Thompson swung his glass in her direction. “Ah, yes, my dear.” He took slow, careful note of her gaunt and pallid cheeks, the heavy coverings pulled up to her chin, the cap pulled low over her forehead. “Not quite the blushing bride.”
Annalise started to correct him, but Sir Vernon held up one long, tapered finger. “No, no, my dear, do not excite yourself. Let us keep this a comfortable little coze, shall we?”
She nodded, for that was her intention, too, and indicated the chair and decanter and glass placed nearby for his convenience. “Please help yourself, sir.”
His thin lips twitched into a semblance of a smile as he poured, but he remained standing, so Annalise had to crick her neck uncomfortably to see his face. Finally he deigned to take the seat, flicking a bit of lint off the velvet cushion first. “You have led quite a sheltered life, haven’t you?”
Annalise wondered if that was a question. He knew very well that she’d had no come-out and no Season, what with periods of mourning and then no proper female to present her, and of course Barnaby always in the wings. How the situation must have pleased Sir Vernon, keeping her from meeting other eligible beaux, gentlemen who might not be as amenable as cabbage-headed Barny to sharing her dowry. Sheltered? Yes, she’d been kept from all but the local society, but if he meant to excuse Barnaby Coombes on the count that she was a green girl, the baronet was sadly mistaken.
“I have not been so sheltered, sir, that I do not know the ways of a man with a maid, if that is your meaning.”
He dismissed her words with a wave of his manicured hand. “No, no, I did not suppose you to be an ignorant schoolroom miss. That’s not my meaning. I refer instead to how you have been protected from fortune-hunters and hangers-on, and shielded from slights due to your mother’s, shall we say, bourgeois background.”
“Mother’s parents were wonderful people!”
“And wonderfully wealthy. Unfortunately, that wealth came from trade, my dear, which even your sweet innocence must recognize as offputting to anyone with pretensions to gentility. That is not quite the point I am desirous of making, either. Your mother and your Bradshaw grandparents, with my assistance, I admit, and Barnaby’s, have kept you from the harsher realities of life faced by every other well-born female. The fact, drummed into the ears of each and every girl infant blessed with either fortune or breeding or merely great beauty, is simply the necessity to marry well.”
Annalise twisted the fringe on her shawl. “I take it you are speaking of arranged marriages, arranged for the convenience of the families instead of for the young people involved. Titles are exchanged for riches, lands are joined, successions are assured without considering the feelings of those who must spend their lives together.”
“Precisely. Great happiness is often found in these marriages, and if not”—another casual wave of his hand—“other arrangements can be made. Less regular, but highly rewarding.”
“If you are suggesting that I contemplate wedding someone only to…to forswear my vows, then I shan’t listen.”
“Why, I would never suggest you compromise your morals, my dear, I am simply trying to make a bitter pill go down easier. You see, you have foolishly been led to believe that you could marry to please yourself.”
“My parents did, and I intend to do the same.”
“Ah, yes. Your parents, the perfect example. Sweet Caroline followed her heart—right into disaster!”
“My father—”
“Is dead, so I shall not disparage his memory. Suffice it to say that Viscount Avery was cast off without a farthing for marrying a tradesman’s daughter. And not just any trade, but coal, the dirtiest, sootiest trade of them all, considering how the ton hates getting its fingers dirty. Caroline was never accepted in his world, and he despised hers. The viscount took up gaming, you must know, and only his early death saved even Caroline’s vast fortune from being whistled down the wind.”
“My parents loved each other!”
“That was not enough. At least Caroline had the sense to accept my offer, so that you might be raised away from the smell of the shop.”
“And you did not suffer from the marriage, either. I remember Thompson Hall was in shambles when we moved here from Grandfather’s, and there were almost no servants.”
“Precisely. An advantageous marriage for both parties. Just as your wedding to a well-respected landowner like Barnaby Coombes will benefit all of us.”
“I do not respect Barnaby Coombes. I do not trust him, and I do not even like him very well anymore. I shall never marry him, no matter what you say. I shall marry for love, as my mother did, or not at all.”
