by Lynn Kerstan
On the whole, John decided, knight-errantry suited him to the nines. He’d a gallant charger between his thighs, a sunny spring day to begin his quest, and a fair maiden for the claiming. Already he’d slain a dragon for her . . . well, drawn his cork, but the baron would think twice and then again before baring his rotted teeth to his daughter. Pen didn’t know it yet, but she had herself a champion.
He leaned back in the saddle, enjoying the fresh breeze. He needed only to keep himself behind the heavy coach, which lumbered at a steady pace half a mile down the road. The driver, Davy Morgyn, was regarded as eccentric by the staff at Walford, but John had years of experience judging men and considered him reliable. He had left a detailed letter of instructions for Morgyn at the Notched Arrow, along with money to pay for horses, meals, and the best rooms in the finest hostelries. The coach was to travel no more than eight miles an hour, and Pen was to be treated like royalty.
Midmorning, the horses were changed at a posthouse in Lechlade. Concealing himself behind a row of drying sheets, he watched Pen scurry inside and emerge with a basket of pastries. She took one for herself, passed the basket to Davy Morgyn, and strolled toward a small herb garden not twenty yards from where John was hiding. He held his breath, cursing the slight wind that plastered damp muslin against his body, but she was preoccupied with her breakfast. White teeth flashed as she bit hungrily into the thick crust, and he heard her sigh with contentment. He released a sigh of his own when she turned away.
John waited until the coach was out of sight before dashing into the inn for some pork pies of his own and a carrot for Ricco. Really, this was all too easy. Even Ricco was bored. Except for the occasional pause to let a curricle or post chaise whisk by, there was little for the knight-errant to do but reflect on his sins and consider how to redeem himself.
He’d been shot three times, not counting the incident with the pig farmer, but nothing had ever hit him like Pen’s announcement that she’d cried off. The bone-deep pain, unlike anything he’d experienced on the goriest battlefield, resonated as her words came back to him. No wedding . . . . We should not suit.
Caught by surprise, he’d tried to take his cues from her, but Pen was a tangle of contradictions. She kept him off balance, fighting him one minute and laughing with him the next, determined to leave him but not before a farewell tryst in her bed.
If he’d swept her back to London, or made love to her, and God knew he wanted to do both, he’d have won her consent to the marriage. Forced her consent, he reminded himself, because the part of her that felt trapped, even threatened, had not run itself out. The baron had showed up just in time to keep him from making that mistake. Pen would never again be compelled to do anything. Outmaneuvered, yes, with every advantage he could seize, but never forced.
He patted Ricco affectionately on the neck. Years ago, when he’d bought the half-wild bay, Ricco had thrown him a dozen times before realizing he wouldn’t give up. Then he’d soared over the fence with John clamped on his back for a wild ride clearly designed to break both their necks. Only when the horse had run himself to exhaustion had they made peace. It would be the same with Pen, he thought. Like Ricco, she was brave, stubborn, and reckless.
She was also soft, feminine, and vulnerable. She must have been desperate to steal money from her father’s pockets and set out alone on a public coach. The only thing that spoiled his otherwise splendid day was reflecting on her unhappiness.
And worrying that he’d added to it. Leaving her last night was the hardest thing he’d ever done. He’d spent hours pacing his narrow room, changing his mind a hundred times, haunted by all the mistakes he’d made when he arranged the marriage and afraid he’d compounded them by seeming to reject her. How must she have felt?
And yet, Pen had asked him to make love to her. She’d not run away because he repelled her, which had been his deepest fear. Were he truly convinced she wanted no part of him, he . . . Damn, he’d have tried to change her mind. Change himself, if it came to that. He could make himself over. No woman dreamed of a battle-weary, callus-hard soldier without two poetical words in his vocabulary. Lancelot had mastered the art of courtly love, and so would he.
John whiled away a pleasant hour rehearsing his next proposal, fully prepared to deliver it on his knees. He mustered exactly the right words, lined them up in strategic order, and drilled them again and again. His heart went into that speech, and he was congratulating himself on its effectiveness when he suddenly realized Ricco was limping.
