Chapter 25
A Planned Departure
“She is a shrewd, intelligent, sensible woman. Hers is a line for seeing human nature; and she has a fund of good sense and observation …”
Jane Austen, Persuasion
I might be getting too old for this, thought Sylvia.
Bath, for such a small city, slept only lightly and briefly.
It was relatively easy for a woman in a drab dress, plain shawl, and equally plain bonnet to find places to linger without attracting too much notice—a tea stall, an alley gin shop, and, eventually, the early morning market, where she could lose herself among the dozens of other women setting up their booths and uncovering their barrows.
If anyone had asked, she was quite prepared to tell them she was on her way to her work as cook and charwoman for a family that had just arrived, but no one did.
It had all seemed to be going so well, she sighed to herself.
She’d seldom encountered a mark as willing as Sir Anthony Kinsdale.
Indeed, she felt a great deal of sympathy for his poor daughters.
She was even a little sad to know that they soon would look such incredible fools.
She did sincerely hope Lord Casselmaine would take good care of them.
At the same time, she could not help but feel that if even one of them had showed a bit of backbone, the scheme would not be as easy as it was.
As it had been, she thought with a heavy sigh.
Now, as the sun rose, Sylvia made her unhurried way to the coaching inn. She knew to a nicety when the mail coach left for London. She intended to be just in time. Of course, she’d need a fresh name for the weigh bill. Mrs. Pole, she decided, was a suitably innocuous choice.
Once she reached London, she would pick up Sophia, and the two of them would take the money that they’d already made and fulfill their plans for a long holiday on the Continent.
Wallace would shortly join them. From the coaching inn, she could send him a letter with an X cut into its seal.
That was their mutual signal that it was time to up stakes.
That it was not safe. That all was lost.
With these thoughts humming through her, Sylvia entered the inn’s yard. It was filled with chickens and boys, both types of animal running to and fro on errands known only to them.
But as she looked up from dodging a cluster of birds, she stopped dead.
The man who had charge of the coaches and their loading, one Mr. Cobb, was coming out of the inn.
Mr. Cobb did not surprise her. What surprised her was that Mr. Cobb was deep in conversation with a second man whom she could not name, but whom she recognized as one of Bath’s overly busy constables.
Fortunately, they hadn’t yet seen her staring.
Sylvia let herself fade back into the shade of the yard’s sprawling chestnut tree, turning her head so that her bonnet’s brim hid her face.
She shook out her skirts, and strolled slowly back into the street, and did not pick up her pace until she had turned the corner.
Now what? The question drummed through her thoughts in time to her hurrying footsteps. Now what?
She could try to wait things out. There were any number of rooming houses where no questions would be asked, even of a woman who arrived on the doorstep with just a portmanteau and a bit of ready money.
But the constables might be keeping watch for days, and questioning any woman who showed up on her own to purchase a ticket.
And in the meantime, there would be Miss Thorne and her man working who-knew-what-sorts of mischief.
She could hire a gig and drive herself to London.
In general, Bath’s constables were fools and a bit lazy, so they might not think of that possibility.
But Miss Thorne’s conduct thus far said she was not a fool.
She’d send her man around to the liveries to ask questions.
A woman traveling alone was always memorable.
I should have stayed with Elizabeth. I should have brazened it out.
Sylvia reached the high street. She made herself stop and take a deep breath. It was too late for regrets. Things were as they were. She must think.
They would be looking for a woman alone, so she would not be a woman alone. Simple as that. She picked a direction and started walking.