A Search for Refuge

  © 2018 by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-1284-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Cover design by Jennifer Parker

  Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC

  Author is represented by Natasha Kern Literary Agency.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek of Book 1 in the Haven Manor Series

  About the Author

  Books by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Back Ads

  Chapter One

  MARLBOROUGH, ENGLAND

  1804

  Margaretta had used the word desperate many times in her life, but she’d never truly known the meaning until she stood in the open door of a mail coach, clutching an eight-month-old letter and praying that someone in this minuscule market town would know where the writer had gone when she moved on.

  And that Margaretta could find that writer before Samuel Albany found her.

  Because that writer was Margaretta’s last hope. And hope was something Margaretta desperately needed to find. In the truest sense of the word.

  “Are you getting out here, miss?”

  Margaretta forced her gaze away from the broad stone-cobbled street lined with red-bricked buildings and porticoed storefronts. The man holding the door and growing justifiably impatient wore the red coat of the English mail service and thick layer of travel dust. To him, Margaretta likely appeared a woman without a care in the world compared to his current discomfort.

  If he knew she was running for her life, would he still think that?

  Not that it mattered. His opinion couldn’t matter. No one’s could. Margaretta knew the truth, knew what decisions she would be willing to live with, and that was all that could be allowed to matter.

  “Yes, I’m getting off.” She shoved the letter into the pocket of her bright yellow cloak and wrapped her hand around the worn leather handle of her valise. The heavy bag bumped against her knee as she climbed down, threatening to toss her on top of the dirty mail worker and flatten his nose even more. She jumped instead, jarring her knees as her walking boots hit the ground. It was an unladylike exit from the vehicle to say the least, but far better than landing on the ground on her backside.

  Blowing a hard breath out between pursed lips, Margaretta stepped to the side and set her valise at her feet. She adjusted the hood of her cloak so that it shadowed her face. Yes, it made it difficult to see around her, but it also kept people from seeing her. She’d much rather people remember the enormous hood of a ridiculous bright yellow cloak than her face. As a woman traveling alone on the stage, people were going to look at her. It was either wear something memorable and distracting or cover herself in the somber colors of mourning, which she wasn’t willing to do. That would be like admitting defeat before she’d even begun.

  Lifting her valise, she turned her head to survey the town with a critical eye. It was charming, with a considerable openness she’d never experienced in London, but she didn’t have the luxury of standing around, pondering the benefits of fresh air and space. Her time was limited, her funds even more so. If she was going to solve her problems before both of those commodities ran out, she was going to have to be smart. And while she’d tried very hard to always be prudent and practical, clever had never been required of her.

  She slid a hand into her pocket and curled it around the already wrinkled paper. Her friend Katherine had always been clever, though, and Margaretta was counting on being able to follow her friend’s clever path to make sure everything turned out as it should and everyone stayed safe for at least the next few months.

  Hopefully Katherine hadn’t been so clever that Margaretta’s efforts were entirely futile. This letter was the last connection Margaretta had to her friend, and it held pitifully little information.

  Exhaustion crowded Margaretta’s mind. She’d been traveling for three days straight, taking mail coach after mail coach on a wide route around London to avoid anyone who might be looking for her. As long as everyone thought her safely tucked away in Margate, sea-bathing with Mrs. Hollybroke and her daughters, she would have time. Time to hide, time to come up with a plan, time to accomplish the impossible task of finding Katherine. Since complete disappearance seemed to be part of Katherine’s solution, Margaretta could only hope her letter was the start of a small trail of breadcrumbs.

  So the questions was, if Margaretta wanted to find someone who didn’t particularly want to be found—where would she start?

  Her stomach grumbled and clenched, reminding her that the meat pie she’d consumed at a roadside inn for breakfast had been eaten a very long time ago.

  She wasn’t going to do anyone any good, particularly not herself, if she collapsed from hunger and weariness in the middle of the street. Food and lodging first, then. Tomorrow she could start her search.

  The large three-gabled inn to her right looked promising and comfortable. It also looked like it catered to the expensive tastes of those traveling from London on the stagecoaches. Not only would staying there make her purse dwindle faster than she’d like, it would also put her at risk of running into someone she knew. She couldn’t have anyone going back to London with the news that Margaretta was in Marlborough.

  So she started walking. Away from the inn and the delightful smells drifting out of it. Away from the coach and the people with whom she’d spent the past several hours sharing a tiny space.

  Away from everything she was familiar with.

  Travel was something she’d done a great deal of in her life. One didn’t have a father in the business of saddles and harnesses without getting a chance or two to test out the leather creations. But never had she wandered alone, away from the areas populated with other travelers like herself.

