The Duke's Holiday (29 page)

Charlie pulled up on the reins, and the cart drew to a
standstill. Miss Honeywell pulled herself back on her seat, edging closer to
Charlie, giving the Duke as wide a girth as possible on the narrow perch. When
he was through heaving, he slumped exhaustedly against the side rail, his body
trembling.

When he glanced up at Miss Honeywell, she was gazing at him
with a mixture of exasperation and concern. “You don’t have the plague, do
you?” she inquired.

That was it. He could bear it no more. He groaned, pulled
himself upright, and then slowly began to climb out of the wagon, every muscle
in his body protesting.

Miss Honeywell looked down at him in alarm. “What are you
doing?” she demanded.

He lost his footing and fell the rest of the way. He landed
with a thud on his backside, dust flying up around him. He heaved himself to
his feet. “I’m walking back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s twenty miles!”

“Don’t care. I’d rather walk a hundred miles than spend
another second in your presence,” he muttered, which was true enough. He didn’t
add that one more second on that moving wagon was likely to make him cast up
his guts.

She put her fists on her hips and glared at him. “You
weren’t saying that last night,” she finally retorted.

What was that supposed to mean? A chill passed down his
spine. Oh, God, what had he done?

Seeing the look on his face, she gave him a satisfied smirk
and reached into one of the baskets behind her. She threw something at him, and
it landed against his chest and slid to the ground. He grunted and rubbed the
sore spot where it had hit, then bent over and retrieved the object. It was a
water skin.

“Wouldn’t want you to die along the way of thirst,” she
explained, settling into her seat.

“How thoughtful of you,” he gritted out.

“No, it would just be too easy to let you to die. I want
you to feel every step of the twenty miles back to Rylestone.”

“Damn you, Astrid Honeywell!” he roared, as the wagon
rolled onwards and Miss Honeywell and Charlie put their backs to him. He raised
his fist at the rear of the wagon. “I hope I never see you again!”

As he turned and began to trudge down the road, he thought
he heard her voice drift back to him on the wind. “Same!” it called out,
tauntingly.

Five minutes later, when the creaking and groaning of the
wagon had all but disappeared in the distance, and his feet were already
beginning to ache in his boots, he sat down on the side of the road and stared
up at the sky, utterly dumbfounded.

He was alone, on a dusty road, miles from anything
resembling civilization, tattered, battered, and reeking of ale and vomit. It
was a state of affairs he could not have foreseen in even his wildest
nightmares. He’d cry, if he had any moisture left in his body to invest in
tears.

And he didn’t. He’d retched out all of the water in his
body.

He stared down at the water skin in his hands and tried to
open it. But he couldn’t figure out how to manage the top. He didn’t know how
long it was he sat there, trying to pry apart the blasted thing, but it was
long enough to make him lose the last thread of his patience. He threw the
water skin down on the dusty road and stomped on it with the heel of his boots.

He stomped and stomped until the water skin was quite dead
and water pooled out of a leak in its side, turning the dust underneath his
feet into a mud puddle. He wished it had been Astrid Honeywell’s head.

He wandered on a few steps, but found his energy quite
sapped. He had to sit down. Which he did, on a log a few paces off the road.
Maybe his bright idea to walk back to the castle had not been a bright idea
after all. Even off of the wagon, he still felt quite ill. What had possessed
him to get so drunk? He had behaved like a lunatic, and what was even worse, he
had a niggling suspicion that he had enjoyed himself. It was beyond
humiliating. It was worrying.

What had Miss Honeywell meant? What had he said to her last
night? What had he done?

He tried to delve into the muddle in his brain, but could
not come up with a single thing, other than some vague recollection of a rhyme
about her eyes.

He was still pondering this when a large, black coach,
pulled by a team of four large, black stallions, and piloted by a giant man in
a black cape wielding a dangerous-looking whip, thundered by him. He could not
see inside the carriage, but he thought he spied a pair of glinting, coal-black
eyes peering from behind a curtain, sending a chill down his spine. He had no
liking for coaches in general, but if ever a one looked like it belonged to
Lucifer himself, it was that one.