Sir Vernon studied his polished nails. “I never supposed you to be so buffle-headed, so perhaps I have not made myself clear even yet. You have no choice, Annalise.”
“Of course I do,” she said with a laugh. “Other men will be attracted to my dowry if nothing else. I am not quite on the shelf, you know, even if I am one and twenty.”
“But I prefer Barnaby.” Sir Vernon’s words were softly spoken, but Annalise caught the steel behind them.
“You cannot force me to—”
“Yes, I can. That old fool Bradshaw used to be your guardian; now I alone have the right to bestow your hand, and not a court in the land can gainsay my choice. If we were not in such a backwater, I’d have had you wed while you were delirious with the fever. Our own Vicar Harding is above such irregular proceedings, unfortunately. He would be affronted at the idea of a deathbed marriage unless I suggested you and Barnaby had anticipated the wedding night.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Of course I would, child. Do not doubt it for a minute. A bit of laudanum…a tearful plea for your soul’s salvation. Had I known you to be such a willful chit, the deed would be done and we’d not need this tiresome little chat. That was my error, thinking you to be a biddable female like your mother.” He sighed. “I shan’t make the same mistake twice, so I’ll have to journey to Town for a special license. So fatiguing, don’t you know.” Annalise could not believe what she was hearing. They’d never shared much affection, but this…this declaration of cold-blooded treachery sent tremors down her spine.
“You’ll never get away with such villainy,” she declared.
“Oh, no? Who will stop me? The servants whose salaries I pay? Or perhaps you think the Duke of Arvenell will come to the aid of a mongrel granddaughter now, when he wrote his son out of his will ages ago. Your mother showed me the letter he sent when she advised him of the viscount’s death. Arvenell thanked her, Annalise, for having just the one daughter, so he never had to worry about the succession falling into tainted hands. No, the mighty duke is not about to leave Northumberland to cry halt to an unexceptionable wedding of an unacknowledged chit. Don’t suppose any of the local gentry will interfere, either, not when I tell them how unbalanced you are by illness and grief. They’d only congratulate me on finding you such an understanding husband.”
Annalise was trembling for real now. Perhaps she was still caught in the fever’s nightmares. But no, Sir Vernon was pressing Barny’s ring into her clenched fingers, fingers that had unraveled half the fringe on her shawl.
“The choice is yours, my dear,” he was saying. “You can accept Barny’s offer and have your charming little wedding in the village chapel next month after the banns are read, or you can expect my…solution to the dilemma. The outcome will be the same, my dear, never doubt it. I’ll have your decision as soon as I return next week with Barnaby and the special license.”
*
Annalise was going to be long gone by then.
Chapter Three
“Here’s some nice gruel, Miss Avery.”
“How about a little nap, Miss Avery? Are you sure you should be downstairs, ma’am?”
The servants must have been told Annalise was suffering a nervous decline from the brain fever, for they watched her and followed her about, speaking to her as if she were in the cradle or in her dotage. They wer
e happy enough to humor her, fetching any number of books from the library, fresh flowers from the gardens, the most tempting delicacies from Cook’s pantry, but not one would call a carriage for her.
“Oh, no, miss. Sir Vernon said you were much too ill to go afield. Doctor’s orders, he said. Perhaps you’d like to see the latest fashion journals the master had sent from London for you?”
At least none of them objected when Annalise wanted to search the attics for old wigs and such. The entire staff knew the fate of her long blond locks and sympathized with poor miss, so gone off her looks that her handsome Mr. Coombes had ridden away in high dudgeon. Her maid and two footmen even helped carry down some ancient costume pieces, stuffing them in satchels and hatboxes, so miss could try them on later in the privacy of her room. Maybe that would raise her spirits.
Annalise raised the bandbox lid and stuffed in one more change of linen and another pair of sturdy shoes. Into the satchel she crammed her jewel box, miniatures of her parents, the jade horse, and her grandmother’s journal, all cushioned by two heavy flannel nightgowns. She pulled on one of her old mourning gowns, then another on top of that. She was so thin her new riding habit, a green velvet picked to match her eyes, still buttoned over the two black dresses. A heavy wool cloak went over everything, the pockets weighted with a small pistol, a silver flask of Sir Vernon’s finest contraband cognac, the contents of the household cash drawer, and as many lumps of sugar as she’d been able to pick up from the tea tray without drawing suspicion. Her own pin money was stashed in various inside pockets of the several layers of clothing, along with the thin stack of letters Sir Vernon must never find.
