“No! No.” He would much prefer to ride in what appeared to be a stately, well-sprung carriage than try to fit his arse into the threadbare cushions of the Duke’s fifth-nicest coach. “I’ve got plenty, I promise. I suspect your great-aunt has a fairly good idea of how much I’m worth.”
A hint of a smile played across Kate’s face. “She did make some comments that led me to believe you could afford the journey.”
Jack’s shipping ventures—both legal and otherwise—had long paid handsomely. That, and the benefit of the Edgebourne financial advisors, had made him a wealthy man. Certainly the wealthiest pig breeder in Cornwall, he reflected. “I will bow to your travel expertise, my lady,” he said, suiting action to words and bending gracefully before her. “Give me a moment to clear this traffic jam and then we can go.”
“We have to get married first,” she said.
“Right, marriage, then go.”
“You run a tight ship, Captain Boone.”
“I think you’ll fit right in, Miss Ashe.”
~ ~ ~
The priest had regained his sober expression by the time Kate got back inside and was conferring with Lady Morehouse in quiet tones.
“You don’t have to do this.” Alicia slipped out from the hallway behind the stairs and tugged Kate’s elbow. “There’s got to be another way.”
Kate rested her hand over her sister’s and leaned forward to touch her forehead to Alicia’s. “I think this is the best way,” she said.
“It can’t be.”
“I think . . .” Kate paused, remembering the sensation of Lord Rothwell’s—Jack’s—lips gently roving over her own, the humor in his eyes, and the confidence of his assessment of the damages in the parlor. “I think it might actually be the right choice, Alicia.”
“It’s my fault.” Alicia withdrew from Kate’s grasp and wrapped her arms around her still-flat stomach. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I think we all would have found out eventually, dearest.”
“I could have gone away.”
“You are going away. I’m just going with you.”
“You shouldn’t have to give up everything for me.”
Kate gathered her sister into her arms for a hug. “I’m not giving up anything, Alicia. Especially you. This will work, I promise.” The casual way he’d assured her that he could afford the carriages, plus Lady Morehouse’s smug confidence, made her feel as though she could take a deep breath for the first time in a long time. Since before her father had died, certainly. She wouldn’t have to beg Anthony for charity, or live with Lady Morehouse’s precise rules. She was free. As free as a woman who was about to promise to be legally possessed for eternity by an intimidatingly handsome viscount could be, anyway. She gave Alicia one last reassuring pat. “I will always take care of you. You know that, right?”
Alicia nodded, sniffling. “I’m sorry.”
“Come on, then. I can’t have a weepy attendant at my wedding.”
“You should have a big wedding, not this.”
“Considering that a few days ago I wasn’t planning on having any wedding at all, I think this is a vast improvement.”
“Over being a governess?” This time, Alicia’s sniff was derisive. “I never thought you’d be one.”
“I could have.”
“You hate children.”
“Only the sticky ones.”
“They’re all sticky, Kate.”
“Well, I promise to love your sticky child. And I suppose my own,” Kate said dubiously. Presumably Jack wanted an heir. Or heirs. “Is being with child awful?”
“Well, it hasn’t been much fun so far,” Alicia said dryly. “What with the explosions and forcing my sister to marry a man she’s just met.”
“Well, at least he’s rich,” Kate said, grinning.
“How flattering.”
Jack’s voice sounded right behind her, and she gave a little shriek.
Alicia’s eyes went wide as she saw him standing close enough to hear their conversation and she clapped her hands over her mouth.
Jack took Kate’s arm. “Are you ready?”
“I— Oh. I didn’t mean—”
He chuckled. “My dear, I don’t begrudge any woman an appreciation for money. I like it, too. It’s why I work so hard to acquire so much of it.”
She smiled at him. “Sensible of you.”
“Thank you. Shall we?”
“Yes, thank you.” It was unspeakably awkward, this trek across the entry hall to the parlor. In a few steps, they would be married. The priest and Lady Morehouse were already inside, waiting. “Jack—”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For taking care of us.” She felt infinitely lighter with each step they took. This marriage and their imminent flight to Scotland would save Alicia from scandal, and—dare she even think it?—give Kate herself the freedom she hadn’t quite realized she needed. Out from underneath the suffocating poverty of the Ashewell estate, away from the disapproving stare of Lady Morehouse, free from the whispers of the wallflowers in the ballrooms of Mayfair. Her carefully laid plans had gone up in smoke the second Alicia had confessed, yet this man she barely knew was giving her an incredible gift.
He covered her hand with his. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter 6
The ceremony was mostly a blur. Kate remembered saying yes, though not what she was agreeing to, and she remembered watching her own hand sign the registry as if it belonged to somebody else. But it was her signature that emerged from the pen, in her own familiar handwriting. Her name. Katherine Ashe. Except now, she was Katherine Boone. Lady Rothwell. Possessor of many fine rented carriages, into which Jack bundled them all.
