The Unofficial Suitor (7 page)

To her relief, he took his departure, holding one hand to his ribs to stop the bleeding.

Without hesitation she rushed to bolt the door behind him.

The stagecoach hit a larger bump than usual, and Cassie was thrown against the man to her left. She immediately jerked herself back into an upright position and clutched her cloak more tightly around her.

London was going to be an absolute disaster. Any slight hopes she may have had to the contrary had been dispelled virtually as soon as the trip began, and nothing that had happened during this interminably long day had given her cause to change her mind.

It had been bad enough when her brother had refused to let them travel with him in his coach. Despite her objections, he had vanished back to London, only very grudgingly parting with enough money for them to take the stage. His obvious selfishness had been almost enough to disillusion even Ellen as to Geoffrey’s near-sainthood, but in the end her step-mother had managed to justify his odious behavior as “pressing business in London, of a most urgent nature, which precludes his kicking his heels here while three giddy females make preparations to embark on the greatest adventure a woman can dream of having.”

Cassie privately suspected that the urgent business consisted of a rackety set of cronies and a deck of cards. She was, in fact, firmly convinced that it was pure meanness on Geoffrey’s part that had caused him to abandon them to their own devices.

As for London being the greatest adventure—stuff and nonsense. She was about as willing to be convinced that being thrown on the Marriage Mart was an experience greatly to be desired as Marie Antoinette would have been willing to agree that facing the guillotine was an experience she would not wish to forgo.

On the other hand, to be fair, Cassie had to admit that her present uncomfortable situation was partly her fault. Having made the acquaintance of Geoffrey’s groom and mistress, she had bitten back the arguments she might have used and had not insisted upon a place in her brother’s carriage.

She had realized her error as soon as the door to the stagecoach was thrown open for them to climb in. The coach seemed at first glance to be filled to capacity already, but a second look had shown her that it was occupied by only three men. They were such a disreputable looking trio, however, that they should not have been allowed to ride even as outside passengers. They had possession of three of the four corners of the coach, and their long legs, moreover, were taking up far more than their share of the room between the seats, leaving the three women to insert themselves carefully into the small amount of space remaining.

It would not have surprised Cassie if the three men had only bided their time until they were crossing an isolated section of moor before pulling wicked-looking pistols out from beneath the greatcoats they wore and holding them all up for their valuables. Although their pickings would be slim indeed if she and her companions were to be their intended victims.

Before the morning was over, she would have welcomed even an attempted hold-up to break the monotony. She had assumed, naturally enough, that she and Ellen and Seffie could have a comfortable coze during the trip.

The atmosphere in the coach, however, did not lend itself to the sharing of girlish confidences, and it would have taken a braver woman than Ellen to prate about dresses and balls and parties and suitors in such company.

The atmosphere, in fact, reeked of strong spirits, and the only thing Cassie could even be slightly thankful for was that the men had spent most of the day sleeping off the effects of the alcohol they had evidently imbibed freely before the trip. They had only roused themselves briefly at noon, when the stage had stopped barely long enough for the passengers to snatch a quick sandwich and a cup of hot tea—although she strongly doubted that the three scruffy men had had tea in their mugs.

Shortly after lunch, Ellen and Seffie had also settled down, being able, as they were, to lean against each other and so achieve a modicum of comfort, and had joined the three men in the land of nod. Now only Cassie was left wide awake and sitting rigidly upright, her back aching both from the jouncing of the coach and from the effort it took not to touch either of the two men beside her.

The temptation was growing stronger, moreover, simply to lean over and rest her head against the shoulder of one of the men sitting beside her and thereby escape the tedium of the ride by falling asleep. She might even have given in to temptation if the seating arrangements had been a bit different, she thought, trying unsuccessfully to hold back a yawn.

Although at first glance the three men had seemed identical, with their rough clothes and unkempt hair, the hours she had spent watching them while they slept had enabled her to differentiate between them.

