Carla Kelly Read Online Free PDF Page B

roll. “Do you know his name?”
    He shook his
head. “He is the Viscount Byworth. Mama ... Mama always called
him B, but that can’t be his name, can it?”
    “ No.
It must be her nickname for him.” Her face brightened. “Oh, but
what was your mother’s name before she married? Surely it would be
the same as your uncle’s.” Jamie’s face fell. “I was four when they
died, and my Uncle Rotherford never spoke of her. I mentioned my
Uncle Byworth to him once, and he just laughed.”
    Omega sighed.
“That’s hardly a gentlemanly thing to do.”
    “ I
looked in my Uncle Rotherford’s atlas one night when he was drunk,
and found this.” He pulled a page from his pocket.
    Omega smoothed it
on her lap. The page had been folded and unfolded so many times
that the creases were starting to rip, but she looked where Jamie
pointed.
    “ See
there, it says ‘Byworth.’ At least, I think it does.” Jamie took
the page from her lap and cupped it in his hand like a living thing
and then folded it. “That is where I am going.” The assurance left
his voice then, and for the first time he sounded as young as his
years. “Do you know how far it is? Is this the right
direction?”
    “ I ...
I don’t know,” she confessed. “And see here, you have torn the
section from the book and not left any references.”
    Jamie sighed and
put the scrap of paper back in his pocket. “I was so excited just
to see ‘Byworth’ that I didn’t think about that. But I have to find
it, don’t you see?” Omega nodded. She took out Rochester’s
Guidebook and thumbed to the section on the Cotswolds. Jamie
gave her the paper again and she turned it this way and that,
comparing it with the tiny map in the book. “Doesn’t that read
‘age’? There, where you have folded it so many times?”
    Jamie squinted at
the little paper. “It could.”
    “ Perhaps it is Wantage,” she said. “And if it is, then your
Byworth is about ten miles beyond.”
    “ And
if it is not?”
    She rose to her
feet. “We’ll just have to try. And when we find your Lord Uncle
Byworth or whoever he is, perhaps he’ll have some ideas about
retrieving my baggage from Bow Street.”
    “ I’m
sure he will. Mama was always used to say that there wasn’t
anything her brother couldn’t do.” Jamie darted ahead of her on the
path.
    Let’s hope you
are right, Omega thought grimly. Maybe he can also tell me what on
earth I, a spinster educationist, am doing traipsing about just a
jump ahead of the Bow Street Runners.
    The thought made
her giggle. She crammed her bonnet back on her head and hurried to
catch up with Jamie.
     
     

Chapter
3
    If Omega Chartley
had ever spent a more miserable night, she didn’t know of it. They
consumed the afternoon and early evening walking in a northeasterly
direction that paralleled the main highway but did not come too
close to it. Several times they heard the mail-coach horn. Each
time, Omega wondered if her money and baggage had arrived in London
yet, to be investigated and pawed over.
    She had addressed
her baggage to St. Elizabeth’s in Durham. Suppose one of the
Runners went there to await her arrival? The thought of a man like
Timothy Platter invading the rarefied atmosphere of a very correct
girls’ school to inquire after the newly hired English teacher
nearly made Omega gasp out loud.
    I must devise
a wonderful lie , she thought as she trudged along beside Jamie.
That thought made her blanch again. It is amazing how rapidly
one well-brought-up person can go to the dogs , Omega
thought.
    Only a day ago
she was a proper, well-mannered lady of advancing years. In the
course of twenty-four hours Omega Chartley had prevaricated,
attempted to outwit an officer of the law, obstructed justice,
permitted a wanted person to escape, and done nothing to prevent an
assault. The rapidity of her decline made her blink. I have only
to steal, commit murder, and perform a treasonous act to be perfect
in my ruin , she thought,