It Happened One Night

by Stephanie Laurens

  She stared at him, clearly feeling just as he felt—that at any moment she would awake from this bizarre dream.

  “Sir? Mr. Kemp?” The landlord was at his elbow, indicating the staircase.

  Richard broke the spell of gazing at Nora and turned his head. He had chosen not to divulge his title or there would be no end to the obsequious bowing and scraping.

  “Have my wife’s bag carried up, too, if you will,” he said. And he cupped her elbow with one hand and turned her in the direction of the stairs.

  “Your wife, sir?” The innkeeper sounded surprised.

  “She has taken no outward harm from the spill,” Richard told him, “but I wish her to rest for a while nevertheless.”

  “Of course, sir, Mrs. Kemp.” The innkeeper’s voice had turned brisk and he was clicking his fingers to draw the attention of a servant.

  There was still a great deal of noise and hubbub among those passengers who had not yet got a room. Someone was telling them, as Richard maneuvered Nora around them and up the stairs to his room, that they would be billeted with villagers if they would just have some patience.

  She would have been billeted, then, even if she had no money. He might have left her to her fate with a clear conscience.

  With a clear conscience? He frowned. Why would his conscience be involved in any of this?

  He opened the door of his room and stood aside to allow her to step inside first. The noise from downstairs was still very audible, but somehow the room seemed very silent.

  “Richard.”

  She turned to him, her face pale. But she had to wait until the servant had brought in her valise and set it down beside his own bag before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

  “Richard,” she said again, “I am not your wife.”

  “You are not?” He raised his eyebrows and clasped his hands behind him. She was still very slender, but the coltishness of youth had gone from her figure to leave it looking more voluptuous.

  “No, of course not,” she said.

  “Of course not.” He spoke softly and smiled at her though there was no amusement in the expression.

  “I ought not to be here,” she said. “This is not right.”

  She glanced uneasily at the door.

  “You would rather go back out there alone?” he said, turning to the door as if to open it for her.

  “They were saying something about billets in the village,” she said.

  “Did you take any hurt from the spill?” he asked her. Perhaps her paleness had a direct physical cause. She looked as if she might faint at any moment.

  “I was not in it,” she said. “I was not on the coach. I was to board it here.”

  “You live near here, then?” he asked her.

  “Five miles away,” she said. “Lived. Past tense. I was companion to an elderly lady.”

  “You were sacked?” he asked her.

  “I resigned before I could be,” she told him. “It was not pleasant employment. Mrs. Witherspoon is not a pleasant lady.”

  “I suppose,” he said, “it must be difficult for you to knuckle under to authority.”

  He felt instantly ashamed of himself. That had been a low blow.

  She looked steadily at him, some color back in her cheeks.

  “I am going to get a billet,” she said, taking a step toward him.

  “I doubt you are eligible,” he told her, “since you were not actually on the coach when it crashed.”

  She stopped.

  “Do you have any money?” he asked her.

  “Excuse me, please.” She took another step forward. Her shoulders had straightened, he noticed.

  “You had better stay here,” he said, moving in front of the door. “I will not molest you, if that is what you fear. You may choose whatever piece of floor best suits you for a bed. No one will know whether we are man and wife or not—unless you choose to provide the information. If you know it, that is. And if you do not like accepting charity, do note that I have no valet or other servant with me. If you do not like being my wife, you may be my servant.”

  “Is there a difference?” she asked, a definite edge to her voice.

  He looked as steadily at her as she was looking at him.

  “I need to go and assess the damage to my curricle,” he said. “And I am hungry. I will perhaps eat first. Do you wish to come with me?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “I am going to ask for a billet.”

  “Suit yourself.” He shrugged, opened the door, stepped through it, and closed it behind him before descending to the taproom and the dining room beyond it, where all was merry din and enticing aromas. It occurred to him suddenly that he had not eaten yet today.

  What would she do? When he went back upstairs, would he find an empty room except for his bag in the middle of the floor? Or would she still be there?

  He was feeling considerably shaken.

  He took a small table beside a window and ordered ham and eggs with potatoes and toast. He sat deliberately with his back to the stairs. He did not want to see her leave. He did not want to feel responsible for her if she did so.

  Good Lord, he was in no way responsible for her. Except that a ten-year-old question that had worried at his consciousness for every one of those years was asking itself again.

  If she left now, she might disappear forever. She might not even turn up tomorrow morning to take the stage to wherever she was going. He might never see her again.

  There was a surprising degree of panic in the thought.

  He despised himself for feeling it.

  He had worked Nora out of his system years ago. It had not been easy since she had had a very real and permanent effect upon his life. His present and his future would be forever shaped by what had happened between him and her.

  But if she disappeared from his life forever, it would still not be long enough.

  He hoped she would be gone.

  He hoped he would not see her for the rest of today or tomorrow morning. Or ever again.