The oldest man, whom the others called Tuke, was by far the kindest looking of the three. In spite of his obvious physical strength, he had an air of gentleness about him. In fact, were it not for his disreputable appearance, she would say that he had an air of quiet dignity about him. She could picture herself making use of his shoulder to lean on if she became tired enough. Unfortunately, he was seated opposite, so that option was denied her.

The youngest man, who was sitting on her right side, was by far the most handsome, with blond good looks and a practiced smile, the effects of which he was obviously aware. Unfortunately, it had not taken long for him to notice her and make her the object of his attentions. She had been forced by the roaring fire in the inn where they stopped for lunch to put off her cloak, and no sooner had she done so than the mild interest he had shown in her previously had become quite pronounced.

He had turned the full force of his smile on her and stared at her quite openly. She was not a stranger to such bold looks, and even in her limited experience with men she knew enough to read the masculine desire that was in his gaze and to know exactly what the source of his interest in her was. Just remembering his bold appraisal of her attributes was enough to make her now pull her cloak more tightly around her.

The third man, whose age seemed to fall somewhere between that of the other two, was by far the most dangerous looking. She had heard the others call him Hawke and deemed it a suitable name for him.

She turned to look at him now. His nose, while not disproportionately large, was definitely aquiline. His jaw was angular, his eyes, when they were open, were piercing, his complexion swarthy, although it was hard to tell in the dim light whether it was actually his skin that was dark, or whether it was the several days’ growth of beard that made it appear so.

From where she was now sitting she could not see the short scar by his left eye, which added to the aura of danger and violence that surrounded him, but even without a scar, the right side of his face could not by any means be called handsome.

He was uncompromisingly male, without the slightest touch of any of the softer, more feminine traits. Even in sleep his face did not relax, but remained as strong and forbidding as when he was awake. In a word, he was the embodiment of everything she most distrusted in men.

Cassie yawned again, then stiffened her back. The trip, which had seemed long before they even set off, began now to seem interminable, as if somehow they were all destined to ride onward for the rest of their days, trapped together in the confines of the coach. Her initial hope that perhaps the other three would not be accompanying them for the entire trip had been dashed earlier, when she had overheard one of them mention London.

To make matters worse, even the weather was conspiring against her. It had started snowing almost as soon as they had set their trip forward after lunch, and from the muffled sound of the horses’ hooves, the snow was already piling up enough to slow their progress considerably. Such a storm, coming so late in the winter as it did, was quite unusual. Perhaps it was an omen that they should not be going to London?

While she sleepily debated the wisdom of waking her stepmother and trying to convince her that they should give up this wild adventure and return to their home, Cassie’s eyes finally drifted shut.

* * * *

Richard Hawke only gradually became aware of a warm body cuddled up against him, and it took him a few more moments to become sufficiently awake to identify where he was. His eyes opened only enough that he could recognize John sitting across from him, snoring softly. Shifting his glance a bit to the right, Richard gradually remembered the older woman and the young girl who had gotten on the stage in Truro. By turning his head slightly, he could see Perry, who was also lost to the world.

Which left whom? He had a vague memory of a third woman—of deep blue eyes and black hair and a forehead that seemed perpetually creased in a worried frown ... a little figure struggling to sit up straight. He smiled to himself, pleased that she had finally relaxed. He doubted that he made a very soft pillow, but apparently she had no complaints. And he definitely had none.

With that thought, he allowed the rocking of the stagecoach to lull him back to sleep.

* * * *

With a sway and a creaking of harnesses, the coach made a sharp turn and lurched to a halt. Cassie woke up abruptly to find her shoulder tucked behind Hawke’s arm and her cheek pillowed against his shoulder. With deep dismay she pulled herself upright, then was reassured to realize the other five occupants of the coach were still sleeping, and no one else was aware of her lapse in decorum.

Even so, she could not keep a blush from creeping up her cheeks at the knowledge of how intimately she had been pressed up against a strange man.

