“Where are you going?” Jamie shouted. Having watched her for several minutes, he now knew that she meant what she said and was simply not going to abandon the horses. “You can’t lead the horses all the way to Melvedere.”
“I can do what I want,” Cecily called back, not stopping her defiant march across the field.
Nonplussed, Jamie placed his hands on his hips and watched her. He contemplated throwing her in the back of the carriage and riding up on the box seat for the rest of the journey. With Jonathan driving, it was probably better than riding in the carriage with Miss Wretching all the way to Melvedere, but he simply couldn’t allow her to go on her little tantrum alone.
“Where do you think you are going to go?” Jamie muttered, stalking after her.
“I am going to find someone who will take the horse.”
“They could eat it,” Jamie growled, rolling his eyes at her inelegant snort.
“Better them than a fox.”
“Foxes don’t eat horses, Cecily.”
“Neither do people.”
“For God’s sakes, you cannot go wandering into a town looking for an owner for a horse you don’t own!”
Cecily spun on her heel. “You simply cannot abandon a horse to fend for itself, especially one that has carried you for miles, it is immoral. Not when he is used to living in a stable and being fed hay and, and – well, things.” She shot him a dirty look before turning on her heel. She had spotted his horse following them, and wondered how long it would be before Jamie understood that his own horse had no intention of being left behind either. Hiding her smirk, she marched confidently onward, smiling obliquely at Jonathan’s rapt amusement as they marched past the carriage he had pulled to a stop on the other side of the low slung wall.
Jamie swore.
Cecily ignored him.
Jamie turned to speak to Jonathan only to spot his own horse standing a few inches away from his shoulder. Rolling his eyes he turned to glare at Cecily’s back.
“Lord, save me,” Jamie snarled, glaring at Jonathan before making a circling motion with his finger. Jonathan shook his head and did as he was told, moving on to find a place to turn the carriage around.
“Fine! I’ll take the horses into the town and find them a new home. Will you be happy then?” Jamie grumbled, catching hold of the reins of his own horse.
“No,” Cecily snapped, glaring at him. “You could just leave them further down the road, or with someone who won’t look after them. I am going to find them a proper home.”
“But they aren’t even your blasted horses!” Jamie shouted.
Cecily spun on her heel and glared at him. “Don’t you swear at me, I am doing what is right whether you like it or not. Go on without me if I am holding you up.”
She turned around and continued to march toward town, physically trembling with suppressed fury. She had never shouted before in her entire life; it felt as though she was being incredibly rude, but she refused to apologise for it. It felt liberating; strange; slightly unnerving. This was a side to her she had never seen before, and she wasn’t sure where it had come from. Surely the events of the last few days hadn’t changed her that much, had they?
She glanced at the ground as she marched, lost in thought. She was aware of the trundling of carriage wheels and clip-clopping of hooves approaching from behind. Jonathan had evidently found somewhere to turn around and was coming back for them. It behoved her to turn back and take a look to see where Jamie was, but couldn’t discount the possibility that he might simply take matters into his own hands through sheer frustration. The memories of the time he had bundled her back into the carriage after her sickness came flooding back. She stiffened her spine, bracing herself for a fight only to catch sight of Jamie walking toward the carriage out of the corner of her eye, throwing her a dirty look as he went.
Sniffing dismissively, she continued to move toward the gate at the far end of the field. Whatever they were plotting, she was not going to be swept off her feet again and pushed into doing anything that she didn’t want to do. They were not going to put her into the carriage, and she was not going to go anywhere against her will. By the look of their secretive conversation, they were going to continue through the town on their journey with or without her.
She could scream as much as the next person, she mused. If they tried to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do, like go with them without securing the horses properly, she would have every curious local within a two mile radius following them to see who was being murdered, or kidnapped, or whatever.
“Cecily?”
Cecily jumped as Jonathan came to walk beside her. “There is a coaching inn in the town where I got the carriage from. I will drop the horses off there for you and get the ostler to send them back.”
Cecily glared suspiciously at him for several long moments, glaring back at a clearly disgusted Jamie, who was now sitting on the box seat.
“We are passing the coaching inn on our way through the town, so you can take one last look at them before I take them in for you.” His voice was calm and reasonable, and was as steady as the gaze he levelled on her. He gave Cecily absolutely no reason to object and she meekly handed him the reins with a delighted smile.
“That would be very reasonable and considerate of you,” Cecily declared loudly, handing Jonathan the strips of leather. Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up and he stared after her as she walked regally toward the carriage and climbed aboard.
“What the -” Jamie glared at the carriage door as it slammed shut before throwing a disgruntled look toward a smirking Jonathan.
“Gift of the gab, dear boy,” Jonathan drawled, smiling as he walked toward the far end of the field with both horses in tow. “Ride on. I’ll tie them to the back.”
Jamie clicked the reins with a snort of disgust. Clearly, he had more work on his hands than he realised. She hated him; distrusted him. If he was to go down on one knee and propose, she would probably kick his head in while he was down there. Shaking his head at the folly of unfathomable females, he began to think about the precariousness of her future. It gave him something to think about other than the myriad swearwords swarming in his head like a hive of angry bees.
