An Arrangement of Sorts

by Rebecca Connolly

  “Very,” she responded with a nod, taking her hair in hand and beginning to plait it. “Have you received word of my brother?”

  “Later,” he mouthed, closing the door behind him. He set the tray down on the small table in the corner, and turned to face her again, wondering what had happened to his foul mood.

  “What is it?” Moira asked softly as she continued working with her hair.

  “What is what?”

  She gave him a look. “Something is troubling you. What is it?”

  “How could you possibly know that?” he asked with a laugh that sounded as forced as it felt.

  “You don’t hide your feelings nearly as well as you think you do, Nathan,” she replied with a pitying smile. “Now stop stalling. What?”

  He shook his head. “Not here. I will tell you,” he promised as she opened her mouth to protest, “but later. Once we are gone.”

  She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then nodded. “Very well.” She pinned her plait up, then sat down by the tray of food he had brought and helped herself. “What is your plan for the morning?”

  He sighed and rubbed his hands together. “Well, first I think I need to tell you just what our fellow patrons think of us, and then we can decide what to do.”

  Chapter Five

  “Well, that was a right sight better, don’t you think?” Moira asked as she and Nathan rode away from the inn.

  “Indeed, it was,” he agreed, feeling more relieved to be leaving a place than he had in a long time. “Your performance was much better this morning.”

  She nodded graciously with a smile. “Why, thank you. I hope they enjoyed my fluttery antics.”

  He chuckled. “I am sure they did. I received my share of sympathetic glances.”

  “I reminded myself of my Aunt Miriam,” she said with a grimace, shuddering delicately. “It was terrifying, actually.”

  “I know,” he teased. “I was there, remember?”

  She gave him a look that he pointedly ignored. “And you played the part of a long-suffering husband with a dreadful wife quite well,” she complimented. “I have rarely seen anyone look so convincing while acting.”

  He snorted and arched a brow at her. “Who said I was acting?”

  She rolled her eyes at him, but grinned. “If I were closer, I would smack you for that. I did say I was sorry for ever creating Margaret, but you were the one who decided Rupert was miserable. You could have been hopelessly in love instead.”

  “I would never have received any sympathy for being in love with Margaret,” he protested. “If you could have seen their faces when you were talking last night…”

  She sighed, a touch sadly. “It is probably best that I did not. It would have made things worse.” She shrugged and then brightened considerably. “Did they believe you when you said you preferred the stables last night?”

  “They did. I got the impression that quite a few of them have experience with avoiding sharing a room with their wives. Particularly our host.” He frowned at the memory, wondering how much of their behavior was in human nature.

  “Oh my, there is a dreadful face. Would you mind sharing what has brought it on?”

  He looked over at her, and found her expression full of curiosity, but more of concern. He debated sharing what he was thinking and feeling with her. For some reason he could not identify, he wanted to know her thoughts, and he knew that if he shared this with her, he would get whatever views she had, regardless of if they would be favorable on him or not. She was simply incapable of keeping things to herself.

  It was as maddening as it was refreshing.

  Finally, he decided that she should know. Why shouldn’t she? It had been her behavior that had sparked this, and his reactions to it had helped it along.

  “I told you what happened after I left last night, after we… well, after our disagreement.”

  “Oh, call it a fight, by all means,” she interrupted with a wave of her hand. “We were furious. Had we been anywhere else, there would have been a great deal of shouting and throwing of breakable things and perhaps a few tears. It was a fight, it deserves the proper name.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. She was, without a doubt, the strangest woman he had ever met.

  “I was astonished by the number of men that sympathized with me about my supposed wife,” he began, his eyes focusing on the horizon, feeling it was the safest place for them to be. “Many of them expressed desires to be rid of their own, and had even thought of how to do it. I heard so many things about marriages and wives, things that I would never dare repeat to you or anyone else.” He shook his head with a bit of disgust. “It made me ashamed of men in general.”

  Moira kept silent as she rode beside him, for which he was supremely grateful.

  He frowned and met her eyes. “But it got me thinking, as it did last night, about the sad state of marriage. These men did not know you or me, and based on one brief encounter, they saw their own unhappy marriages in it, and made it seem normal. What in the world is normal about any of it? What man would subject himself to a life of misery with a woman they could not even care for? Not to mention the women involved. Don’t they deserve a husband that cares about them?”

  Moira did not say anything for a long while, then she began to speak, her voice low, “We are both well aware that people marry for things far less than what you or I desire. It is something we do not like to think about, but we know it happens.”

  “Oh, I know it does,” he said on an exhale. “Money, desperation, family wishes, improvement of station or reputation… But it all seems so ridiculous, doesn’t it? Marriage is meant to last and to bring about children and to improve life in general for all parties involved, but that must mean so much more than temporal interest. It troubles me that so many others marry for money alone. If there is a choice, is it really too much to ask that you marry someone you can tolerate? It does not have to be love, I am not so naïve as that, nor do I expect it myself. But friendship, affection, or some other mutual understanding must be considered. And if you do not choose that, and a marriage for temporal reasons is all, then you can have no reason to be unhappy about it, and no room for complaint.” He was getting carried away in his feelings, but he had thought about the topic a good deal.

