Free My Surrender by Connie Brockway

long?” Charlotte suggested.
    “Nothing better to do. Can’t say I look forward to the Neebler fête. Do you? Course, you don’t. Tightfisted and uncongenial, the lot of them. They’ll pawn off a few bits of mutton and a smattering of prawns for refreshments and for our trouble we shall be obliged to listen to the old windsack’s daughter screech while the wife pounds on the pianoforte. No. Better to wait.” She lifted her hand, waving her kerchief at her husband, who was puffing and huffing his way down the line of carriages looking for an unclaimed hire.
    “Welton, a chair, please!”
    “But m’dear,” he called back, “where am I to find a chair?”
    “Well, really, Welton,” Lady Welton replied with fond irritation, “if I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you to find me one, would I?”
    “Quite right,” Welton muttered and quit the search for a cab, going instead to look for a chair for his wife.
    “Welton is a dear,” Lady Welton said comfortably, patting Charlotte’s arm.
    “Mrs. Mulgrew.” From somewhere across the street a male voice rose above the din. “If you would?”
    Charlotte glanced toward Ginny. The courtesan frowned, a look of impatience on her pretty face at being asked to cross the crowded avenue, before daintily lifting her skirts and stepping off the curb onto the slick cobblestones. She disappeared between the carriages.
    “Ah!” At Lady Welton’s expression of pleasure, Charlotte turned back in time to see Lord Welton leading two stalwart-looking workmen lugging between them a marble bench pilfered from heaven knew where. “One can always count on Wel—”
    “Look out!”
    The warning rang out over the crowds. In the sudden pocket of silence Charlotte heard the mad scrabble of runaway horses’ hooves ringing against the cobblestones, the rumble of wheels over the road, and the thunder of a vehicle passing by and—a cry, a horrible thud!
    Then the sound of the racing vehicle retreating as swiftly as it had appeared. The silence was broken by the sound of rushing feet and anxious voices raised in alarm.
    “She’s hurt! She’s hurt! Someone get a quack! Hurry!”
    “Oh!” cried Lady Welton softly, her hand covering her lips. “Some poor woman must have been struck. I hope I do not know her…”
    A terrible premonition seized Charlotte.
    “Charlotte, my dear! Where are you going? You cannot—”
    Whatever else Lady Welton said was lost as Charlotte dashed into the street, searching for the woman who’d fallen beneath the runaway horses’ hooves. A little crowd had gathered a short way down the avenue. Charlotte pushed her way through them, praying that she would not find—
    “No!”
    Ginny Mulgrew lay on her side, her leg bent beneath her at an impossible angle. Already the stagnant pools of water collecting between the cobbles had soaked into her beautiful gown. A hoof print was ground deeply into the material a few inches from her hip. Her face was white, her eyes closed.
    Charlotte dropped down beside her, insensible to the hard stone beneath her knees. Gingerly, she wiped a heavy strand of hair from Ginny’s brow. A thin line of blood seeped from a cut beneath it.
    Charlotte looked up into the ring of concerned faces. “We have to get her out of the street! And find a doctor. Now!” she commanded.
    An anxious-looking gentleman in a green waistcoat snapped his fingers at two liveried servants craning their necks to see. “Find some means of conveying the woman,” he demanded. “Quickly!” At once they went to do his bidding.
    Comte St. Lyon appeared at Charlotte’s side, his expression startled. “What happened?”
    “Some damn coxscomb lost control of his cattle,” the gentleman said. “Ran the poor woman down. Bloody green-headed fool!”
    “My God,” St. Lyon whispered. “Will she be all right?”
    “We won’t know until she’s been seen,” Charlotte replied tightly. “And she can’t be seen here, in the street.”
    The two servants