When her mental fog cleared, she found herself alone in the lead carriage with her husband. Her husband! Alicia and the various maids and footmen required for the journey were distributed amongst the other carriages, and they were all rumbling along the cobblestones on the last street that could remotely be considered Mayfair.
“We’ll be out of the city fairly quickly,” Jack said, watching her.
“I see.”
“Your travel arrangements were much better than mine, I have to confess.” He sounded rueful. “I normally make this trip at top speed, comfort be damned.”
She smiled. “Hopefully this situation doesn’t warrant quite the same urgency.”
“It’s our wedding trip. It ought to be . . . leisurely.”
Something in her stomach fluttered at the look he gave her, and she grasped for something to say. “How did you even know to come to Lady Morehouse’s?”
“She sent a letter to the Duchess of Edgebourne,” he said, picking up her hand and tracing the veins on the back of it with a light finger. “Her Grace sent me.”
“You come and go at her bidding?”
He smiled, and gave her hand a pat. “My dear, everyone comes and goes at the Duchess of Edgebourne’s bidding.”
She blushed. “I see.” Now his fingers were intertwined with hers, somehow, and she found herself distracted by the sensation. “What’s it like to grow up with a duke?” she asked absently.
“Like clinging to a vast and ancient tree at the center of a hurricane,” he said.
She stared at him. “Oh.”
He laughed. “My metaphors might be a bit off.”
~ ~ ~
Jack watched, amused and interested, as his new bride tried desperately to ignore the intriguing sensations that were ricocheting between them and get the conversation back on track.
“So you just happened to be there when the Duchess got the letter?” she asked.
“If I hadn’t been, I suspect she would have sent for me, but yes, I had just come back from a trip and was paying my f
ilial respects.”
“It’s good of you to visit.”
“The Duchess and I are particularly close,” he said. “I suppose I was the first of her rescues, and she wasn’t sure she had what it took to raise a couple of wild lads.”
“Rescues?”
“The Edgebourne household is rather full,” he explained. “In addition to their own children, the Duke and Duchess raised me, Duncan, and a set of nieces. It was a hectic place, but we all felt safe and loved, I think. Especially by the Duchess. She’s a wonderful mother.”
“That’s nice,” she said wistfully.
“Your parents died only recently, didn’t they?” he asked. “Don’t say you had all that time with them and never appreciated it.”
Her lips twisted into a rueful smile. “We didn’t . . . get along, I suppose. My father married quite below himself, you know, and resented my grandparents for ever saying a word about his bride. He and Mama had little interest in estate matters, and I always got the impression that they were a little dismayed that I did. Papa thought he’d somehow produced a smaller version of Grandpapa, and he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or rage about it.”
“So you spent a great deal of time with your grandfather?”
“Oh, yes. I was the eldest grandchild. He never gave up hoping for a male heir, but he liked to show me the ropes. So I could tell the next earl what to do, he said.”
“And when he died?”
“I just kept on doing what he’d shown me, and the estate kept on managing nicely, and Papa never complained. He and Mama were happy to let me handle it all. And then when she got sick . . .”
“When she got sick?” he prompted.
She sighed. “When Mama died, Papa’s interest in the estate went from minimal to nothing. He wasn’t truly interested in anything but her, in the end. After she was gone, we heard from him very little. He knew the finances were short, and he agreed with my idea to wait another year to save money on a combined Season, and then . . . he died.”
“That’s a lot of mourning,” he said.
“And a very delayed Season,” she murmured, smiling at him, though her eyes were still sober. “Worth it in the end, I hope.”
“As the it in question, I can assure you that I’m quite worthy,” he said, and her smile began to reach her eyes. “My darling bride, it sounds to me like you’re saying that you personally managed the entirety of your grandfather’s estate for years.”
“I suppose so,” she said. “It was easy enough.”
“Kate,” he said, picking up her hand and kissing it. “You have no idea how worthwhile this Season has been.”
“I’m beginning to,” she said a bit breathlessly.
Jack turned his eyes back toward her face and found her staring at him, wide-eyed. He gave her his best slow smile, and watched a blush color her cheeks. Perhaps marriage really did have its rewards.
He was about to pursue some practical research on the matter of marital accord when the carriage came to an abrupt halt. He braced himself without thinking, and caught Kate when she tumbled from the seat opposite. A warm lapful of new bride distracted him from the realization that the carriage door had opened until an irate Alicia threw herself into the seat opposite, shouting something over her shoulder that she probably shouldn’t know the words for. He heard a series of thuds and crashes from outside and a great deal of shouting.
With a sigh, he set Kate upright on the seat and speared Alicia with a glare before he stood and exited the carriage to find out what disaster the younger Ashe had wrought.
~ ~ ~
Dazed by the contact with Jack, it took Kate a moment or two to register that his warmth was no longer pressed up against her. In fact, the carriage was now quite cold, and the source of the chill was sitting opposite her. Oh, dear.
“Hello, Alicia,” she said cautiously. “What’s happening?”