  After what he had done to his brother’s chances for marriage, he could hardly have ignored it.

  “Not all men see the world as you do, Nathan,” Moira said quietly.

  “They should,” he grunted, looking away.

  “Yes, they probably should,” she agreed, “but they don’t.” She then tilted her head thoughtfully. “May I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “You seem to have thought a great deal on the subject.” She paused, chewing on her lip for a moment. “It seems as if you have had some personal experience with unhappy marriages.”

  “Still waiting on a question,” he prodded, raising a brow.

  She smiled. “If it is not too personal, would you share it with me? I don’t want to pry, I just want to understand.”

  Nathan considered that, and finally agreed that it would help her see his point. “It is actually a chief example of what I was saying. It started my thoughts on the subject years ago. I have a close friend, Derek, who has been married to his wife, Katherine, for the past five years or so.”

  That seemed to take her by surprise. “He must have married rather young for a man.”

  He nodded. “He did. The marriage was arranged.”

  “Arranged?” she asked, completely baffled now. “People still arrange marriages?”

  “Oh, yes,” he told her, shifting a bit awkwardly in his saddle. He did not enjoy talking about Derek’s marriage. There really was not a way to go about it without approaching his title, and a common man would have no dealings with a marquess. “It was arranged between them from their childhood, and when Derek became old enough to know what that meant, he also learned that it was as binding as any contract
in the world.”

  “So why marry so young? Surely waiting until they were older and able to get to know each other…”

  “They have known each other from the very beginning,” Nathan said, stopping her with a shake of his head. “It does not help matters. They cannot stand each other. To be fair, Derek is not exactly easy tempered, and is rather set in his ways and I don’t see him changing any time soon. And Katherine is… well, the way Derek describes her is the bringer of all misery, brimstone, and plagues, parading her self-importance in her destructive wake. As attractive as a leech and far less good for the health.”

  Moira covered her mouth, but it was not enough to hide the snort of laughter that escaped her. “I’m sorry,” she managed when she was composed, dropping her hand, “that is terrible. Humorous, but still terrible.”

  He grinned. “You have not met her. She is not especially pleasant. But that is neither here nor there. The point is that Derek’s perspective on marriage is a little skewed. I rarely take anything he says on the subject into consideration at all.”

  “I can see why. Poor man. Well, poor Katherine, too,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Why poor Katherine?” he asked in confusion. “She has everything she wanted, and I’m not being insensitive. I heard her say those very words.”

  “Oh, no doubt she thinks she does, but to be living with so little expectations of joy in her life, to only view her existence as a series of duties, and to never know real love… It’s quite sad.” She sighed and shook herself, then looked up at Nathan. “Well, at least neither of us has to worry about that, do we?”

  “Lucky us.”

  Nathan mentally winced. He had been unable to moderate his tone completely, and his cynicism was showing. Truly, he had no reason to be so about the subject of love and marriage, but hearing Derek’s tales and knowing his own temperament, he had never quite thought about finding love for himself.

  Until she had come along with all her ideas and romantic notions. And now it was all he could think about.

  “Well, don’t think on those idiot men anymore, Nathan,” Moira said firmly. “Just because they don’t know how to properly comport a marriage does not mean the rest of us are doomed.”

  “The rest of us?” he repeated with a hard laugh. “I think most of the world is the same way.”

  “Stop it,” she scolded severely. “You are being very cantankerous, and it does not agree with my preferred form of travelling. So stop it now, or I will find a new escort and leave you here for highway robbery.”

  Highway robbery? He almost laughed. “Fine,” he muttered, pretending he was still upset. “I suppose I will stop.”

  “That is what I thought you would say,” she replied with a regal nod of her chin.

  He shook his head. “You are so demanding,” he grumbled good-naturedly.

  She let out a small sniff of false indignation. “Get used to it.”

  He gave her a careful look. “Are you always going to try to cheer me up? Or are you just feeling particularly kind today?”

  Her cheeks flushed slightly and she ducked her head. “Well, a moody you is not a pleasant thing. It was purely an act of self-preservation, you understand.”

  He nodded somberly in understanding. “Of course, yes. Self-preservation, that is very wise.” But his eyes twinkled all the same.

  The silence between them stretched on, nearly to the point of awkwardness.

  “So, did you find out anything useful about Charles or was the whole exercise in creativity a loss?” Moira finally asked.

  “It was not a loss at all, actually,” he told her with a smile, “but it was not for want of trying, thanks to you.”

  She moaned and shook her head. “When will that cease to be amusing for you?”

  “Oh, probably never.” He flashed her a devious grin. “The male patrons were very keen to talk to me about whatever they could. I must have been quite the pathetic picture.”

