A Lady's Guide to Ruin (7 page)

Joan turned to do just that and found Elinor already behind her.

“Is this our grand escape, then?” she asked.

“You don't miss anything, do you?” Joan asked.

“Not if I can help it.” Elinor lifted up her skirt. “Shall we?”

“The bushes down below—”

“I think I can outwit shrubbery,” Elinor said lightly. “We won't have much time before someone chances by. Hurry.”

Joan grinned, and vaulted out of the window. She landed clear of the bush and leaned back to help Elinor with her exit. They managed to lever her down between
two shrubs, though the bushes caught at her skirts. A moment later both women were free. Elinor had a spot of color on each cheek, but her breathing was steady. Joan did not know how much of her weakness truly was an act, and how much her denial of it was bravado. So far, her health was holding, but they had hardly gone ten steps.

“Where are we to go?” Elinor asked, eyes bright.

“Arrangements have been made for a picnic,” Joan informed her. “There are ruins in the woods, it seems, and they are quite picturesque in the late afternoon sun.”

“The ruins. Yes, they are beautiful. I have not been there for years.” Her voice grew sad, then, but her face spoke only of determination.
Who had she visited this ruin with before?,
Joan wondered. She might have asked, but perhaps Daphne should already know. She couldn't chance it. So instead she only seized Elinor's hand.

“Lead on,” she said, and the two of them lit out across the field, running fleet as the little deer on the hills.

To be Daphne would be to see these ruins whenever she wished, if only for this summer. To be Daphne would be to return to a home that wanted her. To fear only boredom.

Joan sat on a ragged-edged stone wall, on a level stretch only wide enough for her narrow hips. Maddy had arranged for a basket of small treats and a thick blanket on which Elinor now sat, sipping a light wine and gazing into the distance.

“Do you like my brother?” Elinor asked suddenly.

Joan sipped her own wine, buying herself a moment to choose her words.
Like
was not the word she would have selected. She didn't know that there was a word that would encompass her feelings—that low, pitiable ache for his protective gaze, that delightful fizzy-feeling attraction, that twisting disappointment at the sheer impossibility of it all.

“I hardly know him,” she said, settling for the blandest
version of the truth. “I like him well enough for a cousin. He is generous.”

“Generous. I suppose he is.” Elinor gazed at her, as if waiting for her to go on.

“Protective,” Joan said. She thought of the man.
Handsome
, she might have added; but Daphne would not. Would she?
Strong. Pent-up, like a dog in a cage. You can see it; he is pacing behind his eyes. He seems as if he has arrived late because he really ought to be somewhere else but he cannot remember quite where.
“I like him well enough,” she said again.

A smile played across Elinor's lips. “You are not what your letters led me to expect. They were so full of superlatives.”

“I left my superlatives in my luggage, I fear,” Joan said gravely, which made Elinor laugh.

Elinor had been prying on the carriage ride, but now she seemed fully convinced of Daphne's transformation, willing to ascribe her flighty behavior to a traumatic trip and a case of nerves. Joan was relieved. The key to a successful scam, if one wanted it to last longer than an evening, was in crafting a guise close to one's own character. Otherwise it was too easy to slip up. As she had done already, she reminded herself with some chagrin, and more than once.

“Why are you so intent on my opinion of him?” she asked.

“Curiosity,” Elinor said. “I often wonder what others see in him. I'm afraid you have not given me much to ponder. When next you meet, I encourage you to conduct a study and report your findings.”

“I am not much of a natural philosopher,” Joan said, uncertainty creeping into her tone. She batted it back. She
used to do this so easily, assuming the mantle of another name, another life. Always, the most important thing was to remain confident in the lie. Yet even as she bantered with Elinor, she watched the other woman's face for the slightest hint of suspicion.

She had merely lost her stride temporarily. She'd have it back soon enough.

Elinor ran her thumb along the rim of her glass. “Sometimes it seems that all I have is watching others' lives,” she said. “I could fill endless books with what I've seen and supposed. I thought once that I would always be content to watch. And of course, I have only realized that I cannot be once the possibility of another life is all but faded.”

“You can remake yourself,” Joan said.

“I might dream of it but I have never seen it. The only remaking I can imagine ends in scandal.”

