A Fallen Woman (29 page)

But it
was too hard to think on that right now. It was too hard to think
on anything.

Rachel drifted
into sleep.

Chapter
Eleven

There is a reasonable expectation when waking from sleep
that one will wake up in the same place as one
has put one’s head
down.

Rachel, coming out of a warm, comforting
dream, took very
little time concluding that all was not as it should be.

For one thing,
her bed seemed to be moving. Not shaking about violently, but
gently bumping along, as if it were on wheels and they were being
pushed along a road with a slightly imperfect surface.

It made no
sense and for a few moments she waited for the remnants of whatever
dream she had been having to dissipate. It did not. In fact, the
more aware and awake she felt she was becoming, the more her
surroundings did not match up to her expectations.

Bewildered,
Rachel opened her eyes and looked straight into Worsley’s grey
gaze.

‘
Do not worry,’ he said softly. ‘You are perfectly safe, my
love.’

It was not so
much worry Rachel felt, but confusion. She stared at the man who
was seated in the carriage seat across from her and tried to make
sense of what was going on.

‘We are
traveling,’ she said, rather stupidly.

‘
We are.’

‘
But… how? I was in bed…’

‘
You were. Now you are in a coach and we are on our way to
Gretna Green.’

Gretna Green?
Rachel was flummoxed. She stared at Worsley, then
glanced around the coach – yes, it really
was
a coach – then back to the earl who was
regarding her sympathetically.

‘
Worsley -’

‘
Nash. Do try to get used to it.’

‘Worsley
. What is going on?’ She tried very hard to keep the alarm
out of her voice, but under the circumstances it was difficult, for
it looked very much as if he had kidnapped her.

‘There is
no need to become agitated. I discussed this with your parents
-’

‘You discussed
this
with my parents?’

‘
Indeed. We were all of the opinion that you would refuse to
change your mind about marrying me.’

‘
You were?’

‘We were. I did suggest applying for a license and snagging
the parson in a month but the difficulties of getting you to say
yes in a month were no less problematic than getting you to say yes
now.
In fact,
we were inclined to think you would dig your heels in even more.
Your mother suggested that you might find it more romantic if we
tied the knot at Gretna.’ He said this in a tone that suggested he
wasn’t at all mad but Rachel was convinced that could not be the
case. Sane people certainly did not behave in such a
way.

‘
Mama suggested that you kidnap me and take me to Gretna
Green,’ she said, her tone redolent with disbelief. ‘As if she ever
would do such a thing.’

‘I admit,
I thought it a little radical myself but the general consensus was
that you would balk at anything too complicated. A hasty marriage,
executed in the most scandalous manner possible, did seem the best
solution if I were to convince you to become my wife.’

Now that the fog of sleep had cleared completely and Rachel
had full use of her faculties once more, she was able to think back
over the previous day. Or was it still the same day? Her parents
had certainly behaved a little strangely. She had come across them
having several quiet discussions together but had been too
preoccupied with her own private misery to really pay attention.
Was it really possible they had been conspiring with Worsley
against her? She had a dreadful feeling that it
was
possible. Her future happiness had
become a pressing concern to her mother, who was fretting against
the possibility that her eldest daughter might allow the
opportunity for happiness to slip through her fingers.

But this…

‘You cannot ruin me,’ she said abruptly.
‘For I am already
ruined. My reputation is such that one more midnight flit is hardly
going to raise eyebrows.’

‘Yes, but what about
my
reputation?’ he inquired. ‘When it is known that I have
scandalously spirited you away from your family to wed you in
secret, people will assume all manner of things.’

‘What
sort of things?’ Rachel demanded. Now that she had a better
understanding of the situation, it was hard to feel alarmed. She
knew instinctively that Worsley was an honorable man and would
never do anything to harm her.

‘
Who can say? But I am sure it will put the worst possible
slant on things. You must marry me now or I will be
ruined.’

His pained tone of voice, the obvious role reversal
of
his
reputation being ruined, made her lips twitch
involuntarily. He sounded exactly like a scandalized old maid!
‘What nonsense. Simply tell the coach driver to turn around and we
shall return to Thorncroft. Nobody need ever know about this
foolishness. Unless you left a note and had it sent around to the
vicar,’ she added dryly. Really, this whole thing was
lunacy.

‘I never
thought of that,’ the earl admitted, a little regretfully. ‘Instead
I am relying on the servants to spread the information. If all goes
according to plan, the entire neighborhood will know by breakfast
time that we have run away together.’

Rachel gave a
small gasp. ‘Surely you did not make the servants privy to
this?’

‘Well not
all of them, of course. Just a few that can be relied upon to
gossip. How else is everybody to know?’

Rachel
stared at him, at a loss. He looked remarkably pleased with
himself. She struggled to find something to say, the words that
would make him see that this whole thing was utterly ridiculous,
but nothing came to mind. Whatever protests she could formulate
would be wasted on a man who had come up with tonight’s endeavors,
although he had been ably abetted by her foolish, loving
parents.

‘Surely we are not going to Greta Green
tonight?
’ she
said finally. Feebly. She was not surrendering to this crazed plan
but she really could not think of anything else to say.

‘No,
despite the fact that Greta Green is pleasingly close to
Northumberland. I thought we would stay at a particularly good inn
along the way and then do an easy trip there tomorrow afternoon.
George suggested it. He says that the food is particularly
good.’

‘George
knows of this?’ Rachel demanded, incensed.

