Fortune's Lady (25 page)

Rather than cry, she stared out the window, watching the dark shapes of trees and hedges glide past. There was a moon on her side, but for the most part it refused to show itself through the thick wisps of clouds. Sounds of snoring were irritating at first, then restful as she grew accustomed to the separate cadences. She propped her head on one hand and let her eyes close. She imagined she was in France, on an outing with her boarding school classmates. To St. Cloud, perhaps, or Versailles, for a picnic and then an overnight stay in a
pension.
They'd laughed and sung songs and worn Mademoiselle to a frazzle, and now they were drowsy and quiet, dropping off to sleep one by one….

Riordan took a last shuddering swallow of wine and backhanded the bottle out the window. There was a quick, satisfying crunch from out of the darkness. He smiled meaninglessly and wished he had another to sail out after that one. Should he open a new bottle? He beat on his stomach with both hands; it sounded pretty full, not unlike a bass drum. Maybe he'd had enough. Then again, maybe not. He bent over the wooden crate at his feet. The dark floor seemed to rush up toward his face as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He straightened carefully and reconsidered.

He glanced at Cass. Sleeping. Good. At least now she wasn't staring at him.

He stared at her. In the pale wash of moonlight her skin was like some marble goddess's. She'd looked like a goddess the night he met her. Aphrodite at the Clarion Club. A kiss in a garden for a hundred-pound cast at hazard. He'd won that night. Tonight he'd lost.

He leaned closer, peering, resting one long arm on the back of the seat. Her parted lips shone like wet silver as dappled shadows picked out the lovely planes and hollows of her face. She was resting her head in her hand, the fingers threading her inky hair. He whispered her name, “Cass.” Cassandra Merlin. The hanged traitor's loose-living daughter. The Honorable Philip Riordan's bride-to-be.

Elation and profound dread filled him equally.

Couldn't marry her. Couldn't. Too much to lose, too many people expecting something else. He watched his hand go out to touch one errant lock of black hair. She sighed and he went still, the silky strands trapping his fingers. What he had to do was escape, leap quietly from the carriage now while they were all sleeping. He patted the fat purse in his pocket. Plenty of money. He'd be in London in two days.

'Course, Cass might be mad. Money—he'd give her money, and she'd get over it. Pretty soon things would be the way they were before. He'd keep at her until she gave in, became his mistress. He'd marry Claudia and become a great statesman. Oliver would be proud of him. Everything would be perfect. Perfect.

He took hold of the door handle. Bye, Cass. Her breathing was silent and even. Her shawl had slipped down one shoulder, exposing her upper arm in her gown to the elbow. She moved her hand to the space of seat between them, palm up, the sensitive fingers twitching.

He bent down on his forearms and laid his cheek on the inside of her wrist. Lightly, lightly. The fragile pulse beat against his skin with the softness of a bird's wing. His lips were nestled in her palm. He closed his eyes and breathed in her special scent. From out of nowhere came a swift, uncanny certainty that when she awoke and found him gone, she would weep.

He sat up carefully and stared straight ahead. In the seat opposite, Tess looked as if she'd fallen asleep trying to crawl inside Wally's waistcoat. Tom had his head back, mouth open, his snores like the last plaint of a dying bull. Cora sprawled limply across his lap, her face between his legs.

Riordan's head throbbed; his eyelids felt weighted. Outside, trees and hedges and prickly-looking bushes were speeding by at an alarming rate. Probably kill himself if he jumped now. Better wait. Cowardly to jump, anyway. He slumped back into his corner heavily. Tomorrow. He'd tell Cass he couldn't marry her tomorrow. Tell her straight out. She'd understand. Hell, she'd probably be relieved. His eyes closed on the sight of her glossy lashes resting like a crow's wings on her high, white cheekbones.

Cass woke up, confused, unable to remember falling asleep. It was still dark in the carriage, but outside the sky was lightening. She heard a guttural voice—the coachman's—and realized they were stopped at a toll booth. Then the coach jerked forward, rolling through a gate onto the single street of a sleepy-looking village. Something warned her that they had arrived.

The others slept on, huddled against each other in the opposite seat like a litter of puppies. Riordan slumped beside her on his spine, arms crossed, chin on his chest, breathing loudly. The carriage stopped again and she heard the thud of the driver's feet hitting the ground. Her heart jumped into her throat. They were here.

The door opened.