This time she wasn’t sick in the carriage. However she was bored. Out of her mind bored.
She heaved another sigh and glared out at the dusky haze snuffing out the last vestige of daylight and wondered what the new day would hold. She was going to be glad for a day without travelling. Most of her life had been spent in one place, yet in a matter of days she felt as though she had travelled the entire length and breadth of the country. She was bruised from head to toe, couldn’t stop trembling – although she wasn’t sure whether that was because of the lack of food. Tiredness made her thoughts sluggish and she was certain she could sleep standing up if only they would stop the carriage.
She winced as the carriage bounced through a particularly deep rut in the road. It was either that, or they were going through newly ploughed fields. She didn’t need to look outside to know that Jonathan was driving again. His breakneck, devil-may-care driving was going to bring about all of their deaths if he didn’t slow down. She could understand their wanting to get to their destination – wherever that was, but if Jonathan kept at the reins, the carriage would arrive with three corpses on board. She was contemplating shouting at them to feed her and slow down when the carriage began to ease to a steady crawl.
Heaving a sigh of relief, she dropped her feet to the carriage floor and lowered the window to peer outside and take a deep breath of fresh air. Although Jamie had ordered her to leave it up, she dropped it anyway. She needed to reassure herself that there was a world outside the tiny box that was starting to feel like a prison cell.
“Close that window,” Jamie growled, spying the top of her glossy head poking out of the open rectangle.
“No,” Cecily snapped defiantly. “As you seem to be my self-appointed protector, I would just like to make one o
bjection to my treatment.” Cecily had no idea where this emboldened side of her was coming from, but didn’t really care at that moment, and merely turned inelegantly to glare upward at him. She heard the snigger Jonathan tried to hide around a loud cough and merely smiled obliquely at a glowering Jamie.
“Objections, my lady?” Jamie drawled.
“Yes. Unless you want me to start chewing the squabs in here, can you throw this mere peasant some food? Assuming you have some food left, that is.”
Jamie shared an askance look at Jonathan, who was busy hiding his laughter in the folds of his coachman’s cloak.
“She is going to be the death of me,” Jamie growled, rummaging through the saddle bag at his feet. His own lip curled at the sight of the flattened, slightly furry bread he drew out and he threw it in disgust at the hedgerow. “We need to stop.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “We are going to get our throats cut,” he muttered, hearing his own stomach rumble.
“I don’t know what you are finding so bloody funny,” Jamie grumbled, snuggling down into his own cloak and blithely ignoring the loud slamming of the window below them.
“She is funny. I like her,” Jonathan threw his friend a commiserating look which was wasted by his chuckling. “She is going to be good for you.”
“I’m not bloody keeping her,” Jamie snarled, shaking his head at his own stupidity. “She is rude, argumentative, stubborn –”
“Pretty, clever, strong,” Jonathan countered, turning the carriage toward the main street and the coaching inn at the far end.
“A pain in the preverbial. Stoic, too bloody kind hearted for her own good.”
“Exactly.”
“She is a fishwife!” Jamie snorted in disgust.
“Exactly. Perfect for you.” Jonathan retorted, making no attempt to hide his mirth.
“Thanks for that, friend, really. I appreciate your support.”
“I am just saying that you need someone who is strong willed at your back. You need someone like her. Someone who isn’t afraid to stand up for what she believes in. She may be a bit naive when it comes to keeping herself safe, but she is fiery enough to keep you on your toes. That is just what you need. I cannot imagine you settling down to a life of boring matrimony,” Jonathan snorted, wondering why anyone would be stupid enough to want to commit to anyone, especially when there were so many willing, and available, females around.
“I am not going to -” Jamie sighed. If he was entirely honest, that was exactly why he wanted to take her to Melvedere.
“Look on the bright side,” Jonathan sighed, frantically thinking of any bright side to Jamie’s disquiet. “Simon and Hugo didn’t seem to be the marrying kind either, but look at them. Simon keeps wandering around grinning like an idiot, and if Hugo’s brood gets any bigger they are going to have to build yet another extension. His list of nannies will soon be bigger than the Star Elite.”
Jamie threw his friend a grin and shook his head. He couldn’t help but think about the rigmarole both Hugo and Simon had been forced to go through in order to secure their ladies’ hands in marriage, and shuddered at the thought of his own situation with Cecily.
“Yours isn’t that bad,” Jonathan murmured quietly, sensing Jamie’s thoughts.
“How do you do that?” Jamie shifted uncomfortably. He had never been entirely comfortable with Jonathan’s ability to read another person’s mind, it was unnerving.
“It is a gift.” Or a curse, I am not sure which, Jonathan thought bleakly. It was something he had never spent too much time thinking about before. His strange ability had served him well throughout his time with the Star Elite, and had saved his life on more than one occasion, even though it unnerved those around him. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he was very rarely wrong when he did pick up on what people were thinking, even though at times he wished he had not.
