Lady in Green Read Online Free PDF Page A

problem, don’t you see? If I hide away until I am twenty-five, I’ll never find a husband.” She fumbled through one pocket after another, handing the silver flask over to Rob, until she located the packet of letters. She waved them triumphantly and announced, “I am going to go live with Aunt Ros in London!”
    “But, Miss Annalise, I thought you never heard from her anymore, not since Sir Vernon forbade your mother to correspond with her. That was years ago, right after they got married.”
    “No matter, she’s been at the same address forever, and she was always inviting me to come visit. And her particular friend Lord Elphinstone is very high in the government. Surely with his influence something can be done about my stepfather’s guardianship. So I only need your help in getting to London.”
    “Only? When every man, woman, and sheriff’ll be out looking for you soon as Sir Vernon puts out the word and the reward? A’ course here’ll be the first place he’ll look, so we don’t have half to worry about, now do we, chickie? ’Sides, seems to me this Aunt Ros of yourn blotted her copybook onct herself. I’m not sure she’s fit to be in charge of you and your cork-brained schemes.”
    Annalise refuted that argument with a snap of her fingers. “Pooh. That’s just Sir Vernon’s priggery. And the Duke of Arvenell’s. You know what kind of man he is by the way he disowned his children. All Aunt Ros did was refuse to marry the man he chose for her. She has to take me in!”

Chapter Four
    Unfortunately, Lady Ros was not in London. She and Lord Elphinstone had traveled to Vienna for the peace talks and parties.
    This bit of news was one crushing blow too many for Annalise . She was cold, hungry, tired, and frightened. Crying still wouldn’t help, so as soon as the helpful watchman went on along his beat, Annalise kicked at the locked door of Aunt Ros’s small, tidy town house at Number Eleven, Laurel Street. Then she limped back to the hackney carriage where Henny and Rob waited. The devil fly away with it, she thought, they’d worked so hard just to get to London!
    They’d waited at the cottage long enough for Sir Vernon to throw Rob off his land.
    “Iffen we leave afore he gets back, he’ll move heaven and earth to find us,” Rob said. “You can put your blunt on that. The man’s mean, he ain’t stupid. ’Sides, I got preparations to make.” Annalise didn’t ask what those preparations were; Henny advised her it was better not to know. Rob promised Seraphina was safe and would be waiting in London when they arrived, and that was enough. Annalise slept the time away in her hidden little cubby behind the kitchen pantry, waking only to swallow the hot soup Henny kept bringing.
    The retired highwayman was right: the cottage was the first place Sir Vernon looked, after sending men north to Arvenell and south to Bath. He arrived with the magistrate and three brawny grooms.
    “Don’t see no writ for a search,” Rob said.
    “I don’t need one,” Sir Vernon replied, holding a lace-edged handkerchief over his nose. “It’s my property.”
    “Seems to me just the land is yourn, on rent. You know I built this cottage on my own.” The magistrate, Squire Bromley, was looking uncomfortable, so Rob went on: “No matter. I got nothin’ to hide. Go ahead, boys, look your fill. You find any sweet young thing under the bed, just don’t tell m’wife.”
    So the men made a halfhearted search, Henny following them about, threatening to comb their hair with her footstool if they so much as disturbed her pressed linens and stacked preserves.
    “If she’s not here, Bromley, then this man helped my stepdaughter escape, a minor female, out of her wits and sickly. I demand you arrest him and hold him till he reveals her whereabouts.”
    Henny started weeping into her apron, and the magistrate was shifting from foot to foot.
    “And when you think about doin’ that, Squire, think about what himselfs done