The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston Page A

heard of gas lighting. Give me London any day. London is a city as is a city, and the people which live there are a respectable lot compared to these shifty types, cheat you as soon as look at you; you don’t need to understand their language to know that, you can see it in their eyes.”
    On the first occasion that Alethea had been in Paris, she had accompanied the Wyttons on a visit to her sister Georgina, who was married to a rich Englishman. Sir Joshua had left England in a hurry after killing his man in a duel, and he had stayed in France ever since. Georgina had run off with him in the most outrageous manner, but that was an old scandal now, and one that had been well hushed up. As Lady Mordaunt, she was the mother of twin boys, and those who had forecast nothing but misery from the match had been quite confounded. Sir Joshua was dotingly fond of his beautiful young wife, and a proud father. Georgina had quickly found her feet in Parisian society, and had been at pains to show her little sister—who was quite half a head taller than her—how smart and infinitely superior this world was to London.
    â€œWhere the drawing rooms are full of bucolics, where eminent men are excluded from salons unless their fathers are lords. How much more civilised we are here in Paris! And so you will find when you have your come-out; I shall insist that Mama brings you to Paris so that you see for yourself how very superior the society here is.”
    Alethea, who wasn’t given to being impressed, and who had never had much respect for either of her twin sisters, had said that it seemed to suit Georgina, while privately thinking what a nonsense it all was.
    And how different was her second visit to Paris in comparison with the prospect of delights that Georgina had planned for her. Alethea looked down at her drab coat and laughed.
    Figgins was full of disapproval at Alethea’s plan to call on her sister.
    â€œMight as well announce to the whole world that you are here!”
    â€œNo, for I shall not call on her in her house, but send her a message to meet me somewhere quite private. A park, or some such place, where no one will take any notice of us.”
    â€œAnd she’ll bring that long-nosed husband of hers along with her, and he’ll get on his high horse at the very idea of any young woman scurrying away from her husband like you have done, and say that you must stay under close supervision while word is sent to England of where you are.”
    â€œGeorgina will come alone, when she reads what I have to write.”
    â€œAnd go dashing back to tell Sir Joshua the very instant she can.”
    â€œWhich will do her no good, for I shan’t tell her where I’m putting up, and she wouldn’t imagine for a moment that I’d stay in an inn such as the Poisson d’Or. Besides, she’ll be looking for Mrs. Napier, not for Aloysius Hawkins.”
    Alethea donned the single gown Figgins had thoughtfully put into her portmanteau, rolled up tight inside a pair of breeches, in case of a nosy chambermaid discovering it. Alethea hadn’t thought it necessary, and said so, but Figgins knew better.
    â€œMiss Camilla, Mrs. Wytton, I should say, is very free and easy in her ways, but she didn’t take to your hopping about London in breeches when you was younger, and you want her to help you, not go exclaiming about you cavorting across Europe dressed like a man.”
    It wasn’t a smart gown, and it drew instant criticism from Georgina.
    â€œYou look such a dowd! And what an ugly bonnet; wherever did you buy such a dreadful thing?”
    â€œIt’s the fashion in London,” Alethea said untruthfully; she had sent Figgins out to buy the hat from a drapers in the next street to their inn.
    Figgins had disapproved of it every bit as much as Georgina. “For it is a nasty, unfashionable object, and one that no lady should be seen in.”
    â€œI’m not a lady,