With an oath, he swung from the saddle to examine the bay’s right foreleg. A twisted nail barely held the shoe in place. He looked ahead to see the carriage emerge from a dip in the road and lurch up a steep hill, pausing at the crest while a footman chained a back wheel for the descent.
A lizard darted into the middle of the road, shooting him a malevolent glare before disappearing into a hedgerow. The fine hairs at his nape tingled. Beware of dragons, the lizard seemed to be warning him. He swore again, violently, as the coach vanished from sight.
There was no question of going on until the horse was re-shod. Grumbling all the time, he led Ricco for nearly two miles before he spotted a farmhouse. As he turned off the road, a man driving a recalcitrant mule stopped his plowing to stare curiously. John waved to get his attention, but the man lowered his head and went back to work.
In all the books, a questing knight was immediately offered a meal, a bed, and a comely wench. Apparently the Code of Hospitality hadn’t reached this backwater. John traipsed sullenly to the farmhouse and was continuing around its side to the barn when he heard a cheerful whistle. The plump woman scattering grain to the chickens greeted him with a smile that sloped into a frown when he explained his problem.
She shook her head. The itinerant smithy, with his box of tools, could generally be found at one of the posting houses. She’d send her son to fetch him, but most likely that business would take two or three days. John drew out a handful of money, but nothing could buy a swift repair for Ricco, or even a nag to replace him. The only large mammals on the Baldwin farm were three milk cows and one mule. His lordship was welcome to rent the mule.
That was when being a knight errant stopped being fun.
***
Donkey Oatie set new standards of obstinacy for his breed, swaying along at his own halting pace with frequent stops for a roadside snack. John could have walked faster and tried, but Oatie objected to being led. He refused to budge an inch and expressed his displeasure by chomping off a hunk of blue broadfine from John’s riding coat. Short of abandoning the beast, which he was sorely tempted to do, there was no choice but to stay on its back.
“Oatie will trot right along,” Mr. Baldwin had told him, “if you shout tally ho.” John shouted until he was hoarse. One time in ten the mule picked up its pace from a slow amble to a lurching trot, but there was no question who was in charge. Donkey Oatie went when he wanted to, and he rarely did.
They spent long minutes sideways across the road while the mule nibbled at blossoms twining through the hedgerows. When a coach bore down, Oatie waited with seeming deliberation until the last possible moment before snailing out of the way. Then he twisted his long neck and favored his rider with a mocking bray, which John interpreted as ‘Scared you that time, eh?’ The unholy glint in the beast’s round brown eyes spoke of possession by the devil.
John remembered a cold winter in the Pyrenees when the troops were forced to slaughter and eat their pack mules. Those were the good old days.
Three hours and fewer miles later, he spied a private gate leading to a squat house nearly concealed in a copse of oaks. The elderly resident, a retired naval officer, knew the Baldwin family and would gladly see the mule returned, but the only horse he kept was a small mare his granddaughter rode when she visited. John regarded the horse with displeasure. She was not up to his weight, except for short stretches, and came equipped with a sidesaddle.
“Just rid me of that blasted mule,” he instructed Capt
ain Pickins, forcing several coins into his hand. “I’ll go back to the road and wave down a coach.”
Without a word, the captain led him inside and stood him in front of a cheval mirror. In dirt-streaked trousers and frayed jacket, he looked like a man with highway robbery on his mind. No one would pick him up.
“Take Florabelle,” the captain advised. “Ride bareback, and walk some of the way. She’ll get you to the posting house before dark.”
John set out again with his toes practically dragging on the ground. He’d not ridden bareback in years, and there was little to choose between blistered feet when he walked and battered rump when he rode. He slogged along for hours before encountering a small public house where he was able to replace the mare with a swaybacked gelding. It wasn’t long before he regretted his choice. If he relaxed his guard for a moment, the gelding immediately lunged for home at an astonishing speed. At this rate, John calculated grimly, Pen could be all the way to Scotland before he made it to the next town.
