The Fleeing Heiress: A funny flight into love.

by Buck, Gayle

  Thomas responded with a wide grin. “That would be fine, Thea. It is cold enough to freeze a man’s blood in his veins today.”

  Thea nodded and hurried across the yard into the inn. Once out of the wind and cold, she walked across the front parlor of inn to the fire and held out her chilled hands to the crackling flames. It had been growing steadily colder in the carriage through the long drive, but it was only now that Thea actually realized it. Her emotions and thoughts had been so taken up with her own and Lord Cardiff’s plight that she had scarcely noticed anything else.

  Staring into the yellow flames, Thea wondered if it really had been only yesterday afternoon that she had been abducted by her sister’s betrothed. Odd, how the course of one’s life could hinge on a simple event like an unexpected bequest. If her godmother had not left her a small fortune, Mr. Quarles would not have spared a thought to her and she would not be circumstanced in this intolerable situation.

  Poor Lord Cardiff! Thea was utterly convinced that his lordship had long since come to bitterly regret his chivalrous actions. That was a most lowering reflection, for she would be a strange female indeed if she had not found Lord Cardiff very attractive. Thea wished that she had met his lordship under much different circumstances.

  “Miss, may I help you?”

  Thea turned, drawn out of her brown study. She discovered that the innkeeper was regarding her expectantly. Quietly she made known her own needs and requested refreshments for the party.

  The innkeeper’s smile faded. “You will not be requiring a private parlor, miss?” His inflection was surprised because in general travelers sought the warmth and congeniality of the inn on such a freezing day.

  Thea shook her head, feeling color stealing into her face, for she was aware how strange it was that she was the only one of the party to come into the inn. “My—my brothers are anxious to resume our journey as soon as possible.”

  “Of course, miss.” the innkeeper conveyed his disappointment and astonishment with the short syllables. He directed a chambermaid to show the lady to the privy and engaged himself to see that the sandwiches and drinks would be prepared.

  When Thea returned to the parlor, much refreshed, she felt measurably better. The world did not look so black when one had had the opportunity to relieve oneself and wash one’s face and hands. Once she had drunk a cup of tea and finished a small sandwich of roast beef slivers, she was able to contemplate her situation with a more detached rationality and a good deal more cheerfulness. She felt she had exhausted whatever persuasions might have been thought to hold sway with her brothers, but there had to be something she had overlooked.

  There were others beside herself in the parlor, but no one had bothered her. Thea paid little attention to anything around her as she wracked her brain for a solution to her dilemma.

  An overheard comment about the stagecoach made her look up quickly at the speaker, whom she discovered to be a spare, clerkish-looking man in a long coat. Inspiration struck her like a bolt of lightning.

  A few hurried words with the waiter elicited the information that the stagecoach had come in a quarter hour before and was preparing to depart again.

  Thea leaped to her feet, her heart pounding. If she was to act, it had to be at once. Her brothers would expect her to return to the carriage very soon. Likely Thomas would come in search for her when she did not reappear in a very few minutes.

  Thea did not know how long it would take for a new team to be put to Lord Cardiff’s carriage, nor how long hot cider and sandwiches would hold her brothers’ attention. But already most of that time must be lost to her, she thought anxiously.

  Thea found the driver of the stagecoach and spoke to him earnestly for several seconds. At first he was reluctant to take her up since she was not on the waybill of passengers, but she was finally able to persuade him to give her a place inside the stagecoach. Thea hurriedly counted out her fare from the meager resources in her possession and followed the driver outside.

  She kept the big man between herself and Lord Cardiff’s carriage, hoping that the driver’s bulk would hide her from her brothers’ eyes. Her heart was in her throat, for at any second she expected to hear Thomas’s exclamation of surprise and feel his hand come down upon her shoulder.

  “Baggage, miss?”

  Thea shook her head, with difficulty schooling her features from showing her apprehension. Would her lack of substance cause the driver to change his mind about giving her a place?

