The Escape (Survivor's Club) (17 page)

“Do you have any other relatives apart from your half brother?” he asked.

“A few aunts and uncles and cousins,” she said. “None to whom I have ever been close. They all shared my half brother’s outrage over my father’s marrying an actress of doubtful origin who was half his age.”

“And there is no one else?”

There was the illusion of comfort in his grasp.

“There were friends, other wives, during the first year of my marriage,” she said. “But I was not with them long enough to establish any lasting friendships before the regiment went to the Peninsula and I was sent to Leyland instead of going with them. No, there is no one.”

How abject it sounded. After twenty-four years of living, she had no one to whom she could turn for help.

He raised her hand, and she felt the warmth of his lips and his breath against the back of it for a few moments.

“But I have taken enough of your time, Sir Benedict,” she said. “You must be wishing me in Hades though you have been very kind. This is not your concern, and the longer I talk, the more pathetic I sound.”

She spoke briskly, and she tried at the same time to repossess her hand. He tightened his hold upon it, however.

“I think,” he said, “you had better marry me, Mrs. McKay.”

She jerked her hand free then and leapt to her feet. “Oh, no,” she cried in great dismay. “No, no, no. Oh, how very good of you. And how excruciatingly embarrassing. I was not in any way hinting at such a thing, you know.” She set her palms against her cheeks. As she had suspected, they were hot with shame.

“I am perfectly well aware of that,” he said. “But marriage to me would solve your problem, you know. And perhaps it would solve mine too.”

“You
have
a problem?” She frowned down at him.

“An inability to steel myself to rid my home of my
younger brother and his family, who have usurped it,” he said, smiling a slightly crooked smile, “and an impossibility of living there with them. A restlessness and a depression of spirits at the realization that I will never again be the man of action I used to be. An inability to forge a meaningful new life for myself and settle to it. Beatrice says it is all explained by the fact that I have no woman in my life.”

“But you cannot solve a problem—not for either of us,” she said, “by creating a new one.”

“Marriage to each other would create a problem?” he asked.

“Of course it would.” She stretched her fingers and then curled them into her palms at her sides. They were tingling. “It would be very improper for me to marry only five months after the death of my husband. Besides, I do not
wish
to marry again. Not yet, at least. The fetters of my first marriage were tightly binding and I want to be
free
. And if and when I
do
marry, I want it to be to a man who … who had no connection with the wars. Forgive me, but I am tired of the wars and what they did to so many people. And as for you, it is nothing but sheer gallantry that has put the idea of marrying me into your head. By your own admission you are not yet ready to settle to your own life, Sir Benedict, let alone take on the burden of someone else’s. You are not ready for the bonds of marriage. Not with me, certainly, when I am as restless and needy as you are. We would drag each other down into a pit of unending depression if we were to marry.”

“Would we?” He was still smiling that crooked smile. “I find you very attractive, you know. And lest you think that not a very strong motive for marriage, I would add that you are the
first
woman to whom I have been attracted in six years.”

“I find you … personable too,” she admitted. Good
heavens, how could she deny it? There had been that kiss, had there not? “But attraction is not everything, or even very much. I was attracted to Matthew … Oh, Sir Benedict, if we are only attracted to each other, then we should go to bed and have our fill of pleasure with each other. We ought not to
marry
.”

His smile had disappeared and his face had flushed. Oh, dear, had she really just said what she knew she
had
said?

“An affair?” he said. “That would not solve your problem, ma’am. Not unless, that is, you are suggesting that I set you up somewhere as my mistress.”

She doubted she had ever felt more mortified in her life. She stared at him and—laughed. And he stared back at her and laughed too.

“With a carriage of my own and four white horses to pull it?” she asked. “And diamonds as large as birds’ eggs for my ears and bosom, and a bed draped in scarlet satin with scarlet velvet curtains about it and at the windows? With such inducements you might be able to persuade me.”

“I believe,” he said, “I might find the four white horses a trifle vulgar.”

Incredibly, they both laughed again with genuine amusement.

And then that thought that had niggled at her a couple of minutes ago came to the forefront of her mind.

… some small country house I can afford
.

She turned away sharply to the fireplace and stood with her hands on the mantelpiece, gazing into the unlit coals with unseeing eyes.

“Just a moment,” she said, holding up one hand.

There was the little cottage.

Perhaps.

Her mother had grown up with her paternal aunt in southwest Wales before running away at the age of seventeen
to become an actress in London. Not long before she died when Samantha was twelve, word of her aunt’s death had reached her, and with it the news that she had been left her aunt’s cottage on the coast. That cottage had passed to Samantha on her mother’s death. She had not even realized it until, after her father’s death, John had sent on a letter from the solicitor in Wales who was managing it. Mr. Rhys had written to inform her that the people who had been renting the cottage for a number of years had left and that he would see to its maintenance, using the accumulated rent money, until he received instructions either to rent it again or to sell it. John had taken it upon himself, he had informed her, to reply with the instructions that the solicitor proceed as he saw fit. Matthew had been brought back from the Peninsula then, and they had just moved to Bramble Hall. He had been desperately ill, and she had been unaccustomed to nursing him. She had set the letter aside, as well as any annoyance she might have felt with John for interfering in her business. It had not seemed important business, anyway. Certainly she had never written to Mr. Rhys herself, as she might have and probably ought to have done.

Her mother, when she had learned of the bequest, had described the cottage with open contempt as a “heap” and a “hovel” that was best left to crumble to dust. That had been a long time ago, maybe fourteen years, and her mother had been remembering it from years before that. It might well have deteriorated to nothing by this time, especially without renters to look after it properly. Besides, the cottage might as well be at the other end of the world for all the good it would do her. Wales! And West Wales at that. It was not even close to the border with England. Samantha had never been there. She knew no one there. As far as she knew, there
was
no one to know. No one connected to her, anyway.

