“Now, you listen to me, Lizzy,” Ashley hissed, holding Lizzy tight. “You won’t tell anyone about tonight. You hear me? If your papa wakes, you will tell him that you let Catherine out.”
Lizzy shook her head and struggled to free herself from Ashley’s iron hold.
“You’ll do what I say,” Ashley ordered. “If you don’t, you better not ever sleep again because I’ll come in the middle of the night and get you!” With a shove, she released Lizzy and pushed her to the floor. Then Ashley bent over her so that her long blond hair tangled with Lizzy’s until the two heads were almost indistinguishable. “Now go to bed.”
Catie watched as Lizzy jumped up and scampered away. She prayed Ashley’s threats had worked. If not, her papa would be very, very mad.
Josie went to the window and helped lower Ashley. As soon as Ashley was out of sight, Josie turned. “Jump, Catie!” Josephine held the window curtain aside so Catie could slip out of the dining-room window and join her cousins on the walk in front of her parents’ house. Catie gave a last glance over her shoulder, into the black house, where her papa was sleeping.
“Catie, are you coming?” Madeleine called. She was a small shape in the dark beside the golden-haired Ashley.
“Yes!” Catie answered. Her stomach convulsed at the thought of what her father would do to her if he realized she’d escaped, but she would rather die than go back into the rat-and-spider-filled closet. “I’m coming,” she said and scrambled out the window.
Ashley and Maddie caught her, and as soon as she was on solid ground beside her cousins, she hugged them as hard as she could.
Ashley hugged her back just as hard. “You’re safe now,” she said. “We’ve got you, and we’re embarking on an adventure.” Her father called Ashley a little hoyden, and Catie knew her spunky blond cousin was almost certainly the instigator of her rescue.
Madeleine took Catie’s hand in hers, her warm grip calm and reassuring. “Is your mama all right? And Lizzy?” Maddie asked. She was always concerned about others.
“Aunt Cordelia and Uncle Edmund are snoring away in their beds,” Josephine answered, climbing out the window behind Catie, then taking her other hand. “And Uncle Edmund made that little brat, Lizzy, Catie’s prison guard. When I’m a pirate, I’ll make them all walk the plank.”
Catie hugged Josie, feeling her cousin’s sharp shoulder blades under her hands. As Catie had imagined, Josie had her auburn hair tied under a strip of cloth and had fashioned an eye patch out of an old handkerchief.
With Josephine on one side of Catie and sweet Madeleine on the other, the three girls followed Ashley, their leader. Catie didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. She was free of rats and spiders and cruel little sisters. She could breathe, and though the night was cold, especially as she was dressed only in her nightgown, the air felt good on her tear-stained face.
A half hour later, the girls climbed into Maddie’s room in the Earl of Castleigh’s safe, quiet town house on Berkeley Square. Catie looked at her cousins, at their dirty dresses, their eyes sparkling with adventure. She was dizzy with the adventures of the night as well. Either that, or she was weak from hunger.
Maddie convinced everyone to wash their faces, and then she brought out clean nightgowns for all. Finally, they all climbed onto Maddie’s bed. Catie saw that it was growing light behind the curtains, and she knew she needed to get home before her father found her missing.
Please, God, let Lizzy keep her mouth shut.
Catie didn’t understand why Lizzy was believed when she was not, why Lizzy was coddled when she was turned away. Her father had said she should have been a son. But he didn’t hold being a female against Lizzy.
Maybe because Lizzy was so pretty or because she looked like him. All Catie knew for certain was that her father looked for reasons to punish her.
“You know,” Catie said, looking at her cousins and friends again, “once we grow up and marry, we won’t be able to have adventures like this anymore. Our husbands won’t let us.”
Madeleine looked at Catie. “Is that why your papa hurts your mama?”
Catie sighed. As the eldest, she was expected to know everything. “No, he does it because he can. Because he’s a man,” she answered. “Men are stronger and meaner, and they have rights. When you marry, your husband will treat you the same.”
“No, he won’t,” Madeleine said. “My papa is nice to my mommy.”
“She got lucky,” Catie said. “And he’s rich. If your papa wasn’t rich, he wouldn’t be as nice.”
“When I become a pirate,” Josephine told them confidently, “I won’t need a husband. I’ll have loads of treasure all for myself.”
“And I’ll have lots of adventures,” Ashley said. “I won’t have time for a husband, especially a mean one.”
“But how will you have money for adventures without a husband?” Josephine asked.
“Well, I don’t care how poor I am. I won’t marry at all. Ever.” As soon as the words were spoken, Catie knew she meant them. How could she marry, when all her life she’d seen clearly what men were and what they could do? And it wasn’t only her father who was cruel. She’d seen his friends hit their wives and kick dogs in the street. How could she know which men were like her Uncle William, Madeleine’s papa, and which were like her father?
“And I will not marry either,” Madeleine chimed in. “Never. I don’t need the money. If you want, Catie, you can come stay with me. You, too, Ashley, when you’re not on an adventure, and you, Josie, when you’re not on your pirate ship.” She paused, and then because she was Madeleine and could never be cruel, she added, “Your sister can come, too, Catie, if she really wants.”
“I’ll tell her, but she thinks she’s special.” At least that’s what their father always told Elizabeth. He always said, “If I must be cursed with daughters, thank God one is small and pretty. You’ll marry a prince and make us all rich, Elizabeth.”
Now Catie told her cousins, “Elizabeth thinks she’ll marry a prince.”
