“Do you see, Gus? It would never have worked before because we were trying to keep Hester’s whereabouts and our involvement a secret. But we no longer have to obscure either of those. Deele knows both, and we can—no, we must—reveal Hester to Mr. Brummell and Lord Alvanley.”

I sat back in the phaeton seat. It was a good plan. A clever plan. Even so, I said, “There are a lot of ifs.”

“Perhaps, but taking Hester to Liverpool to board a ship has just as many, and, frankly, she is too frail to make a sea journey.”

That was true, and besides, this new plan might mean Evan would not leave the country quite yet. I handed Julia the reins.

“To the Ladies of Llangollen, then.”

Julia nodded. “I think it would be best if you drive now. We must put a good amount of ground between us and Lord Deele so that we can speak to the ladies and prepare for his arrival.”

“So you want me to take over now?” I asked, a little petulantly.

“Only the phaeton,” Julia said dryly.

She handed back the reins. And with them, a brief touch upon my hand. “This will work, Gus.”

I was not entirely convinced, but I had been outvoted. And besides, if this did not work, we could always flee back to Liverpool.

37

The village of Llangollen held the crisp silence of an autumn evening as I drove the phaeton along the main street. The windows of the white cottages upon the roadway were mostly dark, with only the torches outside the Hand Inn, the major hostelry, providing light as we passed.

A few minutes before, we had crossed the handsome Gothic arched bridge over the river Dee and asked directions of a lone man upon the road. He had given us the name and pointed the way to Plas Newydd, the ladies’ residence, yet I was still unsure of the turning.

“Did he say beyond the inn and the church?” I asked Julia, slowing the tired pair to a walk.

“I believe so,” my sister replied. I heard the fatigue in her voice. “The road we are looking for is Cross Lane. On the right.”

I looked behind me at Miss Grant, barely awake, and Lady Hester, slumped in her lover’s arms and still insensible, though it had been two hours of bumpy traveling since we had bundled her into the groom’s seat. How much laudanum had her brother forced down her throat? Neither of them would have been alert enough to hear the man’s directions and so could not concur with Julia’s interpretation of his delightful but somewhat incomprehensible Welsh lilt.