Page 30 of The Duke's Bride in Disguise
But you are not Ava Smith anymore, she told herself, you are Lady Emily Fairfax.
That she could march through the front door of her old home, under the auspices of charity, and perhaps peruse the records there, was so exciting she could barely wait to get started.
There was only one obstacle in her way—a rather stubborn Irish woman.
"I cannot let you go alone," Mary argued, "It's not right. It's not proper. What if someone was to see you?"
"Then you can come with me," Ava replied evenly, "No one would think twice of a young lady, accompanied by her maid, visiting an orphanage with clothes for the girls."
"That's not what I meant," Mary argued, but Ava could see that her resolve was weakening.
Sensing an opportunity, Ava hastily explained to Mary her theory about the missing Miss Darlington and Mr McCasey. Initially, Mary tried to look disinterested, but as Ava's story unfolded, she visibly became more enthralled.
"Imagine, if it were true," Mary breathed, once Ava had finished speaking, "Oh, how terribly exciting."
"Well, we shall never find out if there is any truth to it, unless we visit the Asylum," Ava replied with a sad shrug.
"Drat you, child," Mary grumbled, "If I lose my position over this, I'm taking you with me."
"You shan't," Ava assured her, desperately trying to hide her excitement, "So you will come?"
"Aye," Mary gave a pious sigh, "Let me have a look in Lady Emily's room for some old clothes we can bring with us."
"Then let us off," Ava said happily, making for the door.
"You'll need to change," Mary squawked, stepping forward to stop Ava's progress, "You can't go barrelling around Lambeth in a day dress."
Really? Ava resisted rolling her eyes; it seemed gently-bred ladies did little but dress into different outfits, as though they were dolls. A part of her longed for the simplicity of her life in Mr Hobbs', where, once dressed for the day, she knew that she would not have to undress again until bedtime.
"If I must," she replied, with a long sigh; bar feather mattresses and chocolate, there was little else that made being a lady of thebeau mondeeasy.
And so, a half hour later, with bundles of old dresses from Lady Emily's wardrobe under their arms, the two women set out for Lambeth, in Lord Fairfax's Landau. It was not long, however, before they met a bump in the road.
Ava had been staring idly out of the window of the carriage, as it meandered through a busy thoroughfare near Westminster, when they came to a juddering, lob-sided halt.
"I'm afraid a wheel has come loose, my Lady," Freddie, the young footman, called through the window.
"Drat," Ava whispered with a frown.
"It's a sign," Mary whispered back, blessing herself and raising her eyes to heaven.
"It's a sign that there are far too many potholes on London's roads," Ava retorted, grabbing her bundle of clothes and opening the carriage door.
Not minding her kid-skin boots, the same boots she had so admired on Emily, Ava stepped down into the dirty road to inspect the carriage wheel.
"It's definitely loose," she observed, to a rather startled Freddie.
"Er, yes, my Lady," he replied, perplexed by her interest.
"And we are still quite a way from Lambeth," Ava continued, squinting across the river to the banks opposite, where the parish of Lambeth lay.
"Quite far, my Lady," Freddie offered, casting a perplexed look at the driver, who had clambered down from his perch to examine the wheel, "Though, have no fear, it will still be there tomorrow."
"He's right," Mary, who had followed Ava out of the carriage, chimed in. "We shall wait inside, my Lady, until the gentlemen have fixed the wheel, and make for the orphanage tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
Never had tomorrow sounded so far away. Ava realised that to Freddie and Herbert, the driver, she must have sounded like the epitome of a pampered aristocrat, but still, she could not help but show her disappointment.
