Sheri Cobb South (2 page)

“And yet, if you were to follow her to London and ask her again, you might receive a very different answer,” observed the older man, stirring milk into his tea.

“Perhaps,” James said slowly. “And yet I wonder if I could be content to wed a lady who I knew accepted me only because of the change in my circumstances.”

However much his sympathies lay with his curate, Mr. Bainbridge could not allow one of his parishioners to malign another. “In all fairness, James, you must allow that security is important to a woman, and marriage is the only way that most may achieve it. Do her the justice of owning that it was not a life of ease you offered her.”

“I do own it. And if security is what she wants, I hope she may find it. But,” he added, “she’ll not have it from me.”

* * * *

Within a se’ennight, all James’s worldly goods (which consisted, for the most part, of two changes of clothes, a slightly battered violin, and a small but cherished collection of books, most of them purchased at secondhand) were packed into an ancient portmanteau. This, along with James himself, was deposited in the squire’s own gig and borne with great ceremony to the Pig and Whistle, from which hostelry the new duke might hire four high-stepping horses and a post-chaise in which to descend upon Montford in a manner befitting his station. Twenty-seven years of frugal living, however, were not so easily set aside. His Grace took the stage.

The two-day journey from Fairford to Montford was not an unalloyed pleasure, as James was obliged to spend hours at a stretch on a poorly padded seat, squeezed between a large woman holding on her lap a howling toddler, and a farmer who whiled away the tedium of the journey by chewing on a particularly odoriferous cheese. James’s own attempts to escape the discomforts of his situation via the pages of one of his beloved books were foiled by the loud snores of a stout, red-nosed man in the rear-facing seat. But as James was a sweet-tempered young man (and, perhaps more significantly, had no more pleasurable travels with which to compare it), he bore his sufferings with fortitude. Aside from a slight, sympathetic smile for the stout man’s seatmate—who was pressed against the window by his slumbering fellow’s girth, and who glowered at James for his pains before returning his gaze to the passing scenery— the duke’s feelings were betrayed only by a small sigh of relief when the stagecoach stopped at the Red Lion in Littledean.

But alas, no comfort was to be found within. For here the stout woman discovered to her displeasure that there was no milk to be had for her wailing child.

“What?” she demanded of the landlord. “None at all?”

“None for the stagecoach passengers, any gates,” this worthy amended.

“Then who, pray, are you saving it for?” challenged the offended parent.

“The Quality,” she was informed roundly. “A fine thing it would be, if they had no milk for their coffee or tea!”

The woman swept a disdainful glance about the taproom, dismissing James and the rest of his fellow passengers with a glance. “
I
see no Quality here! They patronize better establishments than yours, I trow!”

“Not if they stop in Littledean, they don’t, for it has but the one posting-house.”

“Hmph! Next you will tell me that Littledean boasts but one cow!”

“Nay, there are at least two, for I’m speaking to one of ‘em now,” replied the landlord, not without satisfaction.

The woman’s face turned purple with rage. “Why, you—” she sputtered. “I ought to—”

“Pardon me, but may I be of some assistance?”

James never raised his voice, but something about his quiet, well-modulated tones had the effect of disarming the combatants, at least for the moment. The woman gestured angrily toward the landlord, who stood with his arms crossed over his apron, glaring back at her.

“It’s not enough for this monster to starve my poor darling, now he must needs insult me, as well!”

“The mail-coach will be here within the hour,” protested the landlord. “How will it look if I can’t offer the passengers milk for their coffee or tea, all on account of this woman’s mewling brat?”

“Perhaps if the child were fed, he would cease, er, mewling,” James suggested reasonably. “Surely a lad his age will not require much.”

The landlord’s gaze fell ever so briefly, and James, recognizing that a truce was within reach, was emboldened to withdraw from his coat pocket the purse bestowed upon him some days earlier by the solicitor. Spilling its contents into the palm of his hand, he was slightly embarrassed to discover that the pouch contained no coin smaller than a crown. This, however, he did not hesitate to press into the landlord’s hand, requesting him to bring the child a cup of milk along with whatever victuals he might have on hand suitable for a child of, James hazarded, four years.

