The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  Another was meeting people like Captain Blair, handsome, thoughtful, kind and completely unscrupulous. She had never had to deal with men like him before and had no idea how to handle him. He simply refused to be handled. Every put-down was met with a smile which set her quivering as if she hadn’t a bone in her body, every attempt at haughty disdain, which was the normal way for a young lady to let it be known a gentleman’s attentions were not welcome, was simply ignored. He persisted in helping her, almost as if he had been paid to do so, which, of course, was nonsense.

  It would not have been so bad if she had really been as capable and independent as she pretended to be, or even if she had not begun the whole thing by telling a lie. To him she was Miss Sadler, lady’s companion, and Miss Sadler she had to remain. To admit to anything else now would just be inviting more mockery. Young ladies who pretended to be what they were not, simply did not deserve to be treated as ladies.

  He would never have dared to kiss Miss Sanghurst like that and he would never have had the presumption to offer Miss Sanghurst flea ointment. She smiled suddenly. Miss Sanghurst had every right to be offended, but Miss Sadler had not and Miss Sadler had liked being held so securely in his arms and being kissed. Not that she would ever admit it to him.

  She climbed out of the bath and towelled herself dry, before smearing herself with the ointment. She had just taken her nightdress from her small portmanteau and slipped into it when a second maid arrived with her meal on a tray. She found her reticule among the discarded clothes on the bed and fished inside for a sixpence. The girl pocketed it, then dragged the bath out onto the landing, where Helen could hear her shouting down the stairs for someone to help her with it.

  Helen guessed the room was the best the inn had to offer and she was sure she had been given it on the Captain’s orders, but she wished sometimes, he would not be so careful of her; the best was also the most expensive. She sat on the bed, noticing how soft the mattress was, and tipped out her reticule. The little cascade of coins and paper money was pitifully small, just enough to pay for her night’s lodging and a meal later the next day.

  She had brought what she thought was sufficient for her needs on the journey, arranging for her next month’s allowance to be paid into a bank in Killearn, still many miles, even days, ahead of her. Never before had she been obliged to count her money so carefully and she had not realised how fast it was disappearing.

  Her generosity towards the little urchin, whose fare had cost her five shillings; her stubborn insistence on stopping every night, her own fares and tips to the chambermaids and the men who carried her trunk, besides those to the coachmen and guards, had taken every bit of eight pounds on top of the seven pounds’ refund she had been given in Northampton.

  Everyone who had provided even the smallest service had expected to be paid, and though on several occasions the Captain had offered to stand buff for her, she had refused and must continue to do so. She could not stop him looking after her baggage and giving orders on her behalf—after all, it had made a big difference to her comfort—but the last thing she wanted was to be even more beholden to him. Mr Benstead had written to her guardian asking him to arrange to have her met and she prayed he would fetch her quickly or she would end up penniless.

  She went down to the dining-room next morning in good time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, intending that it would be the last meal she had until they stopped that evening. And then she would travel on through the night to Glasgow. Wondering what her uninvited escort would do about it made her smile. Would he forgo the pleasures of food, bed and the card table to remain glued to her side, or decide to leave her to her own devices? For all she knew, he might already have done so. Perhaps another coachman had not been so faint-hearted about going over the fell in the dark and taken the Captain on. The thought that she might now be completely alone filled her with a kind of panic. There had already been so many hazards and so many pitfalls to catch the unwary, who was to say there would not be more? Uninvited or not, she needed him.

  When she saw him at the breakfast table, tucking into ham and eggs, she heaved a huge sigh of relief. Her pride would not let her show it, nor would she deign to sit with him. She moved towards a table on the other side of the room, although she had to pass him on the way.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Sadler.’ He greeted her cheerfully, as if he had done nothing wrong at all.

  ‘Good morning.’ Her voice was clipped.

  He grabbed her hand as she went to pass him. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To have my breakfast. Over there.’

  ‘Oh, so I am still banished, is that it? I am not to be allowed the pleasure of your company?’

  She tried to pull herself from his grasp, but he would not release her. ‘Captain Blair, will you please let go of my arm?’

  ‘Yes, if you promise to forgive me for my dreadful lapse and have breakfast with me.’

  ‘I do not see why I should.’

  ‘And I do not see why you should not. I am penitent, as you see.’ She saw nothing of the sort but she had ceased to struggle from his grip. ‘We have come a long way together and there is still a long way to go and being at odds with each other will not help to pass the time pleasantly.’

  He smiled. ‘I promise to behave. I will not kiss you again unless you wish it. Come, share my breakfast. There is too much for me and it would be a shame to waste it.’

  Pure economics decided her, or at least that is what she told herself it was, as she relented and sat opposite him.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We have twenty minutes before the coach leaves. Mr Grinley tells me he is not going to risk Shap Fell. Someone arrived during the night with news of a landslide blocking the road, so he has decided to go the longer route through Windermere and Grasmere to Penrith. With luck we should reach Carlisle by nightfall.’

  ‘Carlisle, is that all? I had hoped we might get as far as Glasgow.’

  ‘You are becoming impatient to arrive?’