“There is scandal and there is scandal,” Joan said, having been the instigating factor in both shades of the word. “And money makes all the difference. Delight the ton with your scandal and you will only be made stronger by it.” She had studied Elinor's peers too long to be ignorant of that.

“It is an entertaining notion, isn't it? But I'm too reserved. I could not be one of those women who glides through a scandal with a laugh. And I would not want that life. Would you?”

“Maybe,” Joan said. She had not thought that far, yet. With the money the diamonds would bring, she could be anyone she wished. She could travel to India, to America, to the continent. Right now, though, all she wanted was to stay here, with sunlight on her skin and Elinor's easy company.

Elinor was frowning at her. Joan's heart gave a jolt. No, not frowning at her—at the sky beyond. She twisted and swore. Gray clouds swarmed the sky, rolling rapidly closer on the shoulders of a brutish wind. It caught the trees, then the picnic, flipping the blanket up into Elinor's face and sending a napkin flapping away. Elinor let out a startled noise and clambered to her feet.

Joan hopped down from her perch, casting her eyes from the gathering storm to the path.

“We won't make it before it breaks,” she said.

“The creek will overflow,” Elinor said, raising her voice above the sudden wind. “It always does. We'll have to get to it quickly if we mean to get back at all.” She bent to gather up their scattered things.

Joan tossed the remainder of their luncheon in a waiting basket and helped Elinor roll the blanket into an ungainly bundle. It took only moments but the first drops of rain were already plinking onto the stones around them.

They ran. But while Elinor's illness might be feigned, her over-rest had left her weak in its own right. She flagged before they were halfway to the creek. The drips had turned to a steady drumming. Joan peered ahead. She could just make out the dirty ribbon of the creek. It seemed to be moving far more quickly and vigorously than it should, nipping the underside of the footbridge. The storm had started upstream, she realized; the swell had begun long before the rain reached them. As she watched, the water surged, lifting up above the planks of the bridge. And even if they crossed that—there was so much more lawn on this damn estate, and Elinor's breath was coming in alarming bursts.

“Is there anywhere else to take shelter?” Joan asked.
The rain and wind nearly swallowed her words. The ground was growing spongy beneath their feet, mud sucking at their heels.

Elinor turned in a circle, mouth moving silently as if reciting landmarks in her mind. “North,” she said. “There's a cottage to the north. Empty. It leaks, but not as much as this.”

“You'll have to show me,” Joan said.

Elinor shook her head. “I haven't been there in years.” Her hair hung in sodden hanks around her cheeks but the hesitation in her voice wasn't fear. Not yet.

“We'll find it,” Joan said, and took her hand. It was all Elinor needed. Her grip tightened around Joan's fingers and they moved again. More slowly now, despite the thickening rain. Their hems dragged in the mud and slapped at the backs of their legs. When Elinor flagged, Joan took the lead long enough to embolden her. Then Elinor would spring forward again, sometimes moving forward with dogged assurance, sometimes with a set to her jaw that suggested she was operating on blind faith that she had pointed them in the right direction.

When the cottage came into view, Joan gave a yelp of victory, even as a flash of lightning seared the sky behind them. With a wild laugh, Elinor ran forward, and suddenly it was Joan having trouble keeping up as they churned up muck and grass.

Elinor hardly slowed before she struck the door with a resounding thud, taking the knock on her shoulder. Her hand flew to the latch. It refused to budge. “It's locked!” she cried. The eaves of the cottage did little to shelter them; the wind blasted the rain against them, and them against the weathered wall of the ramshackle shelter.

Joan held her breath, counted to ten, and weighed the
options. No way around it. She had to take the risk rather than let Elinor stay out here and catch her death.

Joan reached up and plucked two pins from Elinor's hair before nudging her out of the way. “Hold on,” she said. She fitted pins to lock, fighting the shiver that crept from her lower back all the way to her fingertips. She could do this with her eyes closed, and just as well; the clouds had masked the sun. She fumbled for ten seconds, thirty, while Elinor pressed herself against the door in a vain attempt to escape the rain.

“Daphne, it's not going to work. It's all well and good in stories, but—”

The lock clicked. Joan grinned fiercely, triumphantly, and pushed the door open. Elinor stood stock-still, gaping. Joan made an irritated sound deep in her throat and pulled the older woman inside, then shut the door behind them.

