Free The Maid of Fairbourne Hall by Julie Klassen

shoulder, and a well-dressed gentleman smiled down at them and tipped his hat. On the upper gallery, a woman in a low-cut nightdress blew kisses to a sailor trotting down the outer stairs.
    The inn’s courtyard swarmed with activity. Dogs barked. Horses snorted and pranced in their braces. A large stagecoach with red wheels prepared to depart. Hostellers checked the horses’ harnesses. An official-looking man in red greatcoat and top hat opened the coach door and handed in a matron and her young charge. Once the door was closed, a brawny dark-skinned man strapped barrels to the side of the carriage.
    The body of the yellow stagecoach was emblazoned with its final destination in bold and stopping points along the way in smaller lettering. Four passengers sat on its roof, and another shared the coachman’s bench. The guard climbed to his position at the rear and blew his long horn.
    Joan led Margaret to the front of the clapboard inn, to a protruding half-circle structure with the words Coach Office painted above its sash window. Boards listing routes and departure times lined its outer walls.
    â€œWhere to, miss?” Joan asked, studying the boards.
    Margaret frowned in thought. “I don’t know . . .”
    â€œHow much money do you have?”
    Margaret recounted the coins in her reticule, bit her lip, and pronounced the paltry sum.
    Joan stepped to the office window and addressed the booking clerk within.
    â€œHello. There are two of us traveling together.” She laid the coins before him. “How far can we go?”
    The clerk stared at her a moment without speaking. Margaret noticed one of his eyes was milky white. With no change of expression, he drew a chalk circle on a map on the counter. Margaret glanced over Joan’s shoulder at the circle of modest diameter around London. Not very far at all.
    â€œStage rates are tuppence to four pence per double mile. Royal Mail is faster, but costs a bit more, and don’t leave till tonight.”
    Joan said, “We prefer to get out of . . . that is, to be on our way as soon as possible.”
    He turned his milky gaze from Joan to Margaret. “The Northampton line will take you as far as Dunstable for a crown—if you take an outside seat, which is cheaper. It leaves in twenty minutes. Or, the Maidstone Times leaves in thirty.”
    Joan glanced at her. “Which shall it be, miss? North or south?”
    Margaret thought quickly. Her old home, the village of Summerfield, lay to the south, though outside the chalk circle. Would Sterling look for her there? “South, I think.” She hesitated. “Unless you prefer north?”
    â€œMaidstone has a hiring fair, I understand,” Joan said. “So that would suit me.” She lowered her voice. “But remember, it’s you what has to get out of town. Once we are safely out of London, you shall go your way and I mine. Understand?”
    Margaret felt chastened by the cutting words of her once-docile maid. But she nodded without retort. She needed Joan too much to risk complaining.
    Joan turned back to the man. “Two for Maidstone, please.”
    He took the money, gave them their change, and directed them inside. “Marsh is the coachman you want.”
    They would go south. Not as far as Summerfield, but as far as their meager coin would take them.
    Half an hour later, Margaret found herself, for the first time in her life, sitting on a bench atop the roof of a stagecoach, in an outside seat no less. She gripped the metal handrail so hard her knuckles ached, and they had yet to set off. In front of her, the coachman sat at the ready in his many-caped coat and top hat. Beside her sat a soldier, Joan on his other side.
    The soldier turned his cheek toward first Joan, then Margaret, pointing out a long scar. “See that. Not from the war, no. From being struck by a coachman’s wild whip.”
    Margaret swallowed and inched back on