  ‘Naturally, I am. And I collect you were in haste when we left London. Has that changed?’

  ‘No, but we can only go at the pace conditions allow.’

  ‘And the further we go, the worse they become. I am surprised you did not think of hiring a horse and riding.’

  ‘Oh, I did think of it, but I decided against it.’

  ‘You must be regretting that decision.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I would have missed so much.’

  She smiled, choosing to misunderstand him. ‘Yes, I had no idea the journey would be so full of incident.’

  ‘More than usually so,’ he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. ‘But then you must admit that you have been the instigator of most of it.’

  ‘I do not remember ordering the rain, nor a broken wheel, nor…’ She stopped. She had held the coach up while she argued about the boy; she had insisted on staying with Tom and Dorothy; she had released the deserter. Rain and broken wheels were nothing to that. ‘I promise from now on, not to do a single thing to hold us up,’ she said.

  ‘Then I suggest you finish your breakfast and pay your reckoning, because I heard the horses being put in the traces and the guard directing the stowage of the baggage.’

  She did as he suggested, paid her fare as far as Carlisle and a few minutes later took her place in the coach, only to discover that she and Captain Blair were the only inside passengers.

  ‘Where are the others?’ she asked, looking round in something close to panic.

  ‘Perhaps they did not want to be taken out of their way,’ he said. ‘Or they thought the road would be cleared soon and they would beat us to it.’

  ‘Do you think they will?’

  ‘No. By all accounts the fall was a big one.’

  ‘Is there no way round it?’

  ‘Not on that stretch of road, it is hazardous at the best of times. No, Mr Grinley is in the right of it.’

  Miles and miles to go with no company but the Capta
in and if he were to try to kiss her again… She did not know if she dare go on, but if she stayed and waited for another coach, it would mean more delay and that meant more expense. She was in a cleft stick.

  Before she could come to a decision the coachman and driver took their places and, with a toot on the horn, they moved off. Now she would have to sit beside him for hours in silence or try to make polite conversation when all the time they must both be thinking about that kiss. What a simpleton she had been to allow it to happen, but it had felt so right at the time she had not given a thought to the consequences.

  But perhaps he would not be thinking of it, perhaps he kissed young women at every available opportunity and forgot it afterwards as of no consequence. Her best plan was to pretend it had never happened.

  ‘There is one advantage of coming this way,’ he said, as they headed for Windermere. ‘We shall see a little of the Lakes. I think they are one of the most beautiful parts of England, almost to be compared with Scotland for scenery.’

  ‘You know the area?’

  ‘I had an aunt who lived in Grasmere. My brother and I stayed with her occasionally when we were children. She died while I was abroad.’ He paused. ‘Have you been here before, Miss Sadler?’

  ‘Not I am afraid I have not. I have never travelled further north than Peterborough.’

  ‘The Fens. Very flat round there, I understand.’ No wonder she had seemed so bewildered, so ingenuous; it was a new experience for her. It made him admire her all the more for her courage.

  ‘Yes, very different from all these hills, but it has its own charm. You can see for miles and it only seems a stone’s throw, and the skies are huge, riven with clouds tinged with pink and mauve. There are a great many waterways too; almost everything is conducted by water.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Much easier and smoother than being shaken about in a coach on some of these roads.’

  ‘You do not like hilly country?’

  ‘Oh, yes, in a different way. The light and shade on the grey rocks and the green of the fells as the clouds move across the sun makes it seem they are forever changing. In the Fens the sky is the focal point, here it is the hills.’

  ‘And the Lakes,’ he said. ‘We shall see Windermere soon.’

  She realised suddenly that she was completely at ease with him; her earlier stiffness had gone, as if, having accepted the inevitable, she might as well enjoy it. And because there was plenty of room in the coach, he was not pressed so close to her. She did not have to think about his thigh against her, his elbow nudging her side, nor worry that she might accidentally move and find herself in his arms. No, better not to think of that at all. She took refuge in talking, chattering like a magpie about nothing at all.

  The northernmost tip of Windermere was glimpsed as they stopped at Ambleside for a change of horses; now that the rain had stopped the sun was shining on its rippling water and showing the myriads of boats in sharp relief. On the opposite side she could see what looked like a castle and a wood. A little to the right the heather-covered hills rose, purple and grey, dotted with the white of sheep. ‘Oh, it is beautiful!’ she exclaimed, leaning forward in her seat to see the better.

  ‘Yes, when the sun is shining,’ he said laconically. ‘It has a reputation for being wet, you know.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, I know it looked very different yesterday when it was raining, but isn’t that the beauty of England? The weather and the seasons change everything. It is impossible to be bored by it.’

  ‘You do not mind the rain?’

  ‘No, for I know the sun will shine again.’

  ‘What a wonderful philosophy for life,’ he said, smiling at her. She enhanced whatever setting she was in. Just now she was making the weak sun stronger, dull colours bright, simply by being there.

  ‘Is it?’ she asked, surprised that she could have said anything so profound. But it was true, wasn’t it? If her life was going through a rainy patch, then perhaps she could look forward to the sun in days to come. Sitting here beside him, enclosed in the little world of a stagecoach, enjoying the scenery, talking amiably, she had almost managed to forget how she came to be here and where she was going.