  A deep breath trembled its way into her tight lungs. She could do this. One foot in front of the other. Breathing in for two steps and out for two steps. Absorb the idyllic calm of the wide street that grew quieter the farther she got from the stable. Find something to focus on and just keep moving until a solution presented itself. It was a scary prospect that made her normally pragmatic self shake in her boots, but for the past month and a half it had served her well. Pick a point and move toward it.

  Farther down the street, a woman swept the pavement in front of a store. The sign simply read Lancaster’s, but the array of bundled herbs hanging in the window and the barrels of food beneath indicated the store was l
ikely a grocer. Margaretta’s stomach grumbled again. It wouldn’t be a gourmet meal, but if she could patch together a meal of fruit and cheese and perhaps other foods not requiring much preparation, she’d spend less than half of what she’d have to spend in an inn’s public room.

  It was as good as any other option she had at the moment. Her lips flattened into a line of determination as she gathered her strength together and moved toward the grocer, trying to ignore the nervous fear that made her want to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was following her.

  Nash Banfield stepped away from the door to his office and followed the woman down the street.

  Given the location of his office just off Marlborough’s central street, he’d seen many a person disembark from a variety of carriages. Normally he paid them only mild attention, but the brightness of this woman’s cloak had been impossible to miss as she paused in the door of the carriage, a spot of sunshine framed by faded, dusty paint and the thin grey clouds that covered the sky.

  Clouds that made it strange that she took time to pull the enormous hood over her head, shielding her dark hair and pale skin from view.

  No one had joined her, and she’d claimed none of the trunks and bags being removed from the top of the carriage. Instead she’d taken her lone leather valise and walked with firm strides away from the coach, the inn, and all of the people.

  Nash had been a solicitor for many years, and he’d rarely seen anything good come from someone traveling alone, traveling light, and hiding her face.

  He’d seen that face for only a few moments before the hood had cast the strong brows and full mouth into deep shadow. From this distance, he couldn’t make out the emotion riding her features, but there had been little doubt of the strength with which she felt it. It was evident in the square of her shoulders, the press of her lips, the determination in her pace.

  In Nash’s experience, strong emotion of any kind had the potential to turn dangerous.

  Mr. Tucker, a well-dressed man who owned one of the local cheese factories, passed her, tipping his hat as he went.

  The woman didn’t acknowledge him, and instead turned away to cross the street. The folds of her yellow cloak swirled around her, revealing a dress of deep blue underneath it.

  Nash pressed his lips into a flat line as he clasped his hands together at his lower back and waited, watching to see where she was going. It wasn’t that a stranger in town was anything new. Many people dressed as fine as she and considerably finer came through town, viewing it as a humble and rustic resting point between London and Bath.

  Most of those people didn’t take the mail coach, though.

  In a few days, the town would be bursting with people—strangers and locals alike. When the weekly market came to town, Marlborough would explode with people. The wide cobblestoned street would be filled to capacity, if not beyond it, and noise would echo from the tall roofs and narrow side alleys. But right now, the town was quiet.

  It was a small community; only two parishes divided the town, and the people who roamed the streets and did their business during the week were close. They’d surrounded Nash after the death of his sister, helped him heal from the final loss of the last person he had held so dear, kept him from retreating into a dark and consuming melancholy that he feared would come for him.

  They’d become his family.

  Nash’s hands dropped to his side, and his natural inquisitive curiosity shifted toward grave concern as it became evident that the woman was walking straight for Mrs. Lancaster’s store. The older woman had kept the business after the death of her husband, continuing to provide a place for Marlborough’s residents to buy food, spices, and a variety of other items during the week without waiting for the crush of Saturday’s market. But the woman was generous to a fault, particularly to young women. She’d befriended many of the ladies who worked in the local poorhouses and replaced more than one little girl’s wooden graces hoop without asking for a penny in return.

  When Mr. Lancaster had gotten sick, he’d asked Nash to promise to look after his wife. That had been nearly five years ago, but it hadn’t taken long for Nash to learn that watching over Mrs. Lancaster wasn’t easy, considering the fact that the woman never did anything in a way that could remotely be considered normal. Nash dreaded the day someone took advantage of the old widow’s kindness.

  Someone like a woman who got off a stage and headed straight for the grocer. Perhaps she knew she’d be able to trade a sad story for gain.

  He pushed off from the wall and strolled down the street. The people of Marlborough had saved him eight years ago. This town was the only family he had left. He was ready to protect it if necessary.

