by Mary Balogh
“Good morning to you, sir,” she said briskly.
“Good morning, Mrs. McKay,” he said. “I take it Quinn did not have to fight off all those burly servants in order to spirit you away safely from Bramble Hall? There are a couple of servants rousing here, but none of them have voiced any particular consternation over the discovery that I mean to set out on my travels this early and without waiting for breakfast. I do not believe any of them saw you. We will break our fast when we stop for the first change of horses. Will that suit you? Yes, good morning to you too, wretched dog. You do not need to beat the stuffing out of my cushions with your thumping tail. You are perfectly visible. And I notice that you have commandeered a whole seat for your personal use. If your mistress had indeed brought her maid, she would have had to sit up on the box with my valet and coachman.”
He sounded deliberately, artificially cheerful just as she had done when she bade him good morning. He had seemed like a trusted friend yesterday. This morning he seemed like a stranger, which indeed he was.
The fever of excitement in which she had conceived this whole grand escapade yesterday had converted to a quite sick anxiety last night. She had been unable to sleep except in fitful snatches and with bizarre accompanying dreams. This morning she had been consumed by terror, as though she really were a convict making a daring escape under the very noses of a dozen fierce jailers. And now, seated inside the carriage with only a single gentleman for company, she was feeling tongue-tied and self-conscious.
Good heavens, they were going to be alone together for as many days as it took to reach the southwest coast of Wales and her cottage. And the same number of nights. And he had expected that her maid would be with her to lend some sort of respectability. His valet was with him, of course.
She felt physically sick again.
“I am not at all hungry, Sir Benedict,” she assured him, her hands folded in her lap, her back straight and not quite touching the cushions behind her. As if a strictly ladylike posture and demeanor could miraculously make all proper.
The coachman put up the steps and shut the door with a decisive click, climbed up to the box while Mr. Quinn mounted from the other side, and within moments the carriage lurched into motion.
It was one of the single most panic-inducing moments of Samantha’s life. She had to bite her lower lip in order to prevent herself from yelling to the coachman to stop.
Sir Benedict had turned his head and was looking steadily at her. She had never particularly noticed until now how very narrow carriage seats were. Their shoulders were almost touching. Their faces were too close for comfort. And the world had grown light since she had come from Bramble Hall. There was no darkness in which to hide.
“You are having second thoughts?” he asked. “It is not too late to turn around, you know. I daresay we could smuggle you back into Bramble Hall without the servants there suspecting that you have been doing anything more startling than taking an early morning walk with your dog. Do you wish to return?”
The suggestion brought her to her senses.
“Absolutely not,” she assured him. “I would not go back for any consideration. I am going to the only place I can go to be free. I am going to live, not merely exist at the pleasure of my father-in-law. If you have changed your mind about accompanying me, of course—”
“I have not.”
“I feel guilty,” she told him. “You were going to Scotland.”
“I was going to travel,” he said. “And that is what I am doing. I could not and would not allow you to travel all the way to Wales alone.”
“You are doing it again,” she said. “Allowing me, not allowing me. I am very glad we are not married. I suspect you would be a tyrant.”
“I hope I would know how to protect my wife, ma’am,” he said stiffly, “even if it was sometimes despite herself. And you could not be more glad of our marital status or lack thereof than I am.”
She pursed her lips.
“If we are going to quarrel all the way to Wales,” he added, “it should be an interesting journey. Especially as we are still no more than a mile or two from Robland.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “if we do not converse, we will not quarrel.”
And she turned her head away and half turned her body too so that she was looking out at the passing scenery. From his silence, she supposed he was doing the same through the window on his side.
Perhaps half an hour passed, though it felt more like an hour. Or three. It became more and more difficult to maintain her posture, to keep her chin from falling, to keep her eyes from closing. She envied Tramp, sprawled out and fast asleep and even snoring on his seat. And then, in a moment of lapsed concentration, she yawned hugely and audibly and felt instantly embarrassed.
“I suppose,” he said, “you did not get a wink of sleep last night.”
“Perhaps a wink,” she said. “Maybe two. I had a great deal on my mind, Sir Benedict. It is not every day one sets off on a grand, life-changing adventure. Not if one is a woman, anyway.”
“And not every man goes sneaking off every day with someone else’s widow,” he said dryly, “with nary a word to his family and friends. Why do you not take off your bonnet and set your head back against the cushions? And your back too. When I got into the carriage earlier, you looked so prim and starchy that I thought for a moment you had sent your sister-in-law in your place. The horses are still fresh and will carry us a fair distance before it becomes necessary for them to be changed. Your dog has not lost any time in catching up on his beauty sleep.”
“Just do not utter any word that begins with w,” she said, “especially with the letters a-l-k attached. You would soon discover how deeply asleep he is.”
She took his advice—she seemed to have no choice in the matter since it was becoming increasingly difficult to remain awake. She pulled loose the bow of ribbon beneath her chin and removed her bonnet to hold on her lap. She leaned back with an inward sigh of relief. She would close her eyes for a few minutes.