He had better luck at sundown. The Duck and Drake supplied a decent mount, a quick supper, and news of another hostelry five miles down the road. With a clear night and a full moon to light the way, John wearily continued on. The roan was big, dull-witted, and refused to stir above a halting trot when clouds obscured the light. Barely able to see the road, the knight errant reflected that “errant” pretty well described his quest so far. Near midnight, he collapsed on a narrow bed in the small county inn and dreamed of mule-faced dragons wearing sidesaddles.
***
Pen thought once that she saw her jilted fiancé. She stuck her head out the window as the carriage topped a hill, looked back, and imagined it was John crouched beside an enormous bay in the middle of the road. It must have been a mirage in the dust, because she hung out the window most of the afternoon and never again spotted anyone who resembled him.
For one thrilling moment, she’d thought he had followed her. It took hours to suppress that fierce hope and convince herself she never wanted to see him again. Not after she’d humiliated herself, practically thrown herself at him, and been rejected. Were she his wife, he’d have bit the bullet and done his duty to sire an heir, but he didn’t want to make love to her. Any doubts she’d had about taking a runner were squelched by his calm refusal. She had offered her body, and not incidentally her heart, but he wasn’t interested.
For all she knew, he’d made a deal with her father. Probably he was on his way back to London, this time with a proposal for another Wright sister. Apollonia would jump at his offer, if only to beat Philia to the altar, and there was always Antonia waiting in the wings.
Or maybe he’d come to his senses and find himself a wife from a reputable family. She hoped so, for things were bad enough without John Corbett as her brother-in-law. After what happened last night, she could never face him again. Never.
A few miles later, when the coach stopped to change horses, she approached the driver, a bright smile pasted on her face. Beyond offering him a pork pie, she’d not spoken to the man, who struck her as rather odd. For one thing, the large limp vegetable he wore in his hat attracted flies.
He lit a cigar as she drew near and grinned at her over yellow teeth. “They do love the leeks,” he said, batting the insects away. “Always smoke unless we’re movin’. Hope ye don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she fibbed. “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Davy Morgyn,” he replied with a swaggering bow. “Welsh-born, Welsh-bred, and proud of it.”
She laughed. “Well, that explains the leek, anyway. I did wonder.”
“It’s m’trademark,” he boasted. “Took to wearin’ it when I come to work for his lordship. His other lordship, that is. Walford thought Welshmen good for nothin’, so I made sure to sport a leek in m’hat whenever we drove out. No reason now he’s in the ground, but everybody knows me fer it.”
“Like Fluellen,” Pen said with a curtsy. She loved Shakespeare, and Henry V was one of her favorites. “ ‘There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things’.”
Davy’s mouth opened. “His new lordship said them same words not a week ago,” he told her in amazement. “Said the Welsh regiments were damned fine soldiers and I should wear m’leek with pride.”
She wasn’t surprised. Fluellen was a master of the disciplines of war, like John Corbett. A soldier through and through.
“Don’t suppose you’d care to tell me where we’re goin’? I’ll stay on this road ‘til you say otherwise, but we’ll have to turn off at Cirencester.”
“Not that far.” She pulled a battered envelope from her reticule, opened the much-read letter, and studied the crude map drawn on the back. “You’ll need to take a side road before Cirencester. I’ll bang on the ceiling when it’s near time. Will you report back to the colonel where you let me off?”
Davy puffed on his cigar. “Don’t know what he wants. I got my orders from the innkeeper. Said I was to take you where you wanted to go and return to Walford.”
She sighed, deliberately quashing a flimsy hope that John planned to come after her. Of course he did not. He’d given his word, after all, and without a second’s hesitation. If he’d wanted to marry her, he’d have carried her back to London. He’d have made love to her last night. He’d have arranged with the driver to tell him where she’d gone. He’d have done something, damn him. But he’d done nothing at all, except make sure they parted amicably.
If only he’d cared, just a little, that she was leaving him.
