Promise Me Tomorrow by Candace Camp Page A

‘warn.’ There must have been something sinister about the man.”
    “Well, if Ruth thinks he’s a Bow Street Runner, then she would think he’s wantin’ to arrest you.” Winny gnawed at her lip. “It worries me.”
    “It is unsettling,” Marianne agreed. “If someone who knew me as Mary Chilton, who knew I was only an orphan and a housemaid, saw me masquerading as a lady, they could have guessed, I suppose, that I was doing something havey-cavey.”
    “And gone to the trouble of hiring a Bow Street Runner?” Winny asked skeptically. The Bow Street Runners, though they pursued criminals, had to be hired.
    “That seems rather absurd, too, doesn’t it? The thing is, if it was someone we nabbed a few things from, someone with the blunt to hire a Bow Street Runner, they would know me as Mrs. Cotterwood. They wouldn’t send the man to Quartermaine Hall looking for Mary Chilton.”
    “Maybe it was someone like you said, who saw you and had known you as Mary Chilton.” Winny’s eyes widened as a thought struck. “Maybe it was someone who had visited the Hall, and when they saw you again, they knew you were a housemaid.”
    “You think they would remember a maid that well?”
    “One that looks like you, they would,” Winny replied bluntly. “And then they saw you at a party, say, in Bath.”
    “And when some things went missing, they suspected me?” Marianne nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. But they had been introduced to me as Cotterwood. They would have looked for me under that name. Surely they would not have remembered my name from ten years ago.”
    “But what if they looked for Mrs. Cotterwood and couldn’t find you? What if it was after we came back to London?”
    “So they decided to trace me through the Quartermaines.” Marianne sighed. “Oh, Lord! As if things weren’t bad enough! Winny, what should I do? If I’ve brought the Bow Street Runners down upon us—” Tears sprang into her eyes. “I’m ruining everything!”
    “No, you’re not,” Winny assured her friend stoutly. “They’ve all made ever so much more money because of you, and you know it. This is just a patch of bad luck. It happens sometimes. You couldn’t help it if someone recognized you.” She smiled and added, “Cheer up. Maybe it’ll turn out to be your long-lost relations after all. The gypsies took you, and they just now found out where you went.”
    Marianne smiled. “Perhaps. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. And apparently they found a dead end at the Hall, so they won’t know where to come looking for me.” She reached out and hugged Winny. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
    “Don’t be daft. It’s me who’d a been lost without you. Go on with you, now. You need to be getting to bed.”
    Marianne nodded and went upstairs, but before she went to her bedroom, she stopped at the small room next door to hers and tiptoed inside. The curtains were open, as Rosalind liked them, and moonlight cast a pale wash across the room. Marianne moved to the side of the bed and stood for a moment gazing down at her daughter. Rosalind’s dark curly hair had escaped from her braid, as was usually the case, and spilled across her pillow. Long, dark eyelashes shadowed her porcelain cheeks, and the little rosebud mouth was open slightly. She was a handful during the day, smart and lively, full of questions about everything, but now she looked like an angel. Marianne reached down and moved the covers up over her shoulders and brushed a kiss across her forehead. She might despise the man who had done this to her, but she had never felt anything but an intense love for this child. Rosalind was her life, and the desire to protect her and nurture her was always uppermost in her mind. Whoever this man was looking for her, and whatever he wanted, she must make sure that nothing he did harmed Rosalind.
    Finally she turned and left her daughter’s room, slipping down the hall to her