Suddenly the door was thrown open with a crash, the wind catching it and jerking it out of the coachman’s hands. The resulting noise woke up not only Ellen and Seffie, but also the three sleeping men.

“What’s amiss?” the man beside her asked, and at the sound of his deep voice, Cassie recalled the warmth of his shoulder against her face. She was grateful for the chill wind, which cooled her overheated cheeks.

“I thought we could make it through to the next stop, guv, but the snow is blowing so fierce, ‘tis nigh impossible to see the road. I’m for halting here, where we’re sure of shelter for the night.”

“How far is it to the next staging house?”

“‘Tis a good four miles, but it could easily take us several hours to get that far, assuming we didn’t end up in a ditch with a broken wheel.”

Cassie listened to the men’s discussion in growing horror, not really upset by the obvious impossibility of arriving in London on schedule, but truly stunned by the financial impossibility of paying for an extra night’s lodging and the additional meals. Geoffrey simply had not made any allowances for such an eventuality when he had doled out the pittance he had deemed adequate for their trip.

With great reluctance Cassie emerged with the others from the coach into a biting wind that whipped snow into her face with stinging force, and fought her way across the short stretch of open ground to the inn. At one point a sudden gust caught her and might have whirled her to the ground, but for a large hand that seized her by the elbow and virtually dragged her the last few feet into the haven that was the inn.

As a haven, it left much to be desired, the low ceilings and small windows giving the room a mean appearance. Cassie turned to thank the man who had helped her, but the words died in her throat when she realized it was the man called Hawke. Not that he seemed to notice her lack of manners since he released her arm as soon as they were inside and directed his attention to the innkeeper, who stood swaying in the doorway of the taproom.

“‘Ere, ‘ere, you can’t come in. We’re closed. No one ‘ere to look after you. Go on somewhere else. No one ‘ere. Not a staging house. Can’t stay. Go away.”

The coachman was not one to be put off by lack of welcome. “Look lively, man, and send someone out to help with my horses.”

“No one ‘ere. That’s what I’m tellin’ you. Wife’s gone to m’daughter’s. First gran’chil’ coming. M’son drove her. No one ‘ere but me. Can’t ‘elp you. Shelebrating. First gran’chil’. Be a boy. Told m’wife. Got to be a boy. Name ‘im after me. Can’t stay. No one ‘ere to cook. Go somewhere else.” He took another hearty swig from his mug and unexpectedly beamed at them. “Goin’ to be a boy.” Then he slid slowly down to the floor and started snoring loudly.

The coachman swore under his breath, then went back out himself to help the guard take care of the horses, but the other three men seemed unaffected by their strange reception. They calmly stepped over the landlord’s prone body and proceeded into the taproom where without any by-your-leave they proceeded to make themselves at home.

“I cannot approve of this place.”

Her step-mother’s petulant voice startled Cassie almost enough to make her blurt out her own misgivings about their lack of finances. Only by exerting the greatest effort was she able to say calmly, “I am afraid the weather has taken the decision as to where we stay out of our hands. I realize these are not the accommodations we were expecting, but we must make the best of the situation.”

“Very well, if you are so set on it, we will stay, although I will be very surprised if the sheets are not damp. Please have someone show us to our rooms, and then ask the maid to bring us something to eat.”

Cassie would have been irritated by her step-mother’s haughty attitude if she had not heard the tremble in her voice, and known that this was just Ellen’s way of trying to cope with a situation that was beyond her capabilities. Ellen was sweet and kind-hearted, and Cassie loved her dearly, but unfortunately Ellen had not the least particle of resolution, and she had never been able to handle the slightest adversity. Cassie had, in fact, become quite accustomed to taking care of her step-mother as if she, Cassie, were the mother and Ellen were the child.

So instead of reminding her that none of them really wanted to stay in this miserable place, but the weather made it impossible for them to go on, Cassie merely said matter-of-factly, “They are a little short of help now, so I will take us upstairs and together we can pick out a suitable room. Then I will see what is available in the way of a meal.”