But it was a house. Perhaps.
If
it still existed. It had existed in some form five years or so ago, though, otherwise the solicitor would not have written that he would sell it or rent it again if she wished.

She was desperately in need of a home—and she already owned one.
If
it was still standing. And
if
it was habitable.

And suddenly its very remoteness became its chief attraction. It was far away from Leyland Abbey.

Sir Benedict Harper was still sitting on the sofa when she swung around to look at him. He was gazing quietly at her. Gracious heaven, he had just offered to marry her. How very noble he was, and how different from what she had thought the first time she encountered him.

“I know where I am going to go,” she told him. “At least for now. Perhaps forever.”

Forever
? Her stomach lurched.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I own a cottage,” she told him. “My great-aunt left it to my mother, who grew up there with her. I believe it was a very old, dilapidated building even then. It is probably far worse now, but I have not heard of its falling down or having been demolished. It is mine now, and that is where I am going to go. Even a crumbling ruin would be preferable to Leyland.”

“It is in Wales?” he asked.

“On the southwest coast, yes.”

“And you intend to go there
alone
?” He frowned. “You will need to give the matter some careful thought, Mrs. McKay. It is a long way to go, through wild and lonely and possibly dangerous country. And who is to know what you will find at the end of it all? Perhaps the cottage really is uninhabitable.”

“Then I will find one that is not,” she said, “and rent it. At least I will be in a part of the world where half my
heritage lies. And no one will find me there. No one will bother me. I will be able to live again.”

“And dance?” But he was still frowning.

“On the beach, if there is one, as I daresay there is,” she said. “On the edge of the world with all the wild power of the ocean looking on.”

“And you intend to travel there alone and live there alone.” He got slowly to his feet while Tramp sat up and watched, ever hopeful. “It would be sheer folly. The idea may seem appealing to you, and I can understand why. I can even applaud your courage. But consider the reality of leaving Bramble Hall behind and traveling alone and unaccompanied into such a distant unknown.”

She did consider—for a few moments. And she was frightened—but undaunted. The alternative was far worse.

“Then you must come with me,” she said.

B
en could not have been more effectively robbed of breath if someone had planted a fist in his stomach.

Then you must come with me
.

They stood staring at each other, four feet apart. Color had flooded her cheeks while he feared it must have drained from his.

“Impossible,” he said. “Who would be your chaperon?”

“You.”

“But I am neither your father nor your brother nor your husband nor your betrothed. Nor female.”

“So?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Your reputation would be in tatters,” he told her.

Her lips curved into a half smile. “So?”

Oh, good Lord.

He went at the problem from a different angle. “I am hardly the ideal man to defend you should danger
threaten.” He looked down deliberately at his canes. “Unless, that is, we were assailed by a brigand obliging enough to come close enough to be clobbered.”

“We will take a loaded pistol,” she said, still with that half smile hovering about her lips and the color high in her cheeks, “and you may shoot him from a distance—while sitting.”

“Between the eyes, I suppose.”

“Where else?”

It struck him that she was actually enjoying herself, that her sudden realization that there was a solution to her dilemma awaiting her, in the form of a cottage that had been dilapidated even during her mother’s girlhood, had made her giddy with relief.

“Mrs. McKay,” he said, “
do
consider.”

“Why?” she asked him. “I have had seven years of nothing but doing what is proper, Sir Benedict. And for what? I married in expectation of a lifetime of happily-ever-after and remained decently married after the disappointment and heartbreak that followed quickly upon the heels of my wedding. I spent a year at Leyland Abbey trying my hardest to be the sort of respectable lady my father-in-law insisted I be even while he disliked and despised me. I spent five long, weary years here, nursing a demanding, peevish invalid because he was my husband and I had promised on my wedding day to love and obey him in sickness and in health. I have observed every requirement of my mourning period but have still not satisfied my sister-in-law or the Earl of Heathmoor. I am facing the prospect of more years at Leyland while what is left of my youth dwindles into middle age and then old age and death. Where has
considering
ever got me? Perhaps it is time to do something
un
considered and impulsive. Perhaps it is time to take my life in my own hands and live it.”

Her eyes flashed, and there was passion in every line
of her body. Who was he to tell her she was wrong? And perhaps she was not.

“I have one day in which to make a decision that will affect all of the rest of my life, whatever that decision is,” she told him. “I have one day in which to make my escape—or bow to what seems my inevitable fate. I do not know where escape will lead me. On the other hand, I
do
know where bowing to my fate will. I would be a fool not to take a chance on escape. Perhaps this was meant to be, Sir Benedict. Why else would I have been left that cottage? It has seemed so useless to me since I learned it was mine that I have scarcely ever even spared it a thought. Yet now it is of crucial importance to my future. Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow even if it does not force us into taking that particular path? I am going where life points me. I beg your pardon for trying to involve you. Of course you will not wish to accompany me. Why should you? You owe me nothing. You have been more than kind even to listen to me, and that kindness has led to my thinking of a solution for myself. I am going.”

Oh, Lord. She looked like some kind of magnificent avenging angel. She could not
possibly
go striding off in the vague direction of Wales on her own.

Why the
devil
had he not ducked back into his room the moment he heard her voice? She would have remembered her cottage without his help once she had calmed down. How she got there would have been none of his concern.

It was not his concern now.

Perhaps this was meant to be, Sir Benedict
.

Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow …

Lord, Lord, Lord. Why had he not left for London and Hugo’s wedding at the same time as Beatrice left for Berkshire?