“Three,” corrected the child’s mother, adding proudly, “But he is a fine, strapping lad for his age, is he not?”

To this James readily agreed. The landlord, looking from the crown piece in his hand to his patron’s worn and travel-stained coat, bit the silver coin and, apparently satisfied as to its authenticity, betook himself to the kitchen.

Unbeknownst to James, this exchange had an interested observer in the person of one of his fellow passengers. The wiry little man who had so recently occupied the rear-facing seat watched with interest as James reached for his purse, and as a quantity of gold and silver coins spilled into James’s hand, the watcher’s eyes could have been seen to gleam. Unobtrusively, he slipped from the taproom and into the yard, where he met the erstwhile slumberer bearing down upon the hostelry carrying a bulging portmanteau under each beefy arm.

“Wait,” he commanded this individual, then hailed the coachman. He put a number of questions to this worthy, to which (after a few copper coins exchanged hands) he received satisfactory answers. The stout man with the bags was summoned, and the portmanteaux were returned to the boot.

“But I thought we was stopping in Littledean!” protested the stout man.

“There’s been a change of plans,” stated his wiry fellow in a voice that brooked no argument.

The journey recommenced a short time later, and it must be stated that this stage passed far more pleasantly than the one which had preceded it. Two of the passengers had disembarked at Littledean and only one newcomer replaced them, to the patent relief of the other travelers. Of those who remained, the stout man, now fully awake, ceased to snore, and the child, his hunger satiated, fell asleep on his mother’s bosom. James returned to his book, but was startled and slightly disturbed on two occasions when he glanced up from the page and saw the wiry man in the rear-facing seat staring malevolently in his direction. James quickly dismissed this fanciful notion as the result of reading gothic novels, and resolved that the next time he travelled, he would purchase a newspaper instead.

As the coach neared the village of Montford, it veered unexpectedly around a curve. James, bracing himself in order to avoid tumbling against the mother and child, glanced toward the window, and beheld a vision. Framed against the horizon, a massive brick house built in the Palladian style sat atop a distant hill, its numerous arched windows blindingly reflecting the afternoon sun. Instinctively, James leaned toward the window for a better view.

Seeing his reaction, the mother shifted the child higher on her lap and bestowed a smug smile upon James. “That’s Montford Priory, seat of his Grace, the duke of Montford,” she said with all the pride of a native. “It’s empty now, so far as I can tell. The old duke died several months back, and we’ve not yet seen hair nor hide of the new one.”

“I hope he proves worthy of such magnificence,” James murmured, his eyes never straying from the house until a bend in the road once again hid it from view.

A short time later the coach barreled into the village proper and lurched to a stop before the Pig and Whistle. James disembarked, along with the woman, her sleepy child, and the two men in the rear-facing seat. Having glimpsed his destination, James did not linger inside the posting-house to ask for directions, but collected his belongings and set out for Montford Priory on foot, his portmanteau thumping out a rhythm against his knee with every step.

He had traveled perhaps a quarter of a mile when he realized that he was not the only one of the stagecoach passengers heading in that direction: the wiry little man and his stout companion followed at a distance of some fifty yards. As James could not recall having passed any more likely destinations, he wondered if they too had business at Montford Priory; if so, theirs could only be business of a temporary nature, as they had apparently left their bags at the Pig and Whistle.

Whatever their destination, James observed a few moments later, they were in a remarkable hurry to reach it. The fifty yards between them had quickly closed to a scant twenty feet. As the afternoon sun threw the two men’s lengthening shadows across James’s path, he looked over his shoulder to speak to his fellow travelers. Before he could make eye contact, however, a beefy fist connected with his jaw, sending him staggering backwards amid an explosion of stars.

