Surrender to Sin by Tamara Lejeune

and Mrs. Spurgeon suddenly confided to Abigail that her bladder was no bigger than a button. “We shall be obliged to stop at every half mile. Inconvenient, I know, but it can’t be helped.”
    “Inconvenient” proved to be rather an optimistic view of things. At their fourth stop, Abigail looked longingly at the baggage coach as it went on ahead of them. Refreshed after a nap and a pot of tea, Mrs. Spurgeon proposed letting Cato loose in the carriage for the rest of the journey. Abigail objected in the most strenuous terms.
    “You would not keep a child in a cage for two hours together, Miss Smith,” cried Mrs. Spurgeon, quite shocked by the young woman’s cruelty.
    “I might,” said Abigail, rather tartly, “if the child had claws and a beak.”
    “Claws and a beak! Beaks and claws!” screamed the macaw.
    “There’s really nothing to be afraid of,” Mrs. Spurgeon said smugly, opening Cato’s cage and allowing the large bird to climb on her shoulder.
    Abigail shuddered in revulsion. Cato had more in common with a small dragon than with the sweet little tame goldfinches she herself kept at home.
    “Don’t worry,” Vera Nashe assured her. “I’ll give him a cuttlebone to chew.”
    “Do please keep him on your side,” Abigail urged Mrs. Spurgeon, just as the scarlet macaw, sensing her fear, beat his wings and crossed the distance between them. His long gray talons closed on Abigail’s shoulder and his beak fastened on her ear. One icy blue eye peered into hers. “Claws and a beak!” he croaked.
    Abigail screamed in terror, and Mrs. Nashe was obliged to rescue her.
    Mrs. Spurgeon said repressively, “It’s really only a tiny amount of blood, Vera,” as Mrs. Nashe pressed her handkerchief to Abigail’s torn earlobe and Cato returned to his mistress.
    Fortunately, Mrs. Spurgeon had not exaggerated the extreme smallness of her bladder. When the chaise stopped at the next inn on the Great North Road, Abigail quickly escaped. She was relieved to see the baggage coach standing in the yard. Without bidding her chaperone adieu, she sought refuge in it, unceremoniously knocking a bandbox from the seat next to Paggles, who opened her shawl and wrapped her young lady up in it. The scent of lavender, which had comforted Abigail since she was a child, soon lulled her to sleep in the swaying coach.
    Evans woke her as they drew near the inn at Tanglewood Green. Paggles’s white head was resting on Abigail’s shoulder, and the young woman gently moved it aside to look out the window. Snow was falling thickly, and the sky was quite gray, but, despite this, the Tudor Rose was doing a roaring trade, judging by the amount of traffic.
    “The river’s frozen ten feet thick,” the hostler explained to Abigail, who had not yet judged it safe to leave the carriage, “and all the young people do be skating on it.” The coach had driven across a broad stone bridge less than half a mile back, and Abigail guessed that the inn’s back garden went down to the banks of the same river. The Tudor Rose was a charming half-timbered building, and, had it not been so crowded, Abigail would have been glad to go in.
    “Would you be wanting a hot cup of cider, love?” The hostler winked at her slyly, and Abigail realized the man must have mistaken her for a servant, not surprising as she was traveling with the baggage.
    “No, thank you! Is Mr. Wayborn here to meet us?” she inquired from the window. “I am one of the new tenants for the Dower House.”
    “The young squire’s been called away, miss,” he said more respectfully. “He waited for you all the morning. He left word for you to be looked after here. I can send a boy after him.”
    A few young men were jostling about in the yard and one of them looked at her saucily. “It’s far too crowded for us to stay here,” Abigail said decisively. “I believe we must go on.”
    “The young squire—” the hostler began.
    “Mr. Wayborn would not expect you to argue with