Read Online Fates and Traitors by Jennifer Chiaverini - Free Book Online

of Byron in dresses and petticoats for protection, concealing her purse with her modest savings in the back, taking cloaks and shawls and stockings suitable for both fair weather and cold. Then she descended the stairs tokiss her mother and father good night, fighting back tears when they told her they loved her and would see her in the morning. She knew that it would break their hearts to find her bedchamber empty the next day, but she prayed that God would forgive her and comfort them.
    As she stood before them, struggling to speak, to disguise her torment, her mother rested her knitting on her lap, her brow furrowing in concern. “Mary Ann, my dear child.” Her black hair was plaited in a long braid, with only a faint trace of silver threaded through the glossy mass. She had been a great beauty in her youth and could have had any man of the borough she had wanted, and she had married Mary Ann’s father for his kindness and piety. “Is everything all right?”
    â€œOf course,” she lied, forcing a smile. “I’m merely tired.”
    â€œSleep is the best cure for that,” her father said, setting aside his Bible and regarding her fondly. “Remember to say your prayers.”
    She promised him she would and hurried upstairs before they glimpsed the tears in her eyes.
    Alone in her bedchamber, she doused the lamp and lay beneath the coverlet fully clothed, listening to the faint sounds of her parents retiring for the night, starting at every banging shutter and creaking windowpane. Shortly after midnight, Junius’s signal came; the scratching of a long branch against her window. She threw back the covers, lighted the lantern, straightened her dress, smoothed her hair—and, lastly, fastened her lovely new brooch to the throat of her dress. The exquisite piece of jewelry was a gift from Junius; when she had pledged him her love, he had taken Byron’s miniature on ivory to a jeweler, who backed it in gold and set it for a brooch, a beautiful, unique ornament in lieu of a wedding ring.
    She crept down the stairs and opened the door to her beloved Junius. He kissed her before following her inside and up to her bedchamber to retrieve her trunk, which he carried downstairs and outside to the waiting carriage. Her heart thumped at every creak of the floorboards; her ears strained for the sound of her parents sitting up in bed, lighting a candle, her mother sobbing, her father following in pursuit.
    The house was silent. She heard a baby cry next door, a dog bark several blocks away, but her parents slumbered peacefully on.
    When Junius settled her into the carriage, she gasped, suddenly remembering something precious left behind—Junius’s letters, nearlyone hundred of them hidden at the bottom of her wardrobe, sorted according to the week and bound with ribbon left over from tying bouquets. “I’ve forgotten something.”
    â€œWhat is it?” Junius caressed her cheek tenderly. “Wait here. I’ll fetch it for you.”
    â€œNo, it’s too great a risk.” If her parents woke and caught her in mid-flight, her resolve would crumble. “Let’s go.”
    He nodded, and a moment later, the carriage swiftly carried her away from the only home she had ever known.
    Let Junius’s words remain behind as a testament to true love. Perhaps after her parents read them, they would understand.
    They traveled first to Deal on the southeastern coast of England, giddily celebrating their escape by taking a room at a seaside inn and arranging for supper to be sent up to them, bread and potatoes roasted with leeks and rosemary. Junius cherished all living things, he told her, and he refused to eat the flesh of any beast, fish, or fowl. “Man was not intended to make Earth a slaughterhouse of innocent animals,” he said, making her deeply regret suggesting the pheasant.
    He had signed the register “J. B. Booth and wife,” which sent a