  Margaretta’s eyes widened as she took in the shelves and barrels of foodstuffs, herbs, and a myriad of other things she’d have never thought to find in a grocer. Did they have stores like this in London? She’d never really done the shopping in London, at least not for food. Ribbons and hats and gloves were interesting, but they didn’t provide the same visual texture and smells as a room full of culinary potential.

  Everywhere she looked she saw something else, something she wanted to remember next time she sat with the housekeeper to dither over the menu, to make slight adjustments in the planned dishes and anticipate how excited her father would be to have something new on the table that evening.

  Of course, it would be a long time before she could return to their townhouse in London and while away the morning with a menu and her imagination. Right now, she was more interested in the baskets of late-season apples and nectarines and was giving serious consideration to eating them in a back alley despite the fact that they were raw. She was simply too hungry to care and didn’t have a means to cook them anyway.

  The woman she’d passed as she entered hummed as she followed Margaretta inside and stored her broom in a nook near the door. The tune was vaguely familiar. A song she’d heard in church, perhaps? It was not a tune that lent itself to dancing so it couldn’t have been from a ballroom.

  Margaretta’s mouth watered as her senses adjusted to the quiet of the grocer after the noise of the traveling coach. She could smell cheese and bread in addition to the various herbs and spices that filled more shelves. It was a welcome change from horses and the unwashed bodies of travelers. The room was dim, forcing her to push her hood back, so she kept her back to the door as the woman approached.

  “Well, now, don’t get many customers fresh off the stage. What can I get you?” The woman rounded the counter. She was spry, though her right foot drug a bit behind her as she walked. Age rested comfortably on her round face, framed by a few gray-streaked brown curls escaping from the cap on her head.

  “Two of each of these, please.” Margaretta indicated the fruit baskets as she set her bag on the floor in front of her feet, making sure to drape the edge of her cloak over it. “Perhaps a bit of cheese and a small loaf of that bread.”

  The lady nodded and began bundling Margaretta’s choices in a piece of brown paper while she talked. “This is the best bread in the county, but don’t tell Mr. Abbot at the bakery down the street. Still irks him that I sell loaves for Cecily White in my store, but there’s nothing he can do about it. You’re lucky she was late bringing them in today. I usually sell out by noon.”

  Margaretta carefully counted coins from her reticule. She couldn’t help but smile as the woman prattled on, but her expression turned into an embarrassed frown when her stomach rumbled a loud protest at the delay of food.

  Without pausing her sentence, the woman tore off a chunk of the bread and handed it to Margaretta before wrapping the rest of the loaf in the parcel. “Now if you’re wanting biscuits, I’ll send you down to Mr. Abbot. He sells the best, though his daughter is the one what actually makes them. But we all pretend his wife does it, even though she struggles to even roll out a pie crust. What business that woman had marrying a baker is beyond me.”

  The woman looked up with a wink. “Oh, hello there, Mr. Banfield
. What brings you by today?”

  Her eyes cut to Margaretta as she spoke, giving the distinct impression that the older woman believed her customer had been the lure for the gentleman’s visit instead of the vast array of foodstuffs.

  Margaretta tried to look at the newcomer out of the corner of her eye. All she could see as he doffed his top hat was a mass of dark hair and a simple brown single-caped great coat.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Lancaster. I’m afraid I ran out of peppermints.” He stopped next to Margaretta at the counter.

  Mrs. Lancaster gave a half laugh. “Well, come on back here and get them, then. You know where they are since you just purchased a tin two days ago.”

  The man stepped behind the counter and crossed behind the old shopkeeper. His bright blue eyes focused on Margaretta as he passed, and she tried not to stare back, but was still able to make out a straight, thin nose and strong chin.

  “Have you met this lovely young lady yet?” Mrs. Lancaster asked as she took Margaretta’s money.

  Mr. Banfield turned, a small tin in his hand and a half smile on his lips. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “Me either.” The woman grinned at him, her face settling into the lines of a smile with comfortable ease, proving that all the wrinkles in her face weren’t put there by age. “We can indulge ourselves together, then, shall we?”

  Margaretta swallowed two nibbles of bread down hard as the woman’s wide smile beamed in her direction. She wanted to take her food and run, to hold on to her privacy and anonymity, but she was going to have to talk to people if she wanted to find Katherine, and it would be much less suspicious if she talked to everyone. So she did her best to smile back.

  “I’m Mrs. Lancaster, dearie. And this here is one of our local solicitors, Mr. Banfield. Seeing as you’re new in town, we’re probably the best two people to know. I know all the best places to get into trouble, and he knows how to get you out of it.”

  Her cackling laugh sounded considerably younger than she appeared, with a lilt to it that could take the edge off of any number of potentially offensive statements.