He ran after her. “Alice, Aunt Alice!”
She turned and watched his approach with a faint frown. “Is something the matter?” she said when he arrived.
“I’m not sure—is there?”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Mother said—” He broke off as a sudden spatter of drops fell. “Look, it’s going to rain. Let us go into Gunter’s. We can talk while we wait out the rain.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but the heavens opened, and they ran the short distance to Gunter’s and entered with rain pelting down behind them. They found a table, and Gerald ordered a pot of tea and some almond biscuits.
When their tea arrived, Gerald said, “Mother said you’ve taken in a lodger. Is that true?”
She made an annoyed sound. “Oh, what nonsense. Almeria was just making mischief. You know her way. I dohave a young lady staying with me, and it pleased your mother to call her a lodger. But she is a guest.”
He lowered his voice. “Are you sure, Aunt Alice? Because if you are in financial difficulties, I could speak to Father again and—”
“I said I wasn’t, Gerald.” She laid a gloved hand on his arm. “It’s kind of you to trouble yourself, but really, my situation is not your responsibility.”
“No, it’s my father’s,” he said bitterly. “But he will do nothing. But if she’s not a lodger, who is this girl? Mother said nobody has ever heard of her.”
“Lucy Bamber is my goddaughter. I’m perfectly all right, and there’s no need for you to worry. Now please, let us drop the subject.” She fixed him with a bright, determined smile. “Tell me, how did your race go?”
***
Lady Charlton had gone out, which meant Lucy was free to do what she liked. She finished unpacking her things—it didn’t take long: she didn’t have much. She prowled around the room, picked up a novel, put it down, picked up another one. Both were books she’d been planning to read, but that garden, so green and private, enticed her.
Who did it belong to? It was spacious and beautiful, but each time she looked, it was empty. Typical of rich people: they had all these beautiful things just for show and didn’t use them.
She crept down the stairs and slipped out into the back courtyard while Mrs.Tweed’s back was turned. There was a black wrought iron fence and gate at the end of the small courtyard. She tried it. Locked. Of course. People locked everything in London.
She peered through the railings. Nobody in the garden at all. What a waste. A big tree grew just inside the garden, with one large branch hanging over the fence. She eyed it thoughtfully.
She never had been one for following the rules, and who cared anyway? If the owners of this gorgeous garden weren’t using it...
A small, round wrought iron table stood in the corner of the courtyard. She dragged it to the fence, climbed onto it, tucked up the skirts of the horrid orange dress, and used the branch to swing herself over the fence. She dropped to the ground, grinning. She was in.
She walked the paths carefully, keeping an eye out for an owner, or an angry gardener, but there was not a soul, only the birds and a red squirrel that eyed her cheekily before bounding up an oak.
Time disappeared as she explored, lost in a new world, until a few heavy drops of rain startled her back to awareness. The clouds overhead loomed thick and slaty: this wasn’t a quick shower then. Bother.
She ran to the pretty little glass building and tried the door, but it was locked. The rain grew heavier. Her wet skirts clung to her, cold and clammy against her legs.
She tried to shelter under a big tree, but lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and she recalled something about how lightning was attracted to trees.
She returned to the tree that overhung Lady Charlton’s courtyard, but it was wet, and the trunk was too slippery to climb, and she had nothing to climb on to reach the branch. Feeling like a fool, she nerved herself to call out. “Mrs.Tweed? Tweed? Is anyone there?”
Eventually Mrs.Tweed poked her head out the back door and, exclaiming distressfully, she hurried out with a large key. Tweed followed with a big black umbrella.
Mrs.Tweed unlocked the gate, clucking over Lucy like a mother hen. “Oh, my dear, however did you get locked out? Look at you—you’re soaked to the skin. Come in, come in. Tweed, fetch hot water for the young lady’s bath. She’ll take it in the kitchen, where it’s warm and toasty.”
Lucy stared as Tweed relocked the gate and hung the bigiron key just inside the back door. There was a key. Why hadn’t she asked?
“I don’t need—” she began.
But she was shivering, and Mary, the maid, said, “You’ll have a nice hot bath, miss, and no arguing. Lady Charlton would never forgive us if we let you catch a chill.”
Lady Charlton would probably be delighted if she died of pneumonia, Lucy thought. She didn’t want Lucy living with her, just as Lucy didn’t want to be here.