  “Ah, true to life…”

  He chuckled and saluted her. “Touché, my dear.” Then he grew serious. “I don’t expect to hear too much until we get closer to Preston, unless he really did stop somewhere along the way. But there were three men who recognized the name and two of those could match the description you gave me.”

  Moira frowned. “But how does that help us? We are not anywhere near Preston, they could be remembering him from when he was in this area.”

  “Not if they were all from the north.”

  Her eyes lit up and she grinned. “Really?”

  He matched her smile, albeit to a lesser degree. “Really.”

  “So we are headed on in the right direction, then.”

  He nodded. “That we are. I think we can just stay along this main road for a while, but we can start asking for the best way to Preston and see if someone might give us better directions. Did Charles know how he was going to get there? We could follow his route.”

  She shook her head, her light dimming slightly. “No, he had never been. I am afraid that won’t help.”

  “And there you would be wrong.”

  She looked up at him, her expression confused. “How would that be?”

  “Because if he did not know how he was going to get there, or which way to go, then he would also have had to ask for directions.”

  “So if we speak with the innkeepers along the way…” she began, her smile starting to form once more.

  He nodded. “Then they may remember someone else trying to get to Preston as quickly as possible,” he finished for her. “It’s not a common destination for someone from this area.”

  She laughed in victory. “We may actually be able to find him!” she cried, looking over at Nathan with a wild grin.

  “Yes, we may,” he agreed with a smile. “But with your willpower, Moira Dennison, I would not expect anything less.”

  Her smile flickered briefly. “I wouldn’t be as confident about the strength of willpower, Nathan. It can be quite as easy to be strong-minded about a wrong thing as it is about a right. Just because someone is decided on a course does not mean they are confident about it. ”

  “You have doubts?” he asked her, his eyes searching her face.

  “There are always doubts, even in the most determined. We just don’t speak of them.” Her voice was soft, and he sensed that he had hit upon a much deeper, more painful topic. He wished she would not retreat so. She was very neatly stripping away his defenses, and while he could understand her desire for privacy, he wished she would allow him to do the same.

  He didn’t enjoy seeing the vulnerability on her face. It made him feel protective, which was rather impossible to explain, as there was nothing to protect her from save him. And herself. Somehow he would find a way to open her up, but until then, he would have to find ways to distract her.

  “I believe it is my turn for a question,” he announced, wondering which of the hoard of questions about her that were floating around in his head he should ask.

  She turned with an expectant, and perhaps a touch relieved, smile. “I believe you are correct. What is your question this time? Darkest fears? Secret hopes? Shocking secret that nobody but my dolls knows about?”

  “You have dolls?” he asked in surprise.

  She smirked. “Is that your question?”

  “No!” he hastily said with a laugh. “No, it’s not. My question is this; yesterday morning when we set out, how long had you been waiting for me?”

  She looked surprised. “That is what you wish to know? Not something more pressing about my past or my personality or my behavior?”

  He shrugged. “I have many, many questions, Moira. But there is an order to all things, and I had a few questions yesterday morning, most of which have been answered in their course. Once I know the answer to this one, I can move on to those deeper questions you seem so keen to answer.”

  “A few questions?” she asked with a grin. “What were the others?”

  “It’s not your turn,
” he reprimanded with a finger. “They have been answered and that is all you need to know right now. Are you going to answer or will you choose to pass?”

  “Oh, I’ll answer,” she laughed, batting away his finger, “but you will not like it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I was waiting almost two hours.”

  “Two hours?” he cried, jerking in his saddle, causing Mercury to stutter in his step and shift restlessly.

  Moira laughed again. “I think your horse would appreciate steadier nerves from you, Nathan.”

  He grunted, patting the horse soothingly. “Mercury can handle it. He just wants to gallop.”

  “Mercury?” she asked looking at the horse fondly. “He should gallop, if he is named for a god with wings.”

  “Perhaps he will later, but you need to explain yourself, Moira,” he told her with a scolding look. “Why on earth were you there two hours when we agreed on first light?”

  “Because I did not sleep well, probably due to my anxiety to be on our way, and so when I gave up on sleeping, I dressed and made my way over.”

  “Moira!” he protested. “It was cold yesterday morning!”

  “I know,” she quipped, her eyes dancing. “I was freezing. Believe me, I was cursing your name up and down the entire time.”

  He bit back the urge to demand why she did not come and find him. She would not have known where, and had she asked, someone might have cast her off as being rude and impertinent and informed her of his identity, and then she certainly would not have allowed him to come. “Two hours,” he muttered under his breath. “Fool of a woman.”

  “You asked, Nathan. I warned you that you would not like it,” she reminded him, enjoying his discomfort a bit too much.

  “No wonder you were cross.”

  “I was not cross!” she insisted in mock outrage, trying not to smile and failing.

  He gave her a look. “You were very cross. I almost turned around right then.”