by M. C. Beaton
Suddenly there came a scratching at the door.
She stiffened. Perhaps it was the landlord. Perhaps the overly familiar landlord was drunk. She drew the pistol out and, holding it firmly in her hand, called out, “Who is there?”
The door swung open and Lord Channington strolled into the room in all the glory of a cambric nightshirt and a red Kilmarnock nightcap.
She was jerked toward him, her feet slipped on the polished boards, she shot down and through his legs, twisted around, and turned and fired.
There was a terrific explosion and Lord Channington screamed and clutched his left buttock.
“She shot me. Help! Help! Murder!” he roared.
Downstairs, the landlord was just climbing into bed when the loud commotion from the best bedchamber came to his ears. He hesitated. But my lord had been most insistent that he was not to be disturbed. The landlord pulled his nightcap down around his ears and got into bed.
Lord Channington threw himself face-down on Honey’s bed, still howling for help.
“Get to your own room, sirrah,” said Honey. She reloaded her pistol and held it to the side of his head.
He twisted about and stared straight up into Honey’s implacable eyes.
Somehow he got himself from the bed and walked to the door with Honey following close behind.
His room was next to Honey’s. He tried to shut the door on her, but she pushed her way in behind him. The back of Lord Channington’s nightshirt was stained with blood and blood dripped on to the floor.
Honey felt herself growing faint. But there was one thing she had to make him do before she ran for help.
“You will write a letter, Lord Channington,” she said grimly. “It is only a few lines. I will dictate them. When you have finished, I will send for the surgeon. Do you understand?”
“Anything,” wailed Lord Channington. “Oh, hurry. I am dying.”
He stood in front of the writing desk and pulled forward a sheet of paper.
“I, the Earl of Channington,” said Honey, “do hereby state that I came by the wound in my left buttock when cleaning my pistol. I laid it on the floor and stood on it by accident, and it went off. I am shortly to be married to Miss Honoria Honeyford who resides with me at this inn, and who will handle all my affairs until such time as I am fit to take control of them myself.
“Good,” said Honey, when he had signed the paper. “I have no mind to hang. My father wishes me to bring home a husband, and that husband is going to be you, my lord. Get into bed and I will fetch a surgeon.”
She hurried from the room, taking the key with her, and locking Lord Channington in.
Once in the corridor, she leaned her head against the wall and shivered violently. It was a few moments before she could compose herself enough to make her way downstairs.
She picked up the handbell by the door of the inn and rang it violently. The landlord would appear soon enough if he thought he had a new customer.
He blinked when he saw himself faced with a trembling girl clad only in a nightdress and holding a pistol.
In a cold, calm voice, Honey explained what had happened, or rather, what she wished the landlord and the rest of the world to believe had happened.
“Are there any other guests here?” asked Honey.
The landlord shook his head. “My lord bought up all the rooms,” he said, shaking his dazed head to clear it, “so I gave the rest of the guests their marching orders.”
“Then you will not allow any other guest to stay here until I tell you,” said Honey. “We will cease this fiction about my being my lord’s sister. I am his fiancée, Miss Honeyford. Do you understand?”
The landlord nodded, eyeing the pistol warily.
“Then be off with you,” said Honey, “and send a servant to my lord’s bedchamber with hot water, towels, and laudanum.”
Honey forced herself to walk back up the stairs. She must not give way to weak and missish feelings. Lord Channington must not die.
She unlocked his room. He was lying face-down on the bed and twisted his head when she entered and looked at her. Honey wondered how she could ever have thought his brown eyes expressionless. They were filled with fear.
“The surgeon is coming,” she said. “Now let me have a look at that wound.”
“Have you no delicacy?” he screamed. “You are a monster.”
“Why so coy now, my lord,” said Honey, advancing on the bed. “If you had had your way, I would have been mother-naked myself.”
She whipped up his nightshirt and studied the wound, which was a mess of blood. She soaked a towel in warm water and gently bathed it.
She let out a little sigh of relief. “I think you will live,” she said.
Lord Channington buried his face in the pillows and moaned.
There was a knock at the door. Honey carefully arranged Lord Channington’s nightshirt and went to admit two scared and nervous servants carrying towels, hot water, and laudanum.
Honey poured a generous measure of laudanum in a glass and held it to Lord Channington’s lips. “You are going to poison me,” he whispered feebly, but he drank it nonetheless.
Honey dismissed the servants and sat down to wait. She felt nothing but contempt for Lord Channington. With a feeling of shock she realized Lord Alistair and Lady Canon had spoken the truth. They had been trying to protect her. But Lord Alistair should never have pretended to be in love with her.
Honey was very sure she would never love anyone else as she had loved Lord Alistair. It therefore followed that any husband would do. So Lord Channington would find himself at the altar at Kelidon church just as soon as she could get him there.
It might even be possible to make something of him, thought Honey, hiding in naive dreams from the reality of the fact that she had just shot a man.
Lord Alistair Stewart was almost at the end of his tether. He had searched and searched and he was starving and bone weary.