  “And send some of the same up to my wife with a pot of tea,” he said to the waiter as the latter set his food before him. “If she has already gone out to enjoy the festivities, take the plate back down to the kitchen. One of the servants may eat the food at my expense.”

  She had not answered his one question. But he knew as surely as if he had raided her purse that she had no money. Her former employer had probably refused to pay her since she had resigned from her position.

  It was none of his concern that she might be penniless. Indeed, he hoped she was. He hoped she would starve.

  Except that he would feel responsible. Dash it all, he would feel responsible.

  All over again.

  And except that the thought was spiteful, and it disturbed him to realize that he could feel such a juvenile hatred of someone he had not even seen in ten years.

  He picked up his knife and fork only to discover that his appetite had fled.

  Chapter Three

  She was going to leave immediately. She would ask to be billeted elsewhere. But there were so many problems involved with that plan that she dithered and stood where she was for several minutes after he had left the room.

  It might be too late by now. And perhaps he was right—perhaps she would not qualify since she had not yet been on the stagecoach when it crashed. And the fact that she was supposed to be Mrs. Kemp would necessitate some awkward explanations. And perhaps even billets in the homes of villagers would have to be paid for. Even if payment was not required, she would feel obliged to offer something for her keep. Yet she had no more than a couple of small coins left in her purse.

  And…

  And, and, and.

  And he was Richard. Richard Kemp.

  It was as if that realization had only now fully struck her. She sat down hard on the side of the bed and closed her eyes.

  Richard was here. He had actually come to her rescue and brought her up to his room. Not that he
had looked any too pleased about it. He had looked downright morose, in fact.

  Why had he done it, then? She gripped the bedpost with one hand.

  Oh, dear God, Richard! What strange, bizarre coincidence had brought them together like this in such a remote corner of England? Stranded them together, in fact. He was stranded here until tomorrow just as surely as she was.

  How had she even recognized him? He was very different from what she remembered. He had been little more than a boy when she saw him last. He had been tall and slender and lithe, his face handsome beneath the shock of dark hair though his expression was almost always serious. But his blue eyes were warm and even blazed with intensity during certain private moments. She had fallen headlong, passionately in love with him long before he knew.

  And he had loved her long before she knew.

  It was all so long ago that it might have happened in another lifetime.

  Though it had been real enough at the time and nasty enough at the end.

  Nora turned her head and rested her forehead against the bedpost. She had not wanted to live. She had wanted to die. But death could not be willed upon oneself, she had found. She had lived on anyway.

  He was a man now with a man’s powerful and perfect body. His face was handsome and cold—those blue eyes were so, so cold. And there was a confidence in his bearing that had not been there before. He looked as if he had been born to command, though of course he had not.

  He was Lord Bourne now, she reminded herself. A baron. A stranger. She had never known him by that name.

  Why, she wondered again, had he come to her rescue? It was clear he did not like her. Perhaps to gloat? He had told her she might choose whichever patch of floor she wanted for tonight. While he slept on the bed. Gallantry had had nothing to do with his offer, then.

  Yes, he had done it to remind her just how much their positions had reversed themselves.

  She was going to have to seek a billet somewhere else despite all the problems. She would not be beholden to him. Him of all people. She got to her feet and then clutched the bedpost again when someone tapped on the door.

  He would come right on in, so she crossed the room and opened the door to find the waiter, carrying a large tray. She could not see what was on the plate, but she could smell the food.

  For the first time she realized she was ravenously hungry. She had not eaten since dinner last evening, and she was facing at least two days without food if she were left to her own resources. She clenched the muscles of her stomach to stop it from rumbling.

  “Your husband ordered the tray sent up to you, Mrs. Kemp, ma’am,” the waiter explained.

  She did not have the strength of mind to send it away. Richard would have to pay for the food anyway, she reasoned. She might as well eat it. She stood aside to allow the waiter inside to set his tray down on the dressing table.

  And after he had left, she ate every last crumb. She drained the pot of tea. And then she wondered if it would be utterly foolish to leave her last coins beside the tray before she left. Yes, of course it would. And pathetic, too.

  Where would she go? It was far too late now to ask for a billet. She could go and mingle with the villagers while they celebrated the holiday. But what would she do tonight? She would have to think about that when the time came, she supposed.

  And then she remembered his saying, with a heavy sarcasm she had never heard in his voice before, that if she did not want to be his wife, she could be his servant instead.

  It was one way to pay for her breakfast. One way to salvage a little of her pride. One way to thumb her nose at him.

  She opened his bag. There was not a great deal in it. Clearly he had not expected to spend long on the road. She took out a black tailed evening coat, brushed off some lint, and hung it in the wardrobe. She shook out a white shirt to rid it of wrinkles and hung it up beside the coat. It was of the finest linen, she noticed. She ran her hands over the soft fabric and even lifted it to her cheek for a moment. She was startled by a faint yet familiar smell though the garment had obviously been laundered recently. She smoothed out three starched neck cloths and hung them carefully over the rail beside the shirt. She set a pair of black evening shoes side by side at the bottom of the wardrobe. She left the small pile of undergarments where it was and set out his shaving gear beside the washbowl.