Inside, the darkness was nearly complete. Rain hammered against the roof and the windows and wind bit cruelly through some chink in the wall. But it was dry, at least, and they could hear their own breath again. “Better,” Joan said. Her teeth chattered. So did Elinor's. Joan prized the rolled blanket from Elinor's arms and unrolled it. Her body and the folds had kept the bulk of it dry; dryer, at least, than their sodden clothes.

“You'll want to get undressed. Better dry and bare than sopping wet. We'll get a fire started somehow, and warm up quick enough.” Joan didn't meet Elinor's eyes as she snapped out the blanket. She didn't care how convinced Elinor had become that Daphne was cleverer than reported; what she had just done was not in a young lady's array of skills. “Elinor, your dress. We need to get you dry.”

She met Elinor's gaze at last. There was something
wondering and confused in Elinor's eyes for a moment. Then her face seemed to close to all expression, becoming distant and still. She nodded. “If you might assist.”

In silence, they stripped Elinor to her shift and wrapped the slightly-soggy blanket around her. Elinor helped peel Joan free of her clothes as well, though she seemed to take care not to touch any bare skin. More care than was warranted.

Joan shivered, her thin shift clinging to her and nothing else between her and the bitter chill but at least she was free of several pounds of cold water and drenched cloth. She dodged Elinor's eyes again and shuffled inward. There were two rooms to the little cottage and a door down into a cellar of some sort. There was wood stacked by the hearth. Rotten, but dry. Straw, too, and flint; a hatchet in the corner served to strike a spark, and in the space of a quarter-hour Joan had a small but loyal blaze in the long-cold hearth, and their dresses and corsets were laid beside it to dry. Still Elinor had said nothing. Joan didn't dare turn around. A lump had formed in her throat and no amount of swallowing could dislodge it.

It wasn't only fear. If she was discovered, she would doubtless face punishment. But, too, she mourned the loss of her Daphne mask, if lost it was. Daphne was accepted, easily and freely; Joan would have to fight bitterly for such acceptance, and perhaps never find it.

“Who are you, then?” Elinor asked at last, and Joan's hopes broke apart like an eggshell beneath a heel. “I thought maybe I had read too much from your letters. That your inconsistency was because of your ordeal. But Daphne Hargrove does not know how to pick a lock. I am
sure of that. So you are someone else. And I demand to know who.” Her eyes narrowed. She must know the risk she put herself in, calling out a stranger who had stolen her cousin's name.

Joan set her jaw. She would not degrade herself, or Elinor, by pretending confusion. “My name is Joan,” she said. “Joan Price.” It had been nice to be Daphne for a few days but she wouldn't cling to it. “I didn't do a thing to Daphne, she's fine, said to tell you as much,” she added hurriedly, and a flicker of relief passed over Elinor's features.

“Where?” she asked.

“Scotland. Or anyhow, she was on her way,” Joan said. She turned back to the fire and prodded at it with the hatchet to let some air beneath the largest log.

“Ah,” Elinor said, in perfect understanding. “It is too late to intercept her, then. And you? How did you come into the matter?”

“I happened to be on your street when she roared through,” Joan said. “And then Lord Fenbrook found me there. I meant to give him her letter and leave, but he thought I was her, and I needed . . .” She couldn't explain all the many needs that had welled up in her. The needs of the body, yes. Food. Drink. Shelter. Escape. But need, too, for the protective fire in his eyes when he had looked at her. Not that she could not defend herself, in a fight or otherwise, but not since her father died had someone
wanted
to protect her.

“You are the sister, then. The one the man came looking for. What did you steal?”

Joan couldn't help a smile, then. “A future,” she said. “One he didn't deserve.”

“And you do?” Elinor said, so soft and so cruel.

“More than he does,” Joan said hotly. “It's the only way. I need to get out. Get away. You wouldn't understand.”

“Don't I?”

“No,” Joan said, unwilling to relent. “You don't. You are trapped by idleness that you could dispel if you truly needed to. You have proved as much today. You aren't really a prisoner. You don't know that kind of suffering.”

“You were in Bethlem,” Elinor said, as if remembering. Something like fear came into her eyes; it hadn't been there before, Joan realized. Whatever else, she hadn't been afraid.