a long-suffering sigh, the ostler finally put down the comb and stepped away from the horse with a soft pat to the side of its neck.
He ushered us to the road the coach had travelled and pointed out the route we needed to take to get where we wanted to go.
Plas Newydd, home of the Ladies of Llangollen.
Once we’d repeated the directions back to him and he seemed happy he wasn’t sending us off to go missing in the Welsh countryside, he nodded approvingly.
“Don’t get lost,” he ordered. “And tell Sioned that Llew sends his regards.”
Not wanting to test the limits of his patience, I didn’t ask who Sioned was.
Instead Kitty and I both thanked him as effusively as we were able, but Llew seemed more interested in returning to the horses than in listening to what we had to say.
He waved us off with a faraway goodbye and headed back into the yard, leaving just Kitty and me and the road ahead.
From his directions, it wasn’t far. I turned to her, my smile shaky but genuine.
“Shall we?” I asked.
She laced her fingers with mine, and we took the first step together.