She was more aware of him when she did so. She could feel his body heat down one side, though they were not touching. She could smell something that was distinctively masculine—leather, shaving soap, whatever. It was hard to distinguish individual smells, but they all added up to something rather enticing and altogether forbidden. He had kissed her once. There had even been tongue play, and it had been very pleasant indeed. A bit of an understatement that, though—very pleasant indeed. She wondered if he remembered. It had been almost a month ago. She doubted he had forgotten, though, for he had gone as long as she before that without kisses or anything else.
And she ought not to be thinking of such things now. Especially about the anything else.
She took refuge in other mental ramblings. Perhaps she ought to have left behind some sort of note for her father-in-law rather than slinking away like a naughty child who expected to be pursued. Would she be followed? But no one would know where she was going or how she was traveling. Perhaps she ought to have written to John, just to tell him she was quite safe and would write at greater length later. Though why she would do so, she did not know. John never wrote to her. He probably would not care if she went to the North Pole to live. Perhaps she ought to have left a note for Mrs. Andrews to explain why she must withdraw so soon from her committees and would be unable to do any more sick visiting. Perhaps …
She lost her battle with sleep at that point. Her thoughts floated away, and her head gradually slipped sideways until it rested against a warm, solid shoulder. She was vaguely aware of it, even of whose it was. She was even aware that it was not quite right to keep her head there, but she was too sleepy to act on the thought. It was a firm yet comfortable shoulder. She burrowed her head a little farther back to wedge it more securely between shoulder and cushion and slid the rest of the way into sleep.
Ben sat very still and wondered if they would succeed in getting all the way to her new home without becoming lovers. He had wondered the sa
me thing since yesterday afternoon. He had wondered it last night while trying to sleep.
… if we are only attracted to each other, then we should go to bed and have our fill of pleasure with each other.
She had actually spoken those words. After he had made her that asinine offer of marriage and before she had remembered that she owned a cottage—how could one forget that one owned a house?
He did not want them to become lovers. Well, he did. Of course he did. If he could shed all his clothes at this moment and plunge into a frigid lake, it would not surprise him at all if the water turned to steam. Good God, it had been longer than six years, and she was both beautiful and voluptuous and tantalizingly available.
But he did not want them to be lovers. For one thing, he was accompanying her in order to protect her from harm, not in order to debauch her himself. For another, he was a bit afraid of being anyone’s lover. He did not want any woman to see him as he was, to witness the difficulties he would doubtless have—though in the last month, since that kiss had opened the floodgates of his restored sexuality, he had wondered if it would be possible to remain celibate for the rest of his life. But he did not want her to see him. She was physically perfect while he … Well, while he was not. And for yet another thing, she was a recent widow and it would not be right to begin an affair with her so soon.
But here she was, warm and relaxed with sleep, her head burrowed between his shoulder and the seat cushion, one of her arms through his, her ungloved hand resting on his upper thigh, fingers spread. Her little finger was a hair’s breadth away from his groin. It really felt as though someone had pumped air from the tropics into the carriage. And it was all unconscious on her part.
He tried to think of other things and remembered suddenly that he had been planning to leave for London this morning. He would not be at Hugo’s wedding after all. He had not even replied to the invitation. He felt a wave of regret bordering on loneliness, imagining his six friends all gathering in London for the festivities. They would miss him, but they would think he was still in the north of England with Beatrice.
Mrs. McKay smelled of something sweet and elusive. Gardenia? Actually, he was no expert on female scents, but this one must have been specifically designed to tease the senses of celibates.
He looked downward, past her shapely hand. His legs, encased in pantaloons and Hessian boots, looked almost normal. But when they stopped for a change of horses, as they must do soon, it would be evident that they were not normal at all. He would descend to the cobbles of the inn yard, taking many times longer about it than any normal man would, and then he would turn to hand Mrs. McKay down, all stiff pain and gallantry when, left to herself, she could have been down without his assistance and already seated in the coffee room. He would not even be able to offer his arm to lead her into the inn. He would need both for his canes and his twisted legs. She would no doubt reduce her pace in order to make him less conscious of his slowness.
Who was accompanying whom on this journey?
It was reality, though, and would never be any different. He had pledged himself to accept that, had he not? So, he was half crippled. His legs were only just better than useless. His legs were not him, however. His life did not lose worth just because he could not move as he had used to move—and as almost every other man on earth did. How long would it be until he fully accepted that?
He glanced across to the other seat, where the ugly hound sprawled in ungainly slumber. She loved the dog, ugliness and ungainliness notwithstanding.
He laughed softly to himself.
How the devil had he got himself into this coil? He wondered what his fellow Survivors would say when he recounted this adventure—or misadventure—to them next spring.
They would not stop teasing him for a decade.
Traveling was one of the most difficult activities for Ben, a fact that underscored the irony of what he had decided to do with his life until something more meaningful suggested itself. Except that he knew his body well enough to understand how much he could demand of it. Normally he would travel in short stages, taking twice as long to get where he was going than anyone else would. And if he was traveling purely for pleasure, as he would soon be doing, he would take frequent days off.