He had tracked the carriage with the crest on its panel to this neighborhood outside Leighton Buzzard. He had been told by a night traveler that The King’s Head was a mile along the road.
After the incident with the highwaymen, his senses were alert to any possibility of danger and he eased a long dueling pistol out of his saddle bag as two dark figures rode toward him from a side road.
The moon had come out from behind the clouds and he saw clearly two men, one dressed like a physician and accompanied by a burly man.
He hailed them and demanded to know if The King’s Head was indeed on the road he was traveling.
They reined in beside him. “I am Joseph Benskin, the landlord,” said the burly man, “but there ain’t no beds on account of a gentleman having bespoke all the rooms in the inn.”
“Is his name Channington, by any chance?” asked Lord Alistair. “And does he have a Miss Honeyford with him?”
There was a silence. Then, “Better be getting on,” muttered Mr. Benskin.
Lord Alistair raised his pistol and pointed it at the landlord.
“Hold!” cried the physician. “There has been enough shooting for one night.”
“Shooting?”
“Yes. Allow me to introduce myself. Dr. Bradfield at your service. A gentleman has been shot at the inn and I must get to him as quickly as possible.”
“And it is Channington,” burst out Mr. Benskin, “so for the love of God, let us be on our way.”
“Ah!” Lord Alistair let out a long sigh and lowered his gun. “Take me with you,” he said. “I know both Lord Channington and Miss Honeyford.”
As they rode on, his relief was short-lived. He remembered the pistol Honey always carried. If she had shot Channington, then it would take all his skill to stop her from being hanged.
Lord Alistair had envisioned many meetings with Honey, but never one like this. They went straight up to Lord Channington’s bedchamber and pushed open the door. Lord Channington was lying face-down on the bed, snoring stertorously. Honey sat in a chair beside
the bed.
At first she thought she was dreaming and that Lord Alistair had come to haunt her. His riding clothes were mud-spattered and his face was drawn and grim.
“What happened?” he asked, desperate to find some way to stop Honey from being dragged off to prison.
“It was an accident,” said Honey. “My lord left his gun on the floor and stepped on it by accident. It went off and shot him.”
Lord Alistair walked forward and picked up the pistol from the bedside table. He recognized it as Honey’s.
“Is this the weapon?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, I recognize it as Channington’s,” lied Lord Alistair.
“Lord Channington was most kind. He is a very brave man,” said Honey. “He wrote a letter exonerating me before he collapsed.”
“That’s a mercy,” said Mr. Benskin, who was holding a bowl of water for the doctor. “No need to call the magistrate.”
“And he will live,” said Dr. Bradfield. “You did a good job of cleaning the wound, Mr. Benskin.”
“Wasn’t me,” said the landlord.
“Thank you, doctor,” said Honey quietly. “I cleaned the wound.”
“You are a very brave lady,” said Dr. Bradfield, looking at her with approval.
“I gave him laudanum,” said Honey, “which is why he is sleeping so heavily.”
“Good. Good. Now… er…”
“Miss Honeyford.”
“Now Miss Honeyford, I am about to extract the ball. You may retire. I have enough help.”
Honey left the room without looking at Lord Alistair.
Lord Alistair felt immeasurably tired. It had been an accident. And so familiar was Miss Honeyford with Channington that she had bathed his wound.
Chapter 9
The morning dawned bright and glorious, but both Honey and Lord Alistair slept like the dead in their respective rooms.
It was eleven o’clock in the morning when Honey eventually made her way downstairs. She ate a large breakfast and went to sit in the inn garden.
It was very peaceful. The first roses were scenting the air and the long leaves of a willow dappled the grass with moving patterns of light and shade.
The first thing that struck her was that Lord Alistair had ridden in search for her. The second was that Lady Canon had coerced him into it.
He would no doubt shortly arrive on the scene to bully and lecture her and try to force her to go back to London.
But she would not!
She was determined to take Lord Channington home to Kelidon with her, even if it meant holding a pistol to his head for the rest of the journey.
A shadow fell across the grass and she looked up into the steady blue eyes of Lord Alistair. Her lips twisted in a wry smile.
“Men were deceivers ever,” she said.
“And a good few women, too,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I took a look at your beloved. He is sleeping like a pig and has no fever.”
“How soon will we be able to travel?”
“You mean to go through with this? Channington will not marry you.”
“Oh, yes he will,” said Honey grimly.
“Before I wring your neck, you had better tell me exactly what happened.”
“Why not?” Honey shrugged. “It is all very simple. After Lady Canon told me that you had merely been following her instructions before fleeing to the country to escape the consequences of your wooing, Lord Channington asked me to elope with him.
“I liked him and trusted him. I had promised myself to bring my father home a good husband. Lord Channington said we were to stay with his mother and be married from there.”
“Channington’s mother died five years ago, or thereabouts.”