  However, the driver merely shook his head and saw her up into the stagecoach. Closing the door, he crunched round to the front and hefted himself onto the stagecoach seat. Picking up his heavy whip and the leather reins, he started the team. With a jerk, the stagecoach lumbered forward out of the inn yard.

  Squeezed between a stocky farmer and a stout matron, Thea was able to catch only a glimpse of the activity in the receding inn yard.

  A new team had been harnessed to Lord Cardiff’s carriage, and her brother Thomas was standing outside the unmoving vehicle, staring towards the inn with an uneasy expression on his face.

  The stagecoach swept around the corner and Thea could see nothing else. She drew in a careful breath, thinking it all out. Her brothers would waste time in conference, of course, before it was decided that one of them must go into the inn after her. It would take time, too, for it to be established she had slipped away from the inn. She had spoken only to the waiter about the stagecoach, and with any luck at all it would not immediately occur to her brothers to question any of the inn’s servants about her whereabouts. After all, there was a certain embarrassment that must be attached to such queries. So several precious minutes would be gained before her brothers even discovered what she had done. They would then have to decide whether or not to chase the stagecoach, and Thea rather hoped that they would be too daunted to take on the task of waylaying a public vehicle.

  Thea leaned back against the seat with a sigh. She closed her eyes as a small smile played across her lips. Even her brothers must recognize that, without her, there was simply no point in continuing forward with their ridiculous plan. They would have no choice left open to them except to free Lord Cardiff.

  The humiliating episode was over at last, thought Thea, allowing herself to relax. She only hoped that Lord Cardiff’s patience and good nature had not been so worn down that he would seek revenge upon her father and her brothers. However, she felt quite strongly that the gentleman who had saved her from an unpleasant contretemps would also show mercy in connection with her idiotic male relations. At least, she hoped it was so.

  Thea sighed again and exhaustion began to claim her. The deep sway of the stagecoach was having a soporific effect on nerves that had been too long stretched with tension. The stray thought drifted through her mind that she must always regret the manner of her meeting with Lord Cardiff. If only ... but she was asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Thea never knew how long she slept, but when she awakened the sunlight outside had shifted and was slanting from over the dense passing hedgerows, casting long shadows across the rutted road. She discovered that she had gotten stiff and attempted to discreetly stretch her cramped limbs.

  Despite feeling as though her body had been bruised from head to toe by the jolting of the stagecoach over the rough road, Thea felt surprisingly refreshed. The dull headache that had plagued her was gone. She knew the feeling of well-being and the lifting of her mood was naturally due to the cessation of hours of emotional distress. She felt quite like her old self, at once cheerful and content.

  If her situation at present was not all it should be, that would be remedied as soon as she disembarked from the stagecoach. She had had enough in her reticule to pay for her way to the quiet village where her great-aunt resided. She was confident, once she had identified herself as Mrs. Partridge’s niece, that she could borrow a gig at the inn to drive herself the rest of the way to her great-aunt’s home.

  Thea grimaced at her wrinkled walking dr
ess, aware that its hem was streaked with dirt. Her half-boots were also soiled. It was difficult to believe that two days ago she had been respectably turned out. She had never been in such a shocking state of dishevelment. Her great-aunt would be disconcerted to receive her in such odd straits, but even more astounding would be the explanation Thea felt herself bound to give to Mrs. Partridge.

  Thea felt tears burning her throat and behind her lids. It was quite, quite unfair. In truth, she would be the talk of her father’s household and, indeed, of the entire county. She had been gone a night and a day from her home without explanation except that which gossip might supply,

  Thea knew her family well enough to be able to envision the highly charged emotional scene that had taken place when her maid Hitchins had returned to the house with her tale of foul abduction. Her father was not a quiet man or given over to discreet reflection. Everyone within hearing distance would have heard what had happened. The tale would have spread rampant through the household, from kitchen to stable to garden, and beyond. By this date, the entire neighborhood would have heard the gossip and the village would be rife with speculation regarding Thea Stafford’s fate.

