The Gilded Cage by Lucinda Gray Read Free Book Online Page A

when a jounce over hard cobbles stirs me. We are descending toward the city. I see through the frosted glass the distant sweep of what must be the Royal Crescent, stately and ordered houses with columned porticoes bathed in sunlight. The snow on the road isn’t too bad, but the clouds above are the color of lead.
    Impulsively, I ring the bell, and John brings the carriage to a halt. Opening the glass panel at his back, he peers down at me. “Everything all right, my lady?”
    I open the carriage door and step out. “Move up,” I say, placing a foot on the mounting board.
    â€œMy lady?”
    I climb up beside him, and he’s forced to shuffle along the seat.
    â€œI’ve never seen the Royal Crescent before,” I say. “And the view’s much better from up here.”
    He laughs, a happy, unguarded sound. “Your aunt would not approve,” he says.
    â€œWe’d better not tell her, then.”
    With a flick of the reins, the carriage lurches off, down the wide roads leading to Bath. Below us, people are going about their business with their heads down. The snow beneath their feet is churned and dirty, and more falls in fat wet flakes from the sky.
    â€œYou’re very good with the horses,” I say. “Easy with them, I mean.”
    After a beat of silence, he responds. “Yes, I’ve been working with Walthingham’s horses my whole life, like my father before me. It was a good place to grow up.”
    â€œAnd now that you’re grown?” I ask. “Will you stay there?”
    â€œI should think so,” he says. “Until I marry, of course.”
    He sounds so certain of himself that I smile. “Ah, you have someone in mind, then?”
    As soon as I’ve said it, I wonder if it’s a clumsy question.
    â€œThere’s not so much to it. It’s just a matter of finding the right girl,” he says, without looking at me.
    The right girl. If I were still the Katherine I was in Virginia, and John a farmer’s son from Paulstown—what then? Would we be like Elsie and Matt, sneaking off to the stables?
    I flush, suddenly fearful that he can read my thoughts, and sit up straighter. “ I mean to stay independent as long as I can,” I say. “I don’t wish to rush into a match.”
    A gaggle of children in scarves and hats cross the road in front of us, and John has to rein in sharply to let them pass. When we’re moving once more, he seems to have lost the thread of our conversation. “We’ll be at the Crescent soon,” he says, nodding ahead.
    â€œOh, I must have misspoken. I don’t wish to go to the Crescent.”
    â€œI thought you wished to visit Miss Dowling, my lady?”
    â€œNo, I won’t bother her so soon after the ball,” I say innocently. “I wish to go to the coaching house, where my brother would have departed from.”
    John frowns, and I know he isn’t fooled. But, tapping the horse smartly with the reins, he does as I say. I am, after all, the lady of Walthingham Hall.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    T HE COACHING HOUSE is called the King’s Head, and it’s a two-story half-timbered building in the center of the city, nestled among shops and stalls.
    I step carefully from the carriage into ice-crusted mud.
    John jumps down at my side. “I’ll come in with you, my lady.”
    â€œThere’s no need,” I reply.
    A steward directs me to a room near the main entrance, where a portly man is filling in a ledger behind a desk. He takes off his cap as I enter.
    â€œCan I help you, miss?” he says.
    I start to explain my predicament—that I’m looking to find the whereabouts of my brother, that I, too, should have been in the midday coach—when he holds up a meaty hand to interrupt me.
    â€œThe coach couldn’t go today, miss,” he says. “Not with the snow.”
    â€œOh,” I say. “Then perhaps my brother