A Secret Ambition

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"Tonight isn't about drowning sorrows; it's about floating on them." Daniel Ruczko, Pieces of a Broken Mind

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The journey to Plymouth had been unlike any other journey Lily had taken in her life. The coach that she had paid her way onto was not at all like the carriages and curricles that she was used to at Ashwood. It was a tight squeeze shared with six other passengers in a carriage surely only built for four travellers.

Had Lily been any taller or wider that her slight frame, she certainly would not have fit. That being said, she had spent the vast majority of the long journey squashed up against the window beside a large man and his wife.

Conversation was rare on the journey, and Lily did not try to initiate any. She was already a young lady travelling alone. She did not want to draw any more attention than that. The hope that she had was that her fellow travellers believed her to be running away from home, or perhaps a wicked husband or father.

But she did not have a wicked husband. She had a betrayed Callan.

And she did not have a wicked father. She had a bitterly disappointed papa.

Night had fallen by the time that the carriage pulled into the port town of Plymouth. The coach had stopped many times along the long and arduous journey, but now that they were arrived, Lily's stomach felt like it was in her throat. As she stepped out of the carriage, and stretched her cramped legs, she took in all that she could see around her.

The darkness in Plymouth was certainly not like the darkness in London. Streetlamps were not to be seen, and the only light was the dim glows provided through the windows of the inns and taverns nearby. Lily could hear the taverns more than she could see them.

But when she looked out into the distance, she saw true pitch black. She did not need it to be light to know what was out there. She could hear the sea, and she could smell it. The salt in the air was pungent. Atop the blackness glowed little fireflies ... or what looked like them. As it was a port town, Lily deduced the fireflies to be the illuminated windows of the docked ships.

Was one of them Callan's?

The door to the tavern nearest to where the coach had stopped suddenly opened, and two men appeared to help the driver begin to pass down the trunks that had been stored atop the carriage. The passengers began to distribute and claim their possessions and Lily stepped away from them. She had brought nothing with her save for her cloak and her pin money.

As Lily stepped away, she was suddenly cloaked by more than the one around her shoulders. She was cloaked by the immense darkness ... and by her own fear entirely.

She was so far from home, so far from what she knew, and so far from the people she loved. She knew that leaving as she had would have only disappointed them all further, but she could not live with herself if she had done nothing to prevent Callan's ruin. Especially when it was all her fault in the first place.

But making the journey was one thing. Now that she was standing alone on a dark Plymouth street, Lily had never felt smaller or more insignificant. Where did she even begin? Was Sir Richard already here? Was she too late? Had he already been and spoiled Callan's import and Lily's flight was all for nothing?

Her thoughts were racing, and her heart was pounding as she turned her head this way and that, as if the right way to go would miraculously illuminate.

She couldn't remember how many days it had been since she had conveyed her message to Sir Richard, but Lily didn't feel as though she had any time to waste by trying to find a bed for the night, not that she was certain any of the establishments along this road served women anyway.