  Thea twisted her hands together inside the folds of her cloak.

  If she returned home now, unchaperoned and without the protection of father and brothers, it would hideously fuel the horrid gossip. Thea drew in a long, shaking breath as she imagined what it would be like. The sly looks, the whispers behind raised hands.

  It would be utterly insupportable.

  What Mr. Quarles had conceived and set in motion, her own father and brothers had placed the final crowning touch to through their bungling and lack of discretion.

  She could not bear the inevitable disgrace and shame. She would be shunned and insulted at every turn by anyone of the least respectability. If any of her friends even deigned to recognize her, it would be only through pity. Everyone would believe what Mr. Quarles had intended them to think, and worse, for she would not even have the redeeming value of Quarles’s wedding ring on her finger. For someone of her quality and background, a good reputation was everything, and as things stood, hers was irretrievable.

  Thea felt her only recourse was self-exile. That much had become clear in her reflections at the inn. When she had heard mention of the stagecoach, how it could be done had exploded upon her.

  Driven by desperation, she had acted. But now, contemplating the consequences, her spirits were weighed down. The thought of remaining a draw on her great-aunt’s charity was unpalatable. However, Thea could not see that she had any other choice, unless she went into service of some kind. The bequest from her godmother was useless to her since it would only come into her hands upon the occasion of her marriage or upon her twenty-fifth birthday. It was ironic that the very reason for her present trouble could not be used to help her.

  Of a sudden the stagecoach began to slow and lurch to a stop. The stout farmer was roused from his nap and posed a querulous question, but none of the other passengers could provide an answer. Curiosity and speculation at the unscheduled stop was batted round, ranging from the opinion that one of the team had gone lame to a cracked axle. Someone lowered the window and put out his head, remarking when he reentered that there was a carriage pulled across the road in front of the stagecoach.

  Thea was so sunk in her slough of depression that she paid no attention.

  However, she protested instinctively, just as everyone else did, at the blast of arctic air when the door was opened. All of the passengers complained loudly of their displeasure. The momentary lowering of the window had been nothing compared to it.

  Thea was completely dismayed when her brother Philip stepped up to the opening. She shrank back against the seat, her one thought to seek escape. But there was none, of course.

  Philip ignored the passengers’ questions. His eyes roved quickly over the faces turned towards him. “There you are, Thea.” There was a distinct note of relief in his voice. “We were concerned about you.”

  “No, you were not!” exclaimed Thea. Quite forgetting where she was, she sat bolt upright. “You do not care at all, Philip! No, nor Thomas, either! Neither of you cares that you’ve ruined my life!”

  All of the passengers were staring with various expressions of shock. Acutely aware of an audience, Philip Stafford gave an embarrassed cough. “My sister. She has run away,” he explained shortly, without directly addressing anyone. “Thea, pray come down. We had to spring his lordship’s horses to catch the stagecoach and stop it. The driver is none too pleased with us.”

  The passengers at once voiced their opinions and displeasure at the unexpected delay. Since it was obvious that the young lady and young gentleman were known to one another, several recommended that Thea get out.

  “You oughtn’t run off from your family, miss,” said the spare, clerkish man disapprovingly.

  “We’re late enough as it is, miss,” said the farmer apologetically, offering a callused hand to help her out. He avoided her tragic-appearing eyes with some discomfiture.

  “Thomas and—and our friend are waiting in the carriage,” said Philip, clearing his throat again. He added persuasively, “Do come along, Thea.”

  The passengers renewed their own convictions that Thea should disembark. The driver had by now climbed down and come round to stand behind Philip’s shoulder. He, too, demanded that Thea leave the stagecoach. “I can’t let me horses stand long in this cold, miss.”

  Recognizing that she had very little choice in the matter, Thea climbed out of the stagecoach, accepting the farmer’s help over that of her brother. Philip tentatively took her arm and escorted her down the road to Lord Cardiff’s carriage, which had already been drawn over to the side so that it was no longer blocking the stagecoach’s passage.