Worsley
looked at her with a mixture of kindness and amusement. ‘My love,
all but Charlotte and Adam know. Oh, and Charity. We could not help
but feel that she would not be a valuable ally.’

Rachel gave a
small, unladylike snort at the idea of Charity assisting in
anything that stepped outside the boundaries of propriety. She
blinked. ‘Wait… even James knows of this?’

‘
Certainly. You have his blessing.’

Rachel closed
her eyes for a moment and shook her head. It seemed that her entire
family had collaborated to bring her to this outrageous position.
What was she to do? What could she do? Escape into the night? Stand
before whoever performed hasty marriages at Gretna Green and refuse
to say yes? She sighed and closed her eyes. Worsley’s deep, warm
voice brought them open again.

‘Do you
really object to marrying me so much, Rachel? I know that I have
been devilishly high-handed about the whole affair but I was
certain that you had formed some small partiality towards me.
Arrogant of me, I know. But there was that kiss…’

Oh yes, that kiss.
She looked at him, saw the concern in his
eyes.
I
could tell him that I do not care for him, that I cannot
countenance the idea of having him for a husband. He would probably
ask my forgiveness and turn the coach around, take me back home and
be gentlemanly enough never to mention it again. But it would be a
lie. And after that kiss, he must surely know it for
one.

He looked
curiously vulnerable and Rachel shook her head. ‘I have… formed a
partiality for you,’ she admitted softly. ‘That is not why I
refused you.’

‘
I know.’ He grinned at her. ‘You wished to save me from
myself. But my darling girl, I am irredeemable.’

‘
And my past?’ she asked quietly. ‘Don’t you wish to know about
my past?’

He sobered at
this. ‘Believe me when I say, if I could change your past I would.
Not because you were shamed by what happened to you, but because I
would dearly love to have spared you the pain you have
endured.’

Dear God. Could
she really have discovered the only man in England – and quite
possibly the civilized world – who did not care about her past? Who
felt nothing but compassion?

‘
I would like to tell you what happened,’ she said, in
something of a rush.

‘
You don’t have to, you know,’ he observed softly.

‘
I want to. It seems only fair that you know the story if you
are so foolish as to wish to marry me.’

‘Very
well.’ Sitting forward, he took her chin between his fingers and
kissed her. It was deliberately light, no more than a brush of his
lips against her own and yet it stirred her body into immediate,
urgent life. He felt her response, she knew he did but he merely
settled back into his seat once more. He smiled at her and Rachel
felt the unfamiliar surge of warmth at being the recipient of such
tenderness. It warmed her through.

She dropped her gaze, focusing on her hands the better to
collect her thoughts. She had not related the sorry tale of what
happened that night to anybody outside of her family and even then,
not
to all of
her family. But she knew that she had to tell Worsley now. She
could not go into the future with him without him knowing what had
transpired, no matter that he did not seem to care. Best to tell
him everything, rather than have him wonder about it in years to
come.

‘I met
Dorian Salinger at a party, some ball that I attended, along with
half of London it seemed. The Pulfreys’ ball, it was. Their house
sat on the edge of Hounslow Heath. It was crowded and overly hot
and I was feeling out of sorts, I suppose. I escaped into the
garden. Unescorted,’ she added, wanting him to know the full
measure of her foolishness. ‘Sometimes I just wished to be by
myself. There was always something going on and I admit, I missed
the quiet of home at times.’

‘
Perfectly understandable.’

‘I doubt
any of the dowagers would agree with you. They watch over the
debutantes like mother hens. Not that it makes any difference. You
would be surprised at the number who manage to elude supervision.’
And engaged in unsuitable trysts with unsuitable men… Perhaps he
wouldn’t be surprised, after all. ‘I meant to go out for some air
and some quiet, nothing more. But in the ornamental gardens I met
Mr. Salinger for the first time. I did not intend to speak to him,
of course but he spoke of a play that he had seen the night before.
It was a play I had been interested in seeing. He made it sound
fascinating. It wasn’t more than that, I swear. We just spoke of
plays and music and not even for very long. But I was intrigued. I
had not met him before, you see and he seemed so different to the
other gentlemen I had met. I returned to the house, worried that
Mama would be concerned if she could not find me but I could not
put my encounter with Mr. Salinger out of my mind.’

‘
I am sure he found another opportunity to see you soon after,’
Worsley said grimly.

Rachel nodded. It was no more than the truth. Dorian
Salinger had managed to see her again the very next day and on
quite a few days after. They were seemingly casual meetings; at
picnics, in Hyde Park, in museums and galleries. Looking back, she
could see how he managed to catch her away from her family or those
who might have warned her against him but Salinger was clever,
making sure that nobody but her female friends – who considered
Salinger unbearably romantic with his dark hair and smoldering eyes
– bore witness to their meetings. In retrospect, there were good
reasons why he chose not to make their burgeoning relationship
public. A good many people in London knew Dorian Salinger’s
circumstances, including the one that Rachel would have found the
most informative, that the man had a wife he had conveniently left
back home in Ireland. But she had
not
known and had fallen more and more under his
plausible spell. What Salinger had lacked in honesty, he made up
for in persuasive charm. Within the space of two weeks he had
Rachel believing herself in love with him. More than that, he had
her craving him. There had been something peculiarly elusive about
the man, something that had captivated her.

But not enough that she considered giving herself to him.
Rachel might have been all kinds of
a fool but she was not so foolish as to
forget herself completely. All that Salinger received for his
seductive assault on her senses was a chaste kiss and Rachel’s
fervent assurance that she wanted to spend the rest of her life
with him.