  ‘Tell me about Scotland,’ she said. ‘Is it like this?’

  ‘Scotland,’ he mused. ‘I suppose it is, but more so. The lochs are like the lakes, but deeper, and the fells are nothing to the mountains of the Highlands. Sometimes the snow never leaves the top of them, you know. And there is a grandeur, a wildness, which is impossible to describe. You have to feel it.’

  ‘Perhaps that feeling is only for those who are born and bred there, not for those who come to it late in life,’ she said a little wistfully.

  ‘Not necessarily. You will love it, I am sure.’ He hoped that would turn out to be true, that she would be happy with her new employers in spite of their offhand treatment of her. They should have arranged for her to be escorted; it was almost as if they did not care if she reached them or not. Surely, if it were James, he would have had more thought for her? ‘I believe I heard you say you were going to Killearn?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know it?’

  ‘Very well. Where in Killearn do you go?’

  She was tempted to tell him everything, to explain about her father and the money and the unknown guardian, but then, realising her insecurity, he might take it as a signal he could behave badly again, and she wanted to keep everything on the same pleasant, impersonal level. But most of all she did not want to confess that she had lied; he had said he hated pretence and deception, more than she hated gambling, and though she longed to confide in him, she could not do it. ‘I do not know exactly, I am being met in Glasgow.’

  ‘But you do know the name of your employer?’

  Now, she was in a fix. If he knew Killearn as he said he did, then he would also know of the Earl of Strathrowan. ‘Yes, I know his name.’

  ‘Let me guess. Is it Macgowan?’

  ‘How did you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘Lord and Lady Macgowan have a young son who is in need of instruction. I can think of no one else, not among anyone of rank, that is. Unless…’ He paused suddenly. ‘There are the Strathrowans…’

  Her heart began to beat in her throat and she felt the colour suffusing her face. What had her mother always told her? Be sure your sins will find you out. How could she possibly have known at the outset that Captain Blair would be familiar with Killearn? How big was the place? Was it big enough to hide in? But then, she would not be included in any social gatherings the family might go to and a mere captain was hardly likely to attend them either.

  ‘Who said I was going to anyone of rank, Captain? Surely such a family would have arranged a chaperone for me?’

  ‘Yes, of course they would.’

  Then you have your answer, Captain.’

  It was highly unsatisfactory, but she obviously did not want to tell him any more and he was beginning to wonder if she had any employment to go to at all. But then, why mention Killearn? It was not a great town; few people from south of the border had ever heard of it. She was either being forced to make the trip against her will or she was being very clever and he wished he knew which it was. And he was a complete noddicock for letting it bother him.

  He decided to change the subject and began a discourse on the relative merits of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the difficulties of travelling to the very north where there were few roads and riding was the best way to get about and where, until recently, packhorses were still the accepted way of transporting goods.

  ‘But we are progressing,’ he said, as they stopped for one of the many changes of horses. ‘Telford and McAdam are both Scotsmen. Telford, in particular, has built over a thousand miles of road, connecting all the sizeable towns, and bridged over a thousand rivers.’ He smiled. ‘Like the fen country, we have a great many waterways too, Miss Sadler.’

  Relieved to be talking generalities again, she encouraged him to go on, soaking up the facts he told her, descriptions of p
eople and places, the local customs, until they arrived at the Crown in Penrith where the horses were changed for the last eighteen miles to Carlisle.

  The road ran over very rough country and she was shaken about like a rattle in a drum, musing ruefully that when the coach was full there was less room to be thrown about, though whether the close proximity of her fellow passengers and Captain Blair in particular was preferable she did not know. And to add to her discomfort, the sunshine of the morning had turned to rain again and her feet and fingers were frozen. She was glad when they sighted the walls and towers of Carlisle and a few minutes later turned into the yard of the Crown and Mitre and drew to a stop.

  It was then she was dismayed to learn that this was a scheduled stopping place and the coach was going no further that night. ‘No, miss,’ the guard told her, as she gave him the usual tip, before going into the inn. ‘The coach don’t move no more until five in the morning. Me and Joe Grinley, we’re off back to Manchester, you’ll have a new driver and guard tomorrow.’

  Now she was really in trouble. For a foolish minute she thought of sleeping in the coach until it left again but she knew that would not be allowed. Besides, the Captain already had hold of her elbow and was guiding her indoors out of the rain, and issuing his usual orders. He had a way of making people take notice, of jumping to do his bidding at once and a that without a single complaint. She concluded he was not short of funds. But she was.

  She sat through a meal she had no appetite for, wondering what would happen when the innkeeper discovered she had no money to pay for it, or for her room, which was even now being made ready for her. What did one do in such circumstances? Ask for time to pay? Pretend you had been robbed? Borrow? Captain Blair would lend her money if she asked him, but on one thing she was determined; she would not confide her dilemma to her unsolicited escort. Although it was still only six in the evening, she excused herself, saying she was very tired and was going to bed if they were to make an early start in the morning.