He rose to his feet and stared at the coach as it tore
hell-for-leather to the North like a demon out of hell. What, he wondered in
exasperation, could be so interesting up there? Sheep? Hawes, whatever the
bloody hell that was? Bloody Scotland?

London was in the
opposite direction
, he almost called out to the coach.

Just thinking of that fair city (even though it was far
from fair and rather stank to high heaven when it rained) was enough to get his
legs to move. Every step drew him closer to London, he reminded himself. He
could not wait until he was back in his palace, ensconced in his steaming
bathing chamber, scrubbed clean of his travels, with the London Times financial
section in one hand, a bar of soap in the other.

When he got back to London, he was not leaving. Ever.
Again.

But then he remembered Araminta. Good God, Araminta! He’d
totally forgotten he was supposed to marry the chit in a fortnight! And for
their wedding tour – obligatory, unfortunately – they were to go to
the ancestral pile in Devonshire.

Montford stumbled to a stop, his mind screaming in outrage.

Like hell he was going to Devonshire. Like hell he was
marrying Araminta!

Or was he?

Wasn’t that supposed to be a good idea? He couldn’t recall.
He was lucky he’d even recalled her name.

He clutched his pounding temple. He needed to stop thinking
so much.

“Just get back to Rylestone,” he murmured. “One foot in
front of the other.”

That was what he did, for a few more yards. But the
screaming in his head seemed to get worse.

It took him several moments to realize the screaming was no
longer in his head, however. It seemed to be issuing from somewhere behind him,
and sounded distinctly like Miss Honeywell’s voice. He turned around, but he
could see nothing but road and trees. Surely it hadn’t been Miss Honeywell. She
was miles away by now.

He turned back around and trudged onwards.

Then the screaming started again. This time it was
punctuated by the blast of a gun. There was no mistaking that sound as it rent
the countryside like a thunderclap. He clutched his aching head and waited.
Nothing came after that but the rustling of the leaves in the wind. Even the
birds had been frightened into silence.

Montford didn’t breathe. His heart didn’t beat. A terrible
dread began to unfurl in the pit of his stomach. He’d not imagined her screams.
He’d not imagined the gunshot. He’d not imagined the terrible silence
following.

Montford began to sprint the way he had come, faster than
he’d gone at any point during the race on the previous day, though of course he
didn’t notice. He was too busy praying that he’d find Astrid Honeywell alive
and in decent enough condition to wring her neck. He’d never been so frightened
in his life, and it was all her fault.

ASTRID
USUALLY enjoyed the trip into Hawes, but her heart was not in it this year. She
wanted to drive to Hawes, drop off the shipment, and return to the castle to
enjoy her final days there before she was carted off to London. Charlie Weeks
drove her, as was his custom, but his mood seemed equally low. As the early
morning haze burnt off and the drays fell into a steady plod along the North
Road, they exchanged few words. Charlie was grim-faced, gripping the reins with
tense hands. It wasn’t until they’d gone nearly two-thirds of the way that he
loosened up enough to laugh at the bawdy rhymes she recited. He was in a
strange mood, but she couldn’t blame him, as his wife was six months pregnant
with their fifth child. He was deservedly a little frazzled around the edges.

Poor Charlie seemed to fray apart completely when Montford
fell out of the back of the wagon. The cloying reek of stale alcohol and
something unimaginably worse had risen off of the Duke’s person, causing Astrid
to cover her nose and draw back. He was wearing the soiled clothes from the
previous evening, a tear in his once fine silk jacket running from his shoulder
to the middle of his back. One side of his hair was plastered to his head, the
other side sticking straight in the air, and every bit of his person was
layered in a liberal coating of mud, grass, and other unidentifiable bits of
debris.

He was the last person she had expected to see. Clearly
Charlie felt the same, for he stared at the interloper as if he were a leper.
How Montford had come to be stowed away in the bed of the wagon that she
happened to be riding in seemed too coincidental by half, but she hadn’t the
patience to pursue the whys and wherefores of the situation. Montford had not,
either. He’d cast up his accounts, then fell off the wagon and onto the
roadside, vowing to walk back to Rylestone.