Pen thought she’d abandoned her hopes in London, or at the inn, but now she knew that all along, she’d been screaming for reassurance. Why had she suddenly become so demanding, wanting the impossible, when she’d briefly held in her hands more than she’d ever expected to have? She should have taken John Corbett, on any terms. So what if he didn’t love her? He’d have given her children to love.
Too late now. Even her father would never take her back, not after he’d passed out drunk in the parlor and she’d rifled his pockets to finance her journey. She’d been lucky to find him so flush. He’d been gambling with most of the money given him to pay for the wedding, which would have been a cheese-paring affair except for her sisters’ expensive dresses. No flowers, no music, and a cold collation of cheap wines and cheeses and fruits at the celebration afterwards. She’s been embarrassed to think of facing John over cucumber sandwiches and stales cakes in her home-made wedding dress while her sisters preened before his friends.
She’d had a hundred reasons for running away, none of which she could put into words because each one sounded so petty. But all together, they had overwhelmed her. As she settled herself in the coach to continue her journey, she resolved not to look back again.
***
It was when he paid his mark the next morning that John realized he was nearly broke. Something had to be done about that, unless he found Pen today. She’d set out on the London-to-Stroud coach, so she was fairly sure she’d go that far, but he eyed every crossroad with misgivings. Who was to say she hadn’t turned off on any one of them? He inquired at every inn he passed and was relieved to find that Morgyn had changed horses at the Golden Lion. He was headed in the right direction, but he badly needed to hire a suitable mount, and even a knight had to eat. Questing was damnably expensive.
He made Cirencester at midday and spent the afternoon cooling his heels in a banking establishment while three whisper-thin gentlemen debated whether they should advance him funds with no collateral but his signet ring and an honest face. Sir Lancelot, John thought sourly, never applied for a loan.
Fortunately, it was discovered that one of the bankers had a grandson in the army. John was acquainted with the boy’s commanding officer and after entertaining the men with a few war stories, he left with funds enough to mount a small crusade.
Midway to Stroud, astride yet another recalcitrant jobhorse, he eyed the scudding clouds with misgivings. They opened within the hour, and he slogged from posting
house to posting house in the driving rain, inquiring after his coach without luck. After a while, he realized that Davy would have changed horses long since. More than likely he’d turned onto one of several roads that radiated like wheel spokes from Cirencester. Lord, Pen could be headed anywhere. He began to suspect it would require real sorcery to ferret her out, but at the least he needed Ricco and a good map. Reluctantly, he turned around.
The next day, armed with an old surveyor’s map, he made his way back to the Baldwin farm. Donkey Oatie brayed a cheerful hello from the pasture, kicking up his heels as if welcoming an old friend. John replied with a raised finger, wondering how Oatie would look turning on a spit.
To his great relief, the smithy had come and gone. He greeted Ricco with a kiss on the muzzle, to the astonishment of Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin, and left them enough money to buy a decent mule. They seemed offended at that. Donkey Oatie was unaccustomed to the ways of Quality, Mr. Baldwin huffed, and overexcited by the trip. In general, he was the most sweet-natured mule in Christendom.
Which only proved, John thought as he rode away, that everyone cherishes fantasies about those they love.
Ricco, newly shod and eager for a good run, carried him at high speed along the muddy road. John had decided to start anew, at the last place Pen had been seen—The Golden Lion.
Rain beat down on them both like exploding case-shot, nearly obscuring John’s whoop of joy when they turned into the courtyard. There, sheltered just inside the enormous stable, was his coach! Flinging the reins to an ostler, he dashed into the inn, water streaming from his caped greatcoat.
Davy and the footman, sitting near the fire with hands wrapped around mugs of ale, jumped up when he burst into the taproom.
“Don’t say a word,” John commanded as he shucked off his greatcoat and settled on the bench across from them. “Sit down, men. Drink your ale. I assume you’re on your way back to Walford.”
They nodded in tandem.
He beckoned to a serving maid. “Has Miss Wright been delivered safely to her destination?” Davy opened his mouth, and John shook his head. “Quiet, man! Of course she has, and that narrows things down. She can’t be far.”
