The following day, Georgiana sat in the post chaise to Mecklemerry with a dark frown on her face. She watched fields and towns roll past but paid them scant attention. She was too busy trying not to squirm in discomfort. The almost overwhelming relief she had felt when she had climbed aboard the chaise several hours ago had long since dissipated and been replaced with abject misery, not least because there was absolutely nothing to do. She was bored; completely, unutterably fed up.

Her flight from her parent’s house at dawn had turned out to be a total success. Having crept out of the back door as silently as a ghost, Georgiana had carried the only bag she had all the way to Gilman in the dark. It was the most daring thing she had ever done in her life but she wasn’t sorry for it. In fact, given the choice she would do exactly the same thing again. Now, though, as well as her most prized possessions, she rather wished she had brought a cushion or something to sit on because the bench seat was darned uncomfortable.

“Excuse me,” she asked the elderly gentleman seated opposite. “Would you have the time?”

She studied the gold chain on his waistcoat and watched him remove a small fob-watch.

“It is a quarter past eleven,” the man replied. He looked at her over the top of his spectacles; a piercing kind of stare that forewarned her that he didn’t approve of her travelling alone.

As if to prove her suspicions he glanced pointedly around the empty carriage. “Do you not have a chaperone with you?”

Georgiana looked at him. She wanted to lie and tell him that her maid was on the roof seat but there was nobody else on this particular post chaise apart from the two of them.

“No,” Georgiana replied solemnly but saw no reason to tell this total stranger why not. It was none of his business. She hoped her silence assured him of her reluctance to tell him anything. Unfortunately, he ignored the hint and nodded thoughtfully as he looked out of the window. Then he tried again.

“My name is Henry Parker,” he announced with a kindly smile.

“Georgiana Bentley,” she murmured politely, but that was all she was going to divulge.

“Do you plan to alight at Tensign?” he asked thoughtfully.

Georgiana shook her head. “No.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him of her destination but then she closed her mouth with a snap and turned her attention back to the scenery outside the window. She hoped that by keeping her answers short and succinct he would take the hint. After several moments of silence, she heaved a sigh of relief that he wasn’t going to keep prying.

“That is a deep sigh, young lady,” Mr Parker murmured gently. “Far too deep for someone of your age.”

“My age?” she asked incredulously.

Mr Parker leaned forward. “Not married,” he corrected politely.

“How do you know I am not married?” Georgiana asked pertly.

“Because no sane man would leave a delightful young woman such as you to travel alone,” Mr Parker informed her bluntly. “You seem pensive. Are you expecting someone to come looking for you? An errant lover perhaps?”

Georgiana lifted her brows at him. The slight twinkle in his gaze assured her that he was teasing her in an attempt to break the silence so she forced herself to relax and enjoy the conversation. After all, there was nothing else to do during the journey except stare outside of the window and become increasingly aware of how uncomfortable she was.

“Should I?”

“Oh, come now,” Mr Parker murmured as he ran an assessing gaze over her. “I don’t mean to be impertinent but you are a well-dressed young woman who has obviously come from a loving home. You are out here, unchaperoned, going Heaven only knows where. Are you running away?”

“I don’t see how that is any of your concern,” Georgiana snapped.

Mr Parker lifted a placatory hand up. “I don’t want to overset you. I am just making observations. It is what I do; observe people. They can be the most interesting species sometimes; people.”

Georgiana nodded. “They can be overbearing, rude, and stupid too.”

Mr Parker nodded thoughtfully. “So it is best to try to avoid them,” he mused aloud.

“I shouldn’t expect you to understand,” she replied quietly.

“Oh? Why is that?”

Georgiana looked at him. “Because you are a man and have the ability to make decisions for yourself. Just because I am a female people immediately assume that I am incapable of, well, everything.”

“So you are here to prove a point,” the man replied matter-of-factly.

“No, I am here to do something for myself for a change. I am tired of having my life decided for me and being ignored for the person I am,” she huffed.

Georgiana realised from the silence that followed her outburst that she had said far too much and forced herself to stay quiet when she would have said more.

“So you are going on this little adventure to find your own way,” Mr Parker replied with a wry smile. “Might I enquire where you intend to go?”

Georgiana scowled at him. “Why? I cannot see that is any of your business.”

Mr Parker shrugged. “I am just making conversation. I find these journeys frightfully boring.” When Georgiana didn’t reply, he tried another tack. “I am here because I am returning from a journey by the sea. I have been to visit my son who has just had a child. Well, his wife has. While I have enjoyed my time there, I will be pleased to return to my home. I never sleep properly unless I am in my own bed, and can never relax completely unless I am in my own home.”

“I have never encountered any such problem,” she mused. “In fact, I don’t care where I sleep as long as I don’t have to spend my days looking at material for dresses and being told what to do by Cecily.”

“Cecily?” Mr Parker looked at her enquiringly.

“My mother.”

“Are you going home?” Mr Parker asked.

“No,” Georgiana replied. “I am going to stay with m-my-” she hesitated, “-a relation.”

Mr Parker nodded. “Well, I am sure you will find everything you are looking for there.”