“Oh.” Honey did not look in the least surprised. “Our journey went very well until last night, when he appeared in my bedchamber. He tried to rip my nightgown, but it would not tear and the force of the pull made my feet slip on the boards. I fell down and slid between his legs. I was holding my pistol and so I shot him.”
“Right in the bum.”
“Yes, as you so crudely put it.”
“But at least he had the gallantry to write that letter.”
“Not he. I forced him at pistol point to write it.”
“But you cannot possibly want to marry such a man.”
“Any man will do,” said Honey wearily. “Why go back to London to sit waving my fan in hot rooms, hunting feverishly for a husband? I do not care who I marry.”
“Miss Honeyford, did you receive my letter?”
“Oh, yes. That. I burned it without reading it.”
“Why?”
“Because you had only pretended to love me.”
“Miss Honeyford, I have ridden hard and searched well to find you. I have been attacked by highwaymen. I am still exhausted. What do I have to do to convince you I love you? Shoot myself?”
“You are funning.”
“The deuce! I am sound in wind and limb. Does your father only look kindly on seducers and wastrels?”
“You cannot want to marry me,” said Honey not daring to believe him. “We would have to return to Kelidon. My father needs a man to help him with the land.”
“My love, you never asked me what I was doing so far north when we first met on the road. I had been spending some time with an old friend just north of Kelidon, advising him how to put his land in good heart.”
“I cannot imagine you doing anything so energetic,” said Honey, for Lord Alistair was restored to his former glory, having bathed and changed into morning dress.
“I can be very energetic. I can even take you to Kelidon and arrange a special license.”
Honey began to tremble. “Do you really want to marry me?”
He leaned over and lifted her out of her chair and placed her on his knees.
“Kiss me, Honoria,” he said.
“My friends call me Honey.”
“Then kiss me, Honey.”
Honey screwed up her eyes and pursed her lips, frightened she might find that the old magic had gone. But no sooner had his mouth covered her own than she was swept back to that magical country where passion made time stand still.
“We must wait until poor Lord Channington has recovered,” she said when she could.
“Forget Channington, he is not like to die.”
“Perhaps I may have reformed him,” said Honey earnestly.
“No, I think not. Once the wound to his pride and his bottom heals, he will find some other female to seduce and as quickly as possible.”
“But we cannot travel north on horseback?”
“Quite right. We will take Channington’s carriage. Since you will have to stay with me unchaperoned at every inn on the road to Kelidon, you will be so sadly compromised by the time we arrive that you will have to marry me.”
“Alistair,” said Honey, burying her face in his waistcoat, “I do not think I can permit… until we are married, I do not think…”
He laughed and raised her chin and smiled down into her eyes. “I can wait,” he said. “With very great difficulty, I can wait, although it will be sweet torture. Kiss me again.”
A few hours later, Lord Channington petulantly tugged the bellrope and demanded to see Mr. Benskin.
“Where is everybody?” he demanded when the landlord entered the room. “I could have died.”
“Now, now,” said Mr. Benskin soothingly, “Dr. Bradfield said he would call.”
“Where is my sister… I mean Miss Honeyford?”
“Her’s left.”
“That’s a mercy. Good riddance to a hellcat. The sooner I return to London the better. I will need a team of fresh horses…”
“Begging your pardon, my lord, but that other gen’leman, Lord Alistair, he and miss has taken your carriage.”
“She is not a woman,” said Lord Channington passionately. “She is a witch, a monster, a harpie…”
Mr. Benskin bowed his way out of the room, lea
ving Lord Channington cursing and raving.
Three months later, Lord Alistair was lying in bed, reading his correspondence. Beside him, fast asleep, lay his wife.
He opened a letter from Lady Canon and his eyebrows went up in surprise as he read its contents.
He nudged Honey with his elbow. “Wake up, my love. Tremendous news.”
Honey came sleepily awake. As she struggled up against the pillows, her flimsy nightdress strained against her breasts. Lord Alistair sighed with pleasure, threw the letter on the floor, and gathered his wife into his arms.
An hour later, Honey asked sleepily, “Why did you wake me?”
“I forget,” he whispered against her hair. “Oh, I remember. There is news of Channington.”
“What has happened to him?”
“He is to be married.”
“There you are,” said Honey proudly. “The shock of his attempted elopement with me must have reformed him.”
“Not a bit of it. It only started a run of bad luck for him. Lady Canon says he was paying assiduous court to a Miss Teesdale. He was trying his old ploy of proposing to her before persuading her to elope with him. He had bribed the servants to let him into the house while the rest of the family were out. But the Teesdales treat their servants well. So when Lord Channington was down on his knees, the whole family burst out from behind screens in the drawing room where they had been hiding and welcomed him to the bosom of the family.”
“Poor Miss Teesdale.”
“She evidently knew all about Lord Channington, according to Lady Canon, and she set the plot to trap him. She has four enormous brothers who are all in the guards. They have promised her she will marry Channington.”
Honey began to laugh, her ruffled chestnut curls glinting in the morning sun, and her besotted husband found the sight so enchanting that he thought it would be a very good idea to make love to her again.
Part II