Annalise did leave him a note saying that she was running away to Bath to find Signor Maginelli, the music instructor who had begged her to elope with him last Christmas. She also left her entire trousseau, and Barny’s ring. Adjusting the wig on her head one last time, she gathered up her parcels and locked the bedroom door behind her. She placed two wig cases outside the door to be returned to the attics, indicating that she was not to be disturbed till morning, then she crept down the stairs while the servants were at supper.
The hard part was saddling her half-Arabian mare Seraphina before the stable lads came back for their nightly dice game. No amount of sugar was going to keep the spirited animal from cavorting around in welcome to her long-missing owner.
“Hush, you silly, hush! I missed you, too. Now stand still, and we’ll have a nice long run. Hush, beauty.”
At last Annalise was done, the mare daintily sidestepping at the unfamiliar packages tied to the saddle. She whickered softly when Annalise led another chestnut mare into the Arabian’s vacant stall. “No, she’s not as pretty as you, my darling, but in the dark she’ll do. Now come, Seraphina, just a few more minutes of quiet, then we can fly. No one will ever catch us.”
Especially not with all the loose bridles locked in a tack box, the key tossed into a pile of manure.
They rode through the home woods, picking their way cautiously around fallen trees and rabbit holes, then cross-country over fields and pastures. At last they were beyond Sir Vernon’s boundaries, with the main road just ahead. Annalise laughed out loud and Seraphina reared on her hind legs, then dashed forward, not south toward Bath, however, but north toward the market village of Upper Morden. Annalise laughed again, causing a weary farmer to cross himself and a goose girl to run down the lane, screaming about haunts in the woods. A poacher just setting out at dusk decided to return home. This was not a night to be testing one’s luck, not with any White Lady abroad, riding astride like all the hounds of hell were after her and her devil horse. Worse, she was yowling like a banshee, with bundles of souls flapping beside her and a great dark cape billowing behind. She and the horse and the cape were all shrouded in an eerie white fog.
The only wig Annalise had considered suitable for her purposes was a towering edifice à la Marie Antoinette. Well powdered, of course.
She discarded the wig behind a hedgerow outside Upper Morden and tied on a close-fitting dark bonnet. She walked Seraphina right through the main street and tied her to the rear of the Findleys’ Two Rose Tavern. Mrs. Findley herself bustled over to the back entry where Annalise stood, drawing the dark woolen cape more firmly over the green of her riding habit.
“’Ere now, we run a proper establishment. We don’t let none of your sort in this—criminy, Miss Avery, is it?” She looked behind Annalise as if the girl were hiding a maid and two footmen behind her skirts. “And out alone? I swann, that’s a rare to-do. What’s the world coming to, I want to know, when proper young females go racketing about the countryside after dark on their ownsomes?”
Annalise was gently steering the portly landlady down the hall toward the private parlors, away from the public taproom. “Please,” she whispered, though not terribly softly, “I need your help. I am running away.”
Mrs. Findley’s mouth hung so wide, a swallow could have nested there. “I swann.”
Annalise tucked a coin in Mrs. Findley’s fat hand. “It’s not as improper as an elopement or anything. My grandfather is sending a coach to take me north. My grandfather, his grace the Duke of Arvenell, that is. I need to wait in your back parlor for just an hour or so. Will that be all right?” She held out another coin, which quickly followed the path of the first down a slide between mounding bosoms.
“What about Sir Vernon?” Mrs. Findley whispered so loudly that only the passed-out louts in the alehouse missed her words.
Annalise hid her smile by staring at her riding boots. “You mustn’t tell Sir Vernon. He…he wants to marry me against my will.” Which wasn’t a lie, just misleading. It was enough to send Mrs. Findley’s massive chest heaving.
“Lawkes a mercy! That bounder! That Coombes fellow was bad, always sniffing round the serving girls, but this is outside of enough, I swann! I get my hands on that makebait, he’ll wish his parents never met. You come this way, dearie, where no one’ll bother you till your granfer comes. A real dook, too? I swann.”