  The stage driver climbed up on his box, indifferent to anything but his own responsibility, and the coach started away with a heavy clatter of hooves. Thea watched it sway ponderously out of sight, ignoring Philip’s urging to get up into the carriage out of the cold. She saw an arm wave from out of the stagecoach window and believed that it was the farmer who had showed that small gesture of friendship.

  Without a word, then, she stepped up into Lord Cardiff’s carriage and sat down in her former place beside his lordship. Philip reentered the carriage after her, letting his breath out on a great sigh as he shut the door and banged on the roof to signal the coachman. The carriage started forward.

  Thomas, who was holding the pistol cocked at Lord Cardiff, greeted his sister’s appearance with an expression of relief and a reproachful remonstrance. “You ought not to have run away, Thea. We might not have realized you had slipped away on the stagecoach. Anything could have happened to you.”

  Thea was roused from her posture of apathy. Her eyes blazed as she rounded on both of her brothers. “You mean that I might have been abducted? Or perhaps been ravished and left abandoned against the hedgerows?”

  “Thea!”

  She ignored the shocked interjection. “What worse could happen that has not already befallen me?” The dam of her self-control broke. Tears slipped unheeded down her cheeks as she stared at them.

  “Why, Thea, I’ve never known you to cry,” exclaimed Philip, looking at her with concern. He reached out towards her, meaning to comfort her with a brotherly hug.

  “Don’t touch me!” exclaimed Thea with loathing.

  Philip reared back, astounded.

  Thea dropped her face into her hands and cried harder.

  Lord Cardiff’s voice was calm. “You are overwrought, Miss Stafford. It is little wonder.” He gently took hold of her wrist and drew her towards him.

  Thea at once hid her face against his lordship’s shoulder, reaching up with one hand to clutch his wide lapel. Her voice was muffled and broken by pathetic sobs. “They are horrible! Philip and—and Thomas and P-Papa!”

  “Yes, they are. Utterly horrible. I’ve thought so now for several hours,” said Cardiff soothingly.
r />   “I detest them!” Renewed loathing made Thea’s voice vibrate.

  “Of course you detest them. It is quite understandable,” said Cardiff in a calm tone, nodding above her bowed head.

  As one, Philip and Thomas Stafford glared at Lord Cardiff. It was patent that the sight of their sister being comforted by his lordship was not one that they found particularly edifying.

  “Sir! My lord!” spluttered Philip. “It is quite unseemly for you to put your arm around our sister!”

  Thomas growled assent, his face set in frowning lines. “Most unseemly!”

  Thea reared up, her face tear-streaked but her eyes blazing from between clumped lashes. “Unseemly! Oh, isn’t that rich! You object! Now that I am a fallen woman, I suppose any number of gentlemen may expect to put their arms about me!”

  “Thea Emily Stafford!” gasped Philip, thoroughly shocked.

  “It’s true!” she declared. “I’m ruined, and it’s all your f-fault! And yours, Thomas! I realized it on the stagecoach. I can’t ever, ever go home again!”

  Thea ended on a wail and buried her face in Lord Cardiff’s shoulder again. For several minutes there was nothing but the sound of Thea’s weeping. Her brothers shifted uncomfortably, exchanging worried glances.

  Cardiff suffered the storm patiently. When the sobs lessened to hiccoughs, he reached into his greatcoat pocket and drew out a large linen handkerchief. A delicate monogram decorated one comer of the square. “Miss Stafford, pray dry your eyes.”

  Thea straightened up, not glancing at either Lord Cardiff or her brothers. She took the handkerchief and mopped her eyes and blew her nose. She felt better, though utterly ashamed of her torrent of emotion. Eyes still downcast, she stuffed the handkerchief into her reticule. Her voice still thickened, she murmured, “I shall wash and iron it for you, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Miss Stafford,” said Cardiff at his most polite.

  Thea cast a swift glance up into his face, then away. “I am very sorry, my lord. I have wet your coat.”