Lady in Green Read Online Free PDF

to make a gently reared female run off that way, and straight from the sickroom, too.”
    “The chit’s dicked in the nob, that’s all. Her nerves came unhing ed from the fever, so she doesn’t know what she’s doing. It’s obvious the dear girl needs a keeper,” Thompson insisted. “I intend to see she’s held safe and secure as soon as we find her.”
    “Aye, clappin’ the poor lass in Bedlam’d suit you to a cow’s thumb, wouldn’t it? Then there’d be no one to ask about all that inheritance money.”
    “Why, you, you …” Sir Vernon looked around and noticed the interested grooms. “I want you off my property, you swine. There’s always been something havey-cavey about you anyway. No common seaman I ever heard of made enough prize money to live so well.”
    The bearded farmer spit tobacco juice, missing Sir Vernon’s highly polished boots by a good half inch. “Mayhap I weren’t so common. And mayhap I kept back enough of my winnings to hire me a fancy advocate, in case some jumped-up toff tries to bring false charges ’gainst me, or tries to take my land without compensatin’ me.”
    “My secretary will bring the rent refund tomorrow morning. Be gone by the evening.” Sir Vernon stomped out of the cottage.
    “What about my house that I built with my own two hands?” Rob called after him.
    “Take it with you.”
    “I druther see it burn than leave it to the likes of you.”
    *
    So they burned the cottage, after packing what they could onto a wagon, and after Henny made her farewells in the neighborhood, leaving her cousin’s address in Swansea. “Her man’s a fisherman, you know, and my Rob’s been missing the sea for all these years. We were only staying to be near Miss Annalise anyways, and with her gone, and bad feeling from Sir Vernon, it’s better this way. You come visit, if you ever get to Wales.”
    Henny cried softly despite her own advice as they drove away from the flaming building, even though there had been no choice. They couldn’t leave the cottage standing, lest Sir Vernon come find the hidden chambers.
    Annalise did not see the flames or the tears. She was tucked away under the wagon’s false bottom.
    They traveled slowly west, just another country couple in somber clothes. They bought food in the village shops or from housewives rather than from taverns, and they paid a shilling or two to sleep in barns instead of inns. Before Hereford, Henny got down with her portmanteau and walked the last quarter mile into town, where she purchased an inside seat on the mail coach to Oxford. No one paid any mind to the nanny on her way to a new position.
    Rob and Annalise took turns driving the wagon, just another country couple in somber clothes, traveling west for another half day. Then they turned south toward Gloucester, where they traded the wagon for a hooded carriage; Rob shaved his beard and donned a caped driving coat, and Annalise pinned a silk rose in her bonnet, veiled to keep the travel dust from her eyes and nose. They stopped at only the busiest posting houses, Mr. and Mrs. Robbins, off to Oxford to see the sights. They left Oxford in a hired coach, Rob and Henrietta Tuthill, taking their widowed niece to London to meet her in-laws. In the center of London they switched to a hackney, whose jarvey didn’t care who the hell they were, so long as he saw the color of their money.
    “Henny, have you ever seen so many people? Don’t you think the smoke bothers them? Did you see that man dressed all in green?”
    “Look, Miss Annalise, I swear that’s the spires of Westminster itself.”
    Rob frowned. “We ain’t never goin’ to get away with this if you two can’t remember your places. We made it so easy a goose could get it right. Annie and her auntie, and Uncle Rob. Unless you want to put a notice in the papers that Miss Annalise Avery’s come to Town, chickie.” He settled back on the squabs, his arms crossed over his chest.
    “Pshaw, Robbie,” Henny