This was different, however. Although he did not expect any pursuit, he still felt it wise to put as much distance between them and Bramble Hall as they could in the first day or two. One never knew when one would come up against someone who would know and recognize Mrs. McKay. Besides, it would be very much to his advantage to get this journey over with as soon as possible. He was not made of stone, after all.
By the end of the first day, he did not know quite how to sit still or how to keep a smile or at least a look of alert interest on his face as they conversed. And he did not know how he was going to descend from the carriage that final time. He did it, however, and even managed to stand at the reception desk of the inn his coachman had chosen long enough to pay for two bedchambers, one for himself, Major Sir Benedict Harper, and one for Mrs. McKay, the recent widow of his military friend. He also reserved accommodation for the two servants as well as kennel room for the dog.
He supposed the explanation had not been necessary, since it could not matter to the landlord what the relationship was between the two people staying at his inn. Ben escorted a black-veiled Samantha to her room, made arrangements to join her later in the private dining room he had reserved, and collapsed on the bed in his own room before throwing one arm over his eyes.
He had long experience at enduring pain. He rarely took any medicine to dull it, and he rarely allowed it to slow him down or confine him to his bed. It was a fact of his life and always would be. All he could do to control it was avoid the sort of activities—like long days seated in a carriage—that would intensify it.
Quinn came within five minutes and silently pulled off his boots and set to work massaging stiff muscles and working out clenched knots until he could relax more.
“Does she know about this?” he asked.
“Good Lord, no,” Ben said. “Why should she?”
They had talked determinedly through much of the day. And actually it had not been too difficult after a while. He had noticed that with her before. She was easy to talk to. She would always answer his questions and then ask her own in return. She neither monopolized the conversation nor expected him to do all the talking. They had exchanged memories of childhood. She remembered dancing barefoot in the grass with her mother and splashing and swimming in a stream with some other children from the village. He remembered swimming in the lake at Kenelston and climbing trees with the gamekeeper’s two boys and engaging in sword fights with them, using the wooden toy weapons their father had carved for them all—Ben included.
They had even sat in companionable silence some of the time, watching the scenery go by on their respective sides of the carriage, alone with their own thoughts.
“You might suggest slowing the journey down,” Quinn said. “Anyone would think from your speed that she was an underage maiden heiress and you a penniless nobody abducting her to Gretna Green.”
“And so muddleheaded that I am taking her in quite the wrong direction?”
“You will be crippled before you get to the wilds of beyond,” Quinn said, jerking his head in a direction that Ben guessed was meant to indicate the southwest coast of Wales.
“I think not,” Ben said. “Give me half an hour, Quinn, and then come back to help me dress for dinner.”
His valet grunted and withdrew. He had been a groom in the Duke of Stanbrook’s stables at Penderris when Ben first encountered him. In those early days of all-consuming agony, only that particular groom was able to move him and turn him for the necessary washes and changes and treatments without his quite passing out from the pain. His Grace had pretended to grumble when Ben appropriated the groom to be his nurse and then his valet.
An hour later Ben descended to the private dining room, feeling considerably
restored.
His first thought after opening the door was that he must have the wrong room. She was standing beside the table, which had been set for their meal, and she was wearing a high-waisted, short-sleeved evening dress of pale blue muslin. Her near-black hair was piled on her head in an intricately tied knot.
He stared at her, transfixed and aghast.
“What the devil?” he said, and he took an incautiously hasty step forward and shut the door firmly behind him.
She raised her eyebrows. “I left all my blacks at Bramble Hall, except what I wore today,” she told him. “I will not wear those again. They were ordered from Leyland and sent to Bramble Hall without any consultation with me or any fitting with a proper modiste. They are ugly and impersonal and ill-fitting, and they in no way reflect the genuine sorrow I felt at the premature death of my husband. They are the mere ostentatious trappings of grief, designed to impress the world. I will not put on a meaningless show any longer. That part of my life is over, and the next part of my life has begun.”
He took one step closer. “Have you forgotten,” he said, “that we are traveling as a major and the recent widow of his military friend? Who has seen you dressed like that?”
“Like what?” she asked. “You make me sound as if I am dressed like a harlot.”
“Like a young lady,” he said between his teeth, “traveling with a gentleman who is not her husband. Who has seen you?”
Her cheeks had flushed. “The landlord showed me where the dining parlor was,” she said. “There were a few other people. I did not take much notice.”
“You can be sure the landlord took notice,” he said. “Good Lord, and you do not even have a maid with you.”
“If you wish to go away, Sir Benedict—” she began.
“Stop talking nonsense,” he snapped at her. “From now on, starting tomorrow, we are going to have to be husband and wife. That is the only solution.”
“How ridiculous,” she said.
“You will be Lady Harper from tomorrow on,” he told her. “Oh, do not worry for your virtue. We will take separate rooms at the inns where we stay. My injuries make me restless and so make it imperative that I sleep alone. Not that we will be called upon to explain ourselves.”