Her sister tossed her head nonchalantly, pretending that the scent of her anger wasn’t filling the air along with alarmed shouting from outside the carriage. “Nothing.”
Kate sighed. “Darling. What have you done now?”
“Why must you assume it was me?”
“Because you’re the only woman I know who can inspire so many men to shout so loudly,” Kate said, bringing a reluctant smile to Alicia’s lips.
“I’m afraid I got angry again. Something blew up under the seat of the carriage and it scared the maid into hysterics.”
Kate eyed her sister’s tear-streaked eyes and wondered if the maid was the only one who’d been frightened. “And then?”
“And then her screaming startled the horses, and then the carriage . . . broke.”
“It broke?”
“Something broke.”
“Thus the shouting.”
“Mm,” Alicia said noncommittally.
“I see.” Kate thought the situation over, rearranging logistics in her head. “It’ll be all right, Alicia.”
“If you say so.” Kate had never heard her sister sound quite so dispirited.
“I do say so. And I’m in charge, you know.” Kate scooted across the carriage to sit next to her sister, and put an arm around her. “I promise.” She squeezed Alicia’s shoulders and her sister drooped into her arms. “Put your head on my shoulder, dear. You must be tired.” Like a dutiful wife, she would wait for Jack to come back to pass on her advice on how to rearrange the convoy. Assuming he hadn’t already taken charge. She felt her left eye twitch slightly, and sternly told her body that Jack making arrangements was a perfectly acceptable solution.
She’d only gotten as far as convincing her eyelid when the carriage door opened again to admit the husband in question. His sharp gaze went directly to Alicia, resting palely upon Kate’s bosom, and his lips thinned slightly. “Is she all right?”
“Yes,” Kate said, a little surprised that his first reaction was to inquire after the culprit’s health. “Just tired.”
“She’s using a lot of magic,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
Kate’s arms tightened instinctively around her sister. “She doesn’t mean to—”
“Not for the carriages,” he said, cutting her off with a brisk wave of his hand. “For her. And the babe.”
“What?”
He swung himself into the carriage, closed the door, and banged twice on the ceiling. As the vehicle lumbered into motion, he settled himself into the seat opposite, carefully arranging his long legs so as not to disturb the ladies’ skirts. “Without any training, she’s drawing magic directly from her own energy source, her body. Which needs the energy to live, let alone to sustain another.”
“What can we do?” Kate looked down at Alicia, who’d fallen asleep. She seemed so childlike in sleep, like the little girl who’d followed Kate around the estate so determinedly. Who’d fallen off of her first pony and then scolded the poor pony for disappointing her. The creature had never dared let her fall again. Kate wouldn’t, either.
“We’ve got to keep her calm,” he said. “I don’t have the strength to shield her, unfortunately. My talents lie in other directions.”
“What do you suggest?”
He glanced toward the back of the carriage, as though he could see through to the string of vehicles trailing behind. “I sent her maid to ride with yours and my valet. They might be a trifle cramped, but they’ll survive. The footmen are transferring the luggage to split between the other two carriages as evenly as they can.”
Kate nodded. It was inconvenient, but it was what she would have advised, given the knowledge that they must press on.
“So we make haste to Scotland?”
“As quickly as we can. And—” His face was grim, and Kate braced herself. “I think, Lady Rothwell, that we may have to, er, prolong our nuptial anticipation
.”
Kate blinked. “Our what?”
He licked his lips, and Kate found herself watching his tongue, fascinated. “I think it may be best if you stay with your sister at the inn overnight.”
“Instead of—”
“Instead of with me.”
“Oh. Oh.” Kate felt herself blushing. “I see.”
“You have a calming influence on her—”
“Most of the time,” she said drily.
“Better than none of the time,” he said. “And we can’t afford any more explosions. At least not until we get to Kilgoran.”
“They don’t mind explosions there?”
“They’re used to it.”
Chapter 7
One sleepless night and one interminable carriage ride later, Kate had defused Alicia’s temper three more times and was getting worried. Her sister was sullen and withdrawn, and her cheeks seemed sunken, no longer glowing with insouciant youth.
Kate scrubbed at her own eyes wearily and peered out the carriage window. Jack had elected to ride alongside the carriage today, on a fine horse that had somehow been provided for him at the inn this morning. She still wasn’t sure whether it had been magic or simply his personal charm that had worked in his favor, but astride he was and had been all day. She envied him.
They crested yet another rolling hill, and Kate caught her breath at the vista that sprawled before them. A small village was tucked into a little valley beneath a sturdy keep, rather like a tiny chick tucked under the wing of a hen. The verdant hills surrounding the two were dotted with farmsteads alternating with clumps of forest. The carriage rumbled forward, and Kate wearily put her hands to her hair, patting it into place as best she could. The inn’s facilities had been perfectly adequate for bathing last night, but she’d hurried through her ablutions, distracted by the need to stay with Alicia and a vague sense of wistful regret that Jack wasn’t with her. It was her wedding night, after all. Most women didn’t expect to spend it with their sisters.
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