  The water pitcher was empty. She pulled on the bell rope and then, when no one answered the summons, she took the pitcher and went downstairs herself to fetch some water. He was not going to be able to say that she had not earned her breakfast.

  There were a few people in the taproom and dining room beyond it. Richard was not among them. He must be outside in the yard, perhaps looking at his curricle. She would have plenty of time to slip away before he returned.

  Since there were no servants about to help her, she walked right into the kitchen. She caused some consternation there and much bowing and curtsying. She did not have to wait long for the kettle to boil and her pitcher to be filled with hot water. Even so, matters had changed by the time she got back upstairs. When she opened the door and stepped inside, it was to find Richard in the act of stripping off his coat.

  “Ah,” he said, turning to look at her, “I thought you had forgotten to take your valise with you when you left.”

  “I have returned just for a moment,” she said. “I went to fetch some hot water for you. I thought perhaps you would wish to shave.”

  He was looking at her with raised eyebrows.

  The pitcher was heavy. He did not come to relieve her of it. She crossed the room and set it down on the washstand.

  If the crash had not happened, she realized, he would have driven on his way and she would have boarded the stagecoach and they would never have realized that they had passed within a few yards of each other. She would be on her way to London and he to wherever it was he had been going.

  “I will be leaving now,” she said. “Thank you for breakfast.”

  “You are not going to shave me?”

  His tone was hard, insolent.

  She turned her gaze on him.

  “Are you not afraid,” she said, “that I would slash your throat?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a knee-weakeningly familiar half smile. But there was nothing pleasant about this one.

  “You have grown sharp, Nora,” he said softly.

  He did not mean intelligent. He meant hard, sharp-tongued.

  “I have grown up,” she told him.

  “In ways you did not expect, I suppose,” he said.

  “We none of us know what is in store for us in life,” she said. “We have to grow in whichever direction life takes us. It has been kind to you.”

  “Life?” he said. “Yes, I suppose it has. And brutal to you.”

  “It might have been worse.” She continued to look steadily at him. His mouth lifted at one corner again.

  “Sharp indeed,” he said. “What do you plan to do?”

  She shrugged. “That is not your concern,” she said.

  “Ah, but it is.” His eyebrows rose, and he looked suddenly arrogant—a new look indeed. But he had had almost ten years to perfect it, had he not? “As far as everyone in Wimbury is concerned, Nora, you are my wife. And everyone will have heard the story of how you must have been thrown from the curricle so that no one even realized you had been there until I found you again inside the inn and bore you up here to rest. Everyone will also know that I had breakfast carried up here for you. A tender, romantic gesture, was it not? It will look extremely odd if you now wander off alone, valise in hand, like an unwanted waif.”

  “I did not ask you to lie for me,” she said sharply.

  It was his turn to gaze steadily at her.

  “Are you sure it was a lie, Nora?” he asked her.

  “Of course it was,” she said.

  “And yet,” he said, his voice soft, “I distinctly remember a nuptial ceremony.”

  “It was not legal or valid,�
� she cried.

  “Just because it was performed in Scotland?” he said. “Just because it was not performed by a minister of the church? Just because you ran away almost immediately after?”

  “It was not consummated,” she said, and then felt her cheeks flame with heat. It was too late to recall the words, though.

  “It is a curious fallacy that many people seem to share,” he said. “That an unconsummated marriage is an annullable marriage, that is. It is quite untrue.”

  She offered no response. She swallowed awkwardly instead.

  “Besides,” he added as she felt she was looking at him down a long tunnel, “it is an irrelevant point, is it not, Nora? You and I know full well that the marriage was consummated.”

  Once. Fumbling and almost inept. Two eager, nervous virgins groping in the near-darkness caused by heavy curtains and gloomy rain beyond the small window of their bedchamber. Performing the act swiftly and inexpertly and painfully—for her anyway.

  Hideous beyond belief.

  Wonderful beyond imagining.

  Young love ought never to be underestimated.

  She broke eye contact with him and looked down at her hands.

  “There was no marriage,” she said. “It was not a real marriage.”

  “I suppose not,” he said with a soft laugh, which sounded more menacing than amused. “Money made it go away. Money can accomplish many things, as I have discovered to my delight in recent years. You were fortunate, Nora, that there was no child.”

  She had thought there was. She had been more than three weeks late, and then she had bled horribly. She had often wondered since if there had been a child, or at least the beginnings of one. She had wondered if she had miscarried.

  She had been sick with relief and disappointment.

  She had been sick for a long time. Even getting out of bed each morning had been almost too much of an effort. Even setting one foot ahead of the other. Even eating.

  “I am going,” she said. It was beginning to sound lame even to her own ears. If she meant it, why was she not already long gone?