Far be it from her to stop him. If he would rather walk
back twenty miles than “endure her company”, then that was his prerogative. She
was not hurt at all by his fierce rejection. She was not hurt at all by what
had transpired the night before, and what he clearly had forgotten. And she was
not about to fill in the gaps in his memory.

But she certainly hoped he remembered kissing Aunt Anabel.
And she certainly hoped he was bruised from Aunt Anabel’s cane. He deserved to
be black and blue from head to toe, as far as she was concerned.

And she had
not
thrown him a water flask because she felt sorry for him.

Not at all.

She faced forward and harrumphed loudly as she and Charlie
continued their journey. Charlie still seemed to be recovering from the
episode, blotting sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, his hands
trembling.

“Don’t worry, we’re well rid of him. I don’t think the
twenty miles will kill him. I don’t think anything would kill him, short of
burning at the stake,” she muttered, patting his shoulder.

“We shouldna left ‘em like that,” Charlie murmured. He
hesitated. “Mebbe we should turn back, Miss Astrid.”

“Nonsense. We’ll be in Hawes in short order. I’ll not let
him
ruin our trip.”

Charlie pursed his lips, not looking assured in the least.

“What I want to know is how he came to be in the wagon in
the first place,” Astrid said, to change the subject.

“Dunna know,” Charlie said miserably. “Dinna check the bed
this morning. Must’ve climbed in and passed out there last night.”

“A very odd coincidence, don’t you think?”

Charlie shrugged. “Verra odd. Near as jumped out of my
boots when he come through the awning.”

Astrid held out hope that somehow Montford would beat them
back to Rylestone, acquire a mount, and be on his way back to London so that
Astrid never had to lay eyes on him again. But that was a slim hope indeed in
his current condition. They’d likely intercept him on the return journey.
Astrid had half a mind to drive past him without picking him up. But that would
prolong his stay in Rylestone, and no one wanted that to happen.

No, until Montford was back in London, she’d not rest easy.

But then she groaned out loud, recalling that she too very
soon would be in London as well.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Charlie demanded. “Should we
turn round? Head home?” He sounded strangely hopeful.

“No, I’m fine. Just thinking about my upcoming trip.”

Charlie’s face paled. His eyes went wild. “Trip? What
trip?” he asked nervously.

She looked at her driver with growing concern. What had
gotten into him?

“Calm down, Charlie, for heaven’s sake. I was talking about
my trip to London.”

Charlie still looked flustered. “Lunnon? When’re you going
to Lunnon?” he squeaked.

“Hopefully never. But probably by week’s end. You haven’t
heard, then?”

“Heard what?” Charlie asked warily.

“The Duke’s odious plan for us!” she exclaimed.

“The
Duke’s
plan?” Charlie murmured.

“He’s to marry us off. Well, Alice and I, at least. In
London. He’s to have one of his friends find us some peacocks to leg shackle.”

Charlie looked completely at sea. Astrid sighed deeply and
explained the Duke’s scheme in greater depth and in less colorful prose. For a
long time afterwards, Charlie was silent, staring straight ahead of him, not
meeting her eye.

At last he spoke, in a strange, half-whisper.

“So lemme get this straight,” he said, licking his lips
nervously, “Montford’s paying for yer to fancy yerself up in Lunnon, attend all
sorts of ennertainments, and snag yerself any gennleman of yer choosin’.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “yes, I suppose so.”

“Then as a weddin’ present, he’s givin’ you a castle and a
fair bit o’ blunt to see you set up for life. Then he’s settin’ up Miss Alice
as well, and the young ‘uns, when they’re sprouted.”

“Yes, though when you put it like that, it sounds…”

“Gen’rous?”

She snorted. Montford had not been motivated by generosity.
He’d come up with the one plan designed to gall her like no other. But she
could hardly explain this to Charlie.

“I suppose it shall not be the end of the world,” she
allowed, grudgingly. “I have no wish to leave Rylestone for London, and have no
interest in the entertainments of the city. However, if I am to find a suitable
husband and secure my dowry, I suppose I’ll have to go to London. I’m certainly
not marrying Sir Wesley or Mr. Fawkes!”