“We are still knee deep in French spies, smugglers and now a Star Elite traitor,” Jamie grumbled, shaking his head at the rutted path toward matrimony that lay before him. It was the last position he wanted to be in, but there was little he could do about it now. If he was honest, he had been more disturbed than he had expected to be when Cecily’s father had refused to accept his offer for her hand, and had ordered him out of the house. While ordinarily he would have been tugging at his collar and heading off down the garden path as fast as his feet could carry him, for some reason, Cecily, had continued to plague his thoughts and his dreams each and every day since.
She had no protector and, if his suspicions were correct, had no father to provide for her now. As a result, her options were severely limited. He couldn’t and wouldn’t sit back and allow her to go to a poor house where she would, undoubtedly, spend the rest of her days. Although their father had a fortune, and home of his own, Jamie wasn’t sure what would happen to it if he was a traitor. Would Cecily and Portia get the proceeds if the home and fortune were dismantled? Or had their spiteful and parsimonious father bequeathed it to some distant relative to spite his daughters? Jamie suspected it was the latter.
Jamie had no doubt that Archie would ensure that Portia was more than adequately cared for, and would have no compunction against doing the same for a homeless and penniless Cecily if it came to it, but Jamie didn’t want Archie to be the one to care for her. Archie was a great fellow. One of his best friends, but Cecily was someone Jamie wanted to be the one to care for. It didn’t make sense because it wasn’t like Jamie at all. He wasn’t a ‘caring’ kind of person. He carried out his job, did what he had to do and left, not looking back or thinking about the things, or people, that he left behind.
They pulled into the coaching yard moments later where Jonathan left Jamie to quietly debate his future while he untied the extra horses. A few words with the ostler, and a coin or two, was all it took before he resumed his position on the box seat and waited for Jonathan to return.
Cecily jumped when the carriage door was yanked open, and a small basket of food plopped at her feet along with a flagon of ale. She caught the wink from Jonathan before the door slammed closed and the carriage trundled onward. Her stomach actually ached from the lack of food and she hungrily dug in, wondering if the bread, pie, cheese and fruit in the basket were all for her. Shaking her head, she decided she didn’t really care.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was a long and arduous journey to Melvedere. They took many circuitous routes, doubling back several times to make sure they weren’t followed or likely to be intercepted.
It was only a couple of hours before dawn by the time they did arrive at the small parish of Melvedere. It was a small, yet rather quaint village with a higgledy-piggledy mish-mash of houses of varying indefinable ages. Grand two storey houses broke up the rows small single storey workers cottages that were mixed in with various shops, a church, the vicarage and village green.
As soon as Jamie turned onto the main street, he felt a sense of homecoming that was so wonderful he was suddenly impatient to get home. He had missed the place far more than he had ever expected to. Usually he was glad to see Melvedere because he was tired, or hungry. Tonight, or rather this morning, he was glad to see the place for entirely different reasons. Reasons he daren’t think over too deeply.
They hadn’t heard anything from Cecily since Jonathan had given her the food and drink hours earlier. In fact, he couldn’t be entirely sure she was still in the carriage, she was so quiet. Jonathan was fast asleep beside him, bundled into the warmth of his thick coachman’s cloak, his face obscured almost completely by the high collar and hat tugged low.
Deciding to leave him asleep, Jamie yawned widely and eased the carriage the last few miles toward home. He wasn’t going to wake up Warren, his butler, or Mrs Nantwich the Housekeeper. He was perfectly capable of securing the exhausted horses himself and could stow the carriage in the barn for now. Potter, his groomsman and groundsman could clean it down and store it in the coach barn in the morning.
Impatience was riding hig
h by the time he saw the familiar stone pillars of Melvedere come into view. The high brick wall ran alongside the road, clearly marking the border of the property in a way that was visible whether it was day or night. The iron gates stood open in welcome, beckoning guests down the long pale ribbon of driveway that filled Jamie with an almost childlike eagerness.
Melvedere stood on the far side of the trees, nestled along the banks of the River Solace. Its huge stone facade was broken by row upon row of square windows, four floors of them in all, some of which gleamed white from the closed shutters within. They lay like eyelids, closed against the cold night. At the bottom of the house, a few stone steps led one to the front door with its highly polished knocker and knob, both of which were missing because the master of the house wasn’t at home.
Instead of pulling up to the front of the house like he really wanted to, Jamie drew around the side toward the assorted buildings at the far side of the property. Although they would have a short walk to the house, it meant that the servants wouldn’t be disturbed by their arrival. He wondered when he had ever changed enough to start to consider his servants’ sleep requirements, but his own conscience wouldn’t allow him to be so callous as to wake them in the middle of the night, especially when he, Jonathan, and even Cecily, were perfectly capable of seeing to themselves.
By the time they arrived at the kitchen door, Cecily was shivering in the cool night air. She had just had probably the worst nights’ sleep of her entire life and was so cold her teeth were inelegantly beginning to chatter. She glanced at Jonathan who looked bright eyed and alert, and Jamie, who although looked tired, didn’t appear to have been bothered by either the uncomfortable carriage ride or the lack of sleep.
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