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piece into her bag, Joan blew out a deep breath. “Well, it’s time.” She slapped her legs and stood.
    Telling Margaret to wait in the room, Joan picked up her valise and crept down the corridor to listen at the top of the stairs. She waved Margaret forward. Margaret slipped from the room, quietly closing the door behind her. She followed Joan down the stairs on tiptoe, barely allowing herself to breathe. They descended one pair of stairs and then another without encountering anyone coming up. At the top of the basement steps, Joan motioned her to wait while she checked the passage below.
    The maid’s head soon popped back into view and again she waved Margaret down. Together they hurried along the narrow basement passageway, past the kitchen, to the service door at its far end. Joan opened it for her.
    Margaret had just stepped through when a voice called from the kitchen behind them.
    â€œJoan? Who’s that with you?”
    Margaret hesitated, unsure if she should run or turn around. Joan’s firm hand on her arm kept her from doing either.
    â€œâ€™Tis only my sister, come to collect me,” Joan said. “You heard I got the push?”
    â€œOh, Joan. I did,” the female voice commiserated. “And sorry I was to hear it.”
    â€œI didn’t steal anything, for the record.”
    â€œOf course you didn’t. I’d wager he mislaid the money or spent it hisself. Or that nephew of his pinched it. Not fair is it?”
    â€œNo, Mary, it’s not fair.”
    â€œGoing to your sister’s, then, are you?”
    â€œUntil I find another place.” Joan gave Margaret a little shove, and she lurched forward, tripping on the bottom step before starting up the outside stairs.
    â€œGood-bye, Joan, and Godspeed.”
    Margaret reached street level as Joan trotted up the stairs behind her.
    â€œLet’s go,” the maid whispered, without a backward glance.
    Margaret, however, looked over her shoulder several times as they crossed the square, fearing any moment the hovering footman or Sterling himself would appear behind them. But all was quiet save for the clicking of their bootheels and the distant clip-clop-clatter of horse hooves on cobblestones.
    They had made it.
    What now? She’d known only that she had to get out of Benton’s house that very night. In her panicked hurry she had not even left her mother a note. Even if she had, she knew very well Sterling would have read it. And lost no time in following any unintentional clues it held to find Margaret and drag her back. What would she have written at any rate? She didn’t know where she was going beyond Billingsgate. And Joan had made it clear this would only be a brief stay until she found other employment. Margaret hoped it would buy her enough time to figure out her next step. She would write to her mother then.
    Ahead of her, Joan strode briskly on, and Margaret strained and panted to keep up. On the next street, a man leaning in a shadowed doorway leered at them. Two militiamen whistled as they passed. Margaret decided she did not like walking London streets at night. “Joan? Joan, wait!” Her voice shook. “How far did you say it was?”
    Joan glanced over her shoulder. “Three or four miles, I’d reckon.”
    Margaret swallowed. Perhaps she ought to risk going to Emily Lathrop’s house instead. It could be no more than a mile or two away.
    She recalled the last time she had gone to the Lathrops’ in Red Lion Square. She had been vexed with Marcus and Sterling both, and hoped to beg an invitation to stay with Emily for a time. But she had not been in the Lathrops’ drawing room an hour when she heard Sterling Benton’s name announced and had to sit there while he lamented that her mother had taken ill and needed her at home.
    It had all been a ruse. Her mother was in perfect health, although she had been “sick with worry,” and quite