Free The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston Page B

had no idea of where I might be.”
    â€œOf course not, with dirty streets wherever you go in Paris. Whatever did you do?”
    â€œRan even harder, when I found my fine gentleman still coming after me. I tripped over a doorstep in my haste, and he caught up with me. So I shouted, in French, and remembering to keep my voice as low as I could, while I kicked out at him. I think I hurt him, for he cried out and let go of me so that he could hold his leg. That was my chance, and I could see the river at the end of the street. The river, you know, is a great help in a city such as Paris. It was when I reached the corner that I ran into the other man, the one who wanted to come to my assistance.”
    â€œAnd what was he doing, roaming about in such a district? Just such another, I warrant you, on the prowl for a molly or a slut.”
    Alethea thought back. Her impression of the man had been swift, instinctive, and favourable. She also felt that she had met him somewhere, and had not been at all surprised when he addressed her in English. Although there had been that glint in his eye; she did not care, these days, for a glint in any man’s eye. Such glints had brought her nothing but trouble. At least Monsieur Rouge Cheeks only fancied her because he had mistaken her, reasonably enough, for a youth.
    She yawned. “Figgins, I neither know nor care. I shall see neither of them again; it was but a chance encounter in each case, and there’s an end of it. Lord, how sleepy I am.”
    Sleep didn’t come swiftly or easily to her that night. She had tasted once again the delights of freedom, not merely freedom from the shackles of her disastrous marriage, but freedom from the constraints of the feminine world. However good a face she put on it, she had been frightened; she would not for the world have Figgins know just how frightened at the time, even though she could see the amusing side of her escapade once within the safe walls of the inn.
    Both she and Figgins must needs be a great deal more careful. It was as well that their route would take them through no more cities such as Paris. Bern, for all she had ever heard, was a dull and sober city. They would find a respectable inn there, and in all the other towns on their way, and not venture out. Her mind drifted away to thoughts of Venice, and of Vivaldi, whose music she had heard performed at the concerts of the Society of Ancient Music. To thoughts of canals and carnival and masks and, with a sense of relief, thoughts of her sister and Wytton.
    Wytton would know what was best to be done, was her last thought. Wytton might be shocked, and angry, but he wouldn’t turn away from her, as Georgina had done.

Chapter Nine
    The mountains made Figgins stare. She twisted and turned to gaze up at the severe crags and peaks towering above them, peering out of the window of the lumbering coach as the steaming horses strained up the winding road towards the pass.
    Next to her, Alethea looked out on the wintry scene with less astonishment. The majesty and stark white facets of the mountains filled her with awe, but she had known, in her imagination, how they would look. Living in Derbyshire, she was used enough to snow covering the high peaks for weeks on end, and she had read so many novels with accounts of Alpine journeys in them that she felt she had seen it all before.
    â€œThey aren’t white,” Figgins said. “Not like you’d expect. They’re blue and purple and pink and more besides.” She heaved a sigh of vast content. “To think that I should live to see this. Won’t Ma’s eyes be out on stalks when I tell her about it?”
    â€œYou’ll have had enough of mountains by the time we get across to the other side and reach Italy.”
    They were alone in the coach. That was unusual, but there had been reports of late, heavy snow, of blocked passes and long waits. The coach driver had scoffed at such talk, in