“Have you any acquaintances in Evermire who could meet her and hide her? I will pay, of course, and she is a sturdy girl. She can braid up her hair and work as a farmer or fisherman . . .” Her eyes went into her handkerchief again and she breathed deeply. “Oh, I have no right to ask . . .”
Genevieve patted her arm. “I’ll talk with Delia, my maid. She’s related to half the people in Evermire.”
“Don’t tell her it’s my daughter. Make up a story. She will use the name Bessany Blodden. Perhaps she could be a servant girl fleeing from an irate father.”
“Something like that,” Genevieve mused. “The immediate problem is that I may need to hire a messenger, and while Father provides adequately for the household, he gives me almost no pocket money of my own.”
“Oh, child, don’t worry on that.” She reached into the pocket of her cloak and brought out a clinking bag. “Coin. Not at all traceable, as royal notes would be. Take what you will and keep what’s left over as my gift of thanks. How soon, do you think?”
“I don’t know. We’ll need to meet again.” She thought furiously, erupting with, “Are you sure, Alicia? Are you sure you want to do this and that I’m the best person to ask? I know so little of what’s going on . . .” Her voice trailed into troubled silence.
“That’s why, girl. No one will think of you or ask you questions. You’re an infant. You have the experience of an egg. Anything that goes on with you goes on inside you. You don’t gossip, you don’t twitter. I’m presuming on our kinship, ancient though that is. And on our friendship, young though that is.” She burst into silent tears once more, letting them flow without hindrance.
“Shhh. I’ll do what I can. You must think of some other jaunt we can take two days hence, and I’ll tell you then what’s arranged. Now. Dry your eyes. You don’t want them seeing you’ve been crying. It’ll make people wonder.”
Making people wonder, according to Mrs. Blessingham, was the first step on the slippery slope of perdition. Covenanters disliked wondering. They preferred certainty.
They wandered a while longer while the Duchess calmed herself and fixed her face with the aid of a pocket mirror. When they had stayed long enough for appearance’s sake, they smiled and murmured their way back to the carriage and went directly to the Marshal’s house, where the Duchess insisted upon alighting from her carriage and walking away from it with Genevieve.
“I’ll see you day after tomorrow,” said the Duchess, giving Genevieve a hug. “Tell whoever it is to light a signal fire at the end of the Ramspize. She will guide by that.”
“A signal fire,” she agreed.
She went looking for Delia, finding her out by the stables, which Genevieve considered a more private place to talk than the house.
“Delia, I need to ask a great favor of you and maybe of John. I’ll pay you well for it, but you mustn’t ever speak of it to Father, for he’d be most annoyed.”
Delia sat down on a convenient keg and looked interested while Genevieve described the plight of a servant girl of whom the Duchess was quite fond, who now worked for the Duchess’s daughter, and of this poor girl’s husband, who was inclined to be violent and vindictive, so the girl herself needed a place to bide with her child until it was weaned, at least. A secret place.
“I’ll wager the Earl got her pregnant,” grunted Delia. “That’s who the Duchess’s daughter is married to, Lord Solven, Earl of Ruckward, and that would explain all this secrecy and anger. Well, the Earl has a reputation for being a son of thunder, and it’s not the first time he’s bred a servant girl, so I can understand how the Duchess and her daughter feel. There’s no covenants ruling what us common folk can do, so I can arrange for one of my cousins to meet this girl and her babe. I’ve family who lives down Southmarsh way, right near the Ramspize, including one old lady who could use some company.”