Ordinarily, James was blessed with the sweetest of temperaments, but as a scrawny shabby-genteel boy attending school with the sons of England’s aristocracy, he had developed a finely honed instinct for self-preservation. Still half-blinded by pain, he nevertheless swung the heavy portmanteau with all his might. A thud and a grunt indicated that he had hit his mark, but a second vicious blow, this one to his nose, robbed him of any satisfaction he might otherwise have derived. Another arc of the portmanteau met only empty air, but the force of James’s swing was sufficient to overcome the locks. The ancient bag flew open, disgorging its contents across the road and rendering itself useless as a weapon. He flung it away and balled his fists, but before he had a chance to use them, a blow to his face, swiftly followed by another to his belly, doubled him over, and he fell insensibly to the ground.

“There!” pronounced the larger of his two attackers, dusting off his hands. “ ‘E ‘ad more fight in ‘im than I would’ve thought.”

“Never mind that now,” said his crony dismissively, rolling his victim’s limp form over and plunging a hand into the breast pocket of James’s coat. With a grin of satisfaction, he withdrew the coin-filled pouch, along with a sheaf of papers tied with a ribbon. He tossed the purse to his henchman, untied the ribbon, and perused the contents of the packet of letters. One, bearing an impressive red wax seal, caught his attention. He quickly scanned its text, and the words he read there wiped the satisfied smirk from his face.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed. “We’ve crowned a blinkin’ duke!”

They stuffed their ill-gotten gains into their pockets, then fled the scene as if the Furies were at their heels.

Chapter 2

Miss Margaret Darrington, cooling her heels at the Pig and Whistle, tapped a serviceably shod foot and glanced impatiently at the clock over the mantel. The man she had arranged to meet should have arrived on the three o’clock stage, and although Miss Darrington was charitable enough to allow that coaches often fell behind schedule, an hour-long wait had worn her patience (never her strong suit, even under far more sanguine circumstances) quite thin. If Mr. Fanshawe was this unreliable in all matters, then he was clearly unsuitable to have charge over her lively fourteen-year-old brother.

As the hostelry door burst open, Miss Darrington looked up hopefully, only to have her expectations dashed once again. Neither of the two men entering the Pig and Whistle looked at all like a tutor. The larger of the two looked as if he would be more at home at a blacksmith’s forge than in a schoolroom, while the other—

Miss Darrington blinked as he looked up at that moment and regarded her with a gaze so malignant that she shuddered, remembering anew the perils that might befall an unaccompanied lady loitering about a public inn. Her mind made up, Miss Darrington strode to the door leading to the stable yard. If Mr. Fanshawe were to arrive at some later time, he could make the five-mile trek to Darrington House on foot. He could while away the tedium of the journey by composing an acceptable excuse for the tardiness of his arrival.

* * * *

Groaning, James sat up in the road and rubbed the sore spot on his head, where a lump was already beginning to form. What had happened? Surely there must be some reason why he was lying here in the middle of the road to—where
did
this road lead, anyway? Turning to survey his surroundings—no easy task, when every muscle in his body screamed in protest—he saw no familiar landmarks, nothing to remind him of where he was or where he had been going.

That he had indeed been going somewhere was evidenced by the open portmanteau lying face-down on the side of the road, clothing strewn about it like a madwoman’s laundry. Wincing in pain, he staggered to his feet and began to gather his belongings, now covered with a film of road dust. A single book lay open at his feet, its pages turning in the breeze as if by a ghostly reader. He picked up the volume, and as he blew the dirt from its pages, he saw a name written on the flyleaf: Charles Haslett. James blinked. How very odd that one of his books should bear such a name, when his own name was—

A wave of nausea engulfed him as he realized he could not remember his own name. Panic-stricken, he reached for another book, then another. A dozen volumes yielded almost as many names, each one as unfamiliar as the one before. He fumbled in the breast pocket of his coat for anything that might provide some identification, but came up empty. Who was he, and where was he? Would anyone miss him, and come in search of him? What had happened here? If only he could remember!

“Mr. Fanshawe?”

He had not heard the vehicle’s approach, but James started at the sound of its driver’s voice as eagerly as a drowning man at the splash of a lifeline. Turning, he saw a gig driven by a lady who appeared less than delighted to see him. He wracked his brain, but found no memory of a brown-haired young lady in her mid-twenties, attractive but not beautiful, whose most striking feature appeared to be a pair of sparkling dark eyes.