Annalise was right where she wanted to be, in the Findleys’ own parlor, with its own rear door. She ate the bread and cheese a wide-eyed serving girl brought, and waited for full darkness and a full taproom, judging from the noise. She left another coin, then she stepped outside, asking a passing ostler the way to the necessary.
This time Annalise kept the mare to a quiet walk through the back alleys of Upper Morden. Then she took every deserted lane and cowtrack she knew, keeping to the trees when she heard a carriage or another horseman, until she was nearly back to Thompson Hall. At the edge of exhaustion, she rode through the home woods and down a quiet path that skirted the home farm and the tenants’ houses. Annalise could barely keep her head from collapsing onto Seraphina’s neck when she finally saw the glow of candles from a cottage that stood all by itself in a clearing. She smiled. Sir Vernon was wrong; there were people who would help her.
*
In times of dismay, disillusionment, and dire peril, a body needed three things: love, loyalty, and larceny. Annalise’s old nanny, Mrs. Hennipicker, was sure to provide unquestioned love, unquestioning loyalty—and hot soup. Henny’s husband, Rob, was a retired highwayman. What better allies could a fugitive find?
“What are you, girl, dicked in the nob? Stealin’ a horse and the household money, tellin’ whiskers up and down the pike, gallopin’ like a goblin acrost the countryside. And for what? So’s you don’t have to marry your childhood sweetheart, ’cause he’s been gatherin’ his own bloomin’ rosebuds, and so’s your step-da can’t steal the money old man Bradshaw stole from the poor sods who worked his coal mines.” Rob spit tobacco juice into the hearth and went back to trimming his beard with a knife. “I thought you had more sense’n a duck. Guess I was wrong, chickie.”
“Whisht, Rob, leave the poor thing be. Can’t you see she’s plumb tuckered? You go on and hitch up the wagon. It’s too cold for missy to ride home in her weakened condition.”
So much for love and
loyalty.
“I’ll have a little talk with your Barnaby afore the wedding if you want,” Rob offered, holding the shining blade to the fire’s light. “Convince him of the error of his ways for you. Worked fine on that nasty billy goat old Trant used to let roam loose. Of course old Trant’s nannies ain’t had no kids since then.”
And minor illegalities.
Bribery wouldn’t work; Rob likely had three times her jewels and coins stashed away in the secret compartments of the cottage, from his days on the high toby. Threats would never do the trick, either; she hadn’t cried rope on Rob for thirteen years, and they all knew she’d never go to the authorities now, even if she weren’t a runaway herself. Nanny always said, “Crying don’t pay the piper,” so tears would be useless, should Annalise find the energy to produce them. That left only honor. It was a hard hand to play, and only one trump left.
Annalise put her high card on the table: “You owe me, Rob Hennipicker.”
Rob put the knife down and winked at his wife. “I told you she had bottom, Henny, didn’t I? You fatten our girl up whilst I go see about hidin’ that pretty little mare.”
Annalise had to use the corner of her cloak to wipe her eyes. With all the miscellany in her pockets she could not find a handkerchief. “You and Rob were going to help me get away the whole time, weren’t you?”
“Of course we were, poppet, we just had to make sure that was what you really wanted.” Henny put a steaming bowl of stew in front of Annalise, clucking her tongue about how those fools at Thompson Hall were letting her baby waste away to nothing. She brought over a thick slice of bread and began buttering it. “You wouldn’t have called in that old debt if you hadn’t been desperate. We all know that.”
*
Many years ago, when Annalise’s father was still alive, he rented a place in Brighton to be near the ton’s wealthy gamesters for the summer. The viscount and Lady Avery went ahead, with the baggage and their personal servants in a second carriage. Eight-year-old Annalise was prone to travel sickness, so she and her nursemaid, Mrs. Hennipicker, traveled at a slower speed in a hired chaise. Henny was deathly afraid of being set upon by the highwaymen plaguing the Brighton road, but the hired driver and his arrogant young footman made light of her fears.
Lady in Green Page 2