“I am not so sure,” Georgiana sighed and met his gaze when she realised he was looking at her, waiting for her to explain. “I don’t know what I am looking for.” She realised then how inane that sounded and sighed again. “I mean, I do. I just need to stay with my aunt for a while. I just cannot get what I want now. It has gone forever. So I need to go and stay with my aunt so I can decide what I need to do.”

Now that she tried to explain it aloud she realised just how confused and uncertain she sounded. Mr Parker seemed to understand though and nodded thoughtfully.

“For yourself,” he murmured. It wasn’t a question.

Georgiana looked at him. “I suppose you consider me terribly selfish.”

“Not at all my dear. It is highly noble of you to do such a thing. However, if you would permit me to say just one thing?”

Georgiana nodded, pleased to have another person’s perspective on her problems.

“I should like you to think very carefully about what you are doing. If you truly can see no other way of resolving the situation that troubles you so then you must do what you must. It is up to you and you only. There are other ways to rid yourself of a certain situation, and it may not mean sacrificing everything you have ever known.”

“How?” Georgiana whispered. He had no idea what her circumstances were and was only trying to help, but he didn’t understand the hurt she carried so couldn’t really advise her. “I am in this by myself.”

“If going to your relation is a way of stepping away from whatever problem troubles you, then I would recommend you go,” he held up one finger. “But not only that, stay there. Remember, you can never run away from yourself. Your problems will always stay with you. At some point you will have to stop and deal with whatever troubles you. So, when you get to your relative’s home stay there, no matter what anybody says to you-until you consider it is right to move on. Hopefully, you will decide to go home again. If not, then you will naturally accept that whatever it is you left behind was never right for you in the first place. It is a certain set of circumstances you have been born into not something you have chosen for yourself. As such, you will need to break free from it, to end whatever misery it brings you. As long as you keep yourself safe, and don’t take unnecessary risks, what harm can there be in taking time to yourself for a while?”

Georgiana snorted. “My mother will undoubtedly be a weeping, wailing husk of misery by now who cannot possibly carry on until I am returned, and my father will be pacing before the fire, blustering as always. Neither of them will make any attempt to do anything practical themselves. They will turn to my brothers, who will huff and puff and reluctantly come after me if only to order me to return home so they can go back to their lives. If they run true to form they will then try to blackmail me, or threaten me but then will try to cajole me, and then plead outright for me to do as Cecily demands. When they fail, as they invariably do, they will send Will.”

“Oh,” Mr Parker murmured with a nod. Whoever this Will was, he had a strong influence over Georgiana given the way her breath hitched whenever she spoke his name.

When he began to study her carefully, she realised that Mr Parker was waiting for her to tell him more. “Will is a family friend,” she sighed. “He was–is–my brothers’ friend.”

“Oh,” Mr Parker murmured again.

Georgiana squinted at him when he continued to stare at her but his gaze was more thoughtful than probing. When he didn’t ask her anything else, she turned her attention to the village they travelled through. People were going about their day on the street outside, seemingly unencumbered by the issues that faced Georgiana. She wished she could be one of them.

“If only,” she whispered.

“Pardon?” Mr Parker murmured.

“Nothing,” she replied with a sigh. She had no intention of telling him about any of that.

As they left the village behind and began to journey through yet more countryside, Georgiana turned her thoughts to what Mr Parker had said. She was right to leave, in spite of the worry she had caused her parents. It still didn’t ease her conscience, though, which weighed heavily on her shoulders with each mile that passed.

“I don’t feel guilty,” she whispered after a while. “Selfish, maybe, but not guilty.”

“You shouldn’t feel either,” Mr Parker replied. “Sometimes you have to be selfish, especially if you are surrounded by people who don’t really see you.”

Georgiana nodded. “They never do,” she replied honestly. The worst culprit for that was Will.

“If he cares about you he will come after you, but only because he wants to make sure that you are alright,” Mr Parker murmured gently into the silence.

Georgiana considered denying there was any ‘him’ in this sorry tale of woe, but couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. Instead, she shook her head.

“I don’t want him to come after me. He doesn’t care about me. If he does turn up, it will be because he is duty-bound to do so because of his association with my family. It will never be because he cares about me. He is engaged to someone else,” she replied, unmindful of how much information she had divulged Mr Parker, who shifted in his seat and studied her a little more closely now that she had revealed a bit more information.

“So he can’t come after you,” he said with a nod of understanding. “Well, that’s his loss then, isn’t it?”

Georgiana offered him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I don’t want to see him again. Really, I don’t,” she whispered. “I just need to get on with my life now and forget about everything I left back in Cranbury.”

Once again, Mr Parker’s ears pricked up. He studied the young woman’s clothing a little more closely. There was only one William in the region of Cranbury whom everybody had heard about, mainly because he was the son of Lord Abrams. If it was the same person, he was curious to witness how this set of circumstances played themselves out, especially given that he had yet to hear of the son intending to marry anyone. 

Georgiana mulled over what she had just said. If she was honest, Cranbury wasn’t home anymore. Even saying the word ‘Cranbury’ didn’t leave her with even a hint of homesickness she had expected.

“Cranbury hasn’t been my home for a long time now,” she murmured softly.

In fact, Cranbury stood as a haunting reminder of a childhood full of girlish dreams that would never be fulfilled. She was glad to be rid of it, but she didn’t say as much to Mr Parker. There are some things a woman needs to keep to herself.