Free Anne Barbour by Escapades Four Regency Novellas

hotel at the earliest opportunity—this very night, in fact, so that when Bran came to speak to her she would be gone. She would leave a note—but she would be gone.
    The words echoed in her mind like the tolling of a great bell announcing the death of a loved one. Tears, as hot and hurtful as live coals, lodged in her throat before welling forth to rain searingly down her cheeks. She dashed them away and, throwing back her covers, slid purposefully from her bed. It was too late in the evening to think of leaving by coach—even if she had enough money to buy a ticket to York, which she assuredly did not.
    There might be another option, however. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was still early by London social standards—not even midnight. Mr. Simmons might still be at his desk. Hastily donning the better-most of her shabby muslins, she slipped from the suite and hurried downstairs.
     

10
     
    An hour later, Martha had retired once more, this time in accommodations far less luxurious than those to which she had regrettably become accustomed. The bed was narrow and none too comfortable and it, with a small dressing table, comprised almost the entire furnishings of the little room tucked in a corridor near the hotel kitchen.
    It had taken her some time to convince Mr. Simmons to accede to her wishes, but he was a perspicacious, kindly gentleman and he had already guessed a good deal of her story. After moving her meager belongings, she’d composed a note, which now reposed on a table in the sitting room of her erstwhile quarters. She had scribbled her painful message in stony despair, unable to fully comprehend the fact that she would never see Bran again. As she outlined the extent of her fraud, she knew full well he would certainly not seek her out. She would be fortunate, indeed, if he did not set the Bow Street Runners after her.
    Sleep in her new situation did not come easily, but at last, she fell into an uneasy doze.
    In Canby House, at least one of its occupants was experiencing an equally difficult time in gaining his night’s rest. Bran did not so much attempt to seek his bed until dawn had begun to lighten the window frames. The interview with Mr. Beddoes had nearly destroyed him. His first reaction to the agent’s revelations had been disbelief, then at last an agonized acceptance. Dear God, how could he have been so taken in? He was not sure how she had accomplished her trickery, but she had worked her will with admirable cleverness.
    He had almost given his heart to the vixen—almost offered her a proposal of marriage! With her pansy brown eyes and her appealing air of vulnerability combined with what had seemed to him a compelling honesty, she had scooped him into her deception with the ease of a cat sinking its claws into a particularly succulent mouse.
    His first instinct had been to hasten to the Grand Hotel, there to yank Martha Finch from her triumphant repose. Then he would pack her aboard the first coach to York. Or no, what he should do is report her to the authorities and let England’s dubious system of justice take its course.
    He soon perceived the impossibility of either of these options. Mrs. Coppersmith would no doubt be completely overcome if he created a disturbance in the hotel in the middle of the night. A different sort of disturbance, a scandal of the worst sort, would erupt if he was to turn her over to the tender mercies of the law.
    Thus, Bran contained himself for the remainder of the night. Very early the next morning, after calling his valet for a shave and a change of clothes, he set out for the hotel.
    “What do you mean, gone?” was his astonished response to Mrs. Coppersmith’s tearful greeting.
    “Peters came to me not a half hour past,” the older woman sobbed, “to tell me that Felicity’s bed had not been slept in and the poor girl was not to be found.”
    “She is not Felicity,” snarled Bran, leaping upon what seemed the only salient point in Mrs.