“Beggin' yer pardons, ladies and gents, but we're 'ere.” Only Cass heard him, but she pretended not to. If the coachman went away now, it would be up to her to wake them all up—an appalling prospect. “I said we're 'ere!” he repeated, shaking Wally's arm roughly. “Whew!” he muttered to himself, “stinks like a gin mill in here.” Then more loudly, “Gretna Green, folks, yer destination!” He shook Riordan's boot. “I'd like t' get this 'ere rig in the livery, yer lordships, so if you wouldn't mind—”

Finally they roused themselves, blinking stupidly, scratching and groaning and rubbing their faces. “Are we here?” Wally mumbled, hoisting himself out with surprising agility. On the ground, he gazed around at the quiet buildings, flexing his muscles, chafing his neck. “Lord, I've got to piss! Come on, Tom, let's see what's what.”

Still in the carriage, Riordan clutched his head in both hands and ground his teeth, feeling as though two small men with pickaxes were gouging out his temples. He shuddered suddenly and felt a rolling sensation in his stomach. Sweat popped out on his forehead and his mouth started to water. Grabbing the doorframe, he hauled himself up and out of the carriage, and hit the ground at a run.

When Cass descended a moment later, he was leaning against the side of the building, his face a damp, fish-belly white, trying to stop shaking. “I've been poisoned,” he rasped. “I'm dying.” His red-veined eyes lit on the horse trough in front of him and he started toward it in a trance-like shuffle.

“Don't drink—” she started to warn him, but it was too late. He thrust his head into the blackish water and left it there, up to the shoulders, for so long she thought he was drowning. When he came up, sputtering and gasping, his black-and-silver hair was plastered back from his forehead and he looked like an otter.

“I wasn't
drinking
it,” he said with weak reproach. He looked a little better; his cheeks under the three-day beard had a pinkish cast and his hands weren't shaking as much. They stared at each other. He resembled a Cheapside derelict on a particularly bad morning, and she looked like what she was—a woman who had sat up most of the night in a carriage, worrying. He'll call it off now, she thought. She wondered how he would phrase it.

“It's all set,” Wally called out, coming toward them with Tess in tow, Tom and Cora behind.

All four looked obscenely chipper to Riordan. “For God's sake, don't shout.”

“It's easy, there's nothing to it,” Wally went on, unheeding. “The tollkeeper does it, and we're the witnesses.”

“The tollkeeper?” Riordan repeated stupidly.

“Or the blacksmith, but he's in Annan fixing a cart, so it's the tollkeeper.”

The sun crept over the top of the roof opposite, sending shards of pain into his eyeballs. “The blacksmith?”

“Actually, anyone can do it, but it's usually the tollkeeper or the blacksmith, and we want this to be a traditional wedding, don't we?” He cackled and sent an elbow into Tess's ribs. “So, are we all ready?”

Then Riordan remembered. He was getting married this morning.

The pickaxes in his temples resumed pounding; he took an involuntary step backward and came up against the water trough. His knees buckled and he sat down heavily on the edge. His face went bloodless again and he stared up at Cass as if she were a specter of sudden and horrible death. He sent her a weak smile.

She turned her back on him, stood still for the space of a heartbeat, and started to walk away.

“Whoa, hold up, missie!” cried Wally, sensing his morning's sport was about to be spoiled. He made a grab for her arm and forcibly brought her back to the trough. “Hold on a blinkin' minute! No cold feet at this hour! Here, now—” He hauled Riordan up by the collar, took both their hands, and squeezed them together until their fingers entwined. He gave them a push to get them started, then walked behind them down the dusty street, talking all the while. “A wager's a wager, my friends. Twenty people watched it made and won—or in your case, Philip, lost—and now you're both bound to satisfy it. Your honor's on the line, you can't renege. I'm here to see you do your duty by each other. And by God, one day you'll thank me—?

Residents and shopkeepers began to appear in doorways and storefronts as the sun rose higher. Some stared, some nodded knowingly; strange young couples were commonplace in the little Scottish village on the border, their business there no mystery to the villagers.

Riordan heard none of Wally's words of encouragement. The urge to vomit was powerful. He fought it, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Cass's hand in his felt as warm and welcoming as a dead bird's claw. His brain wasn't functioning; he couldn't put two consecutive thoughts together. He saw the tollkeeper's stone cottage ahead, and something inside him shuddered. It must have vibrated through his hand, because she turned her head sharply and looked at him.
Who are you
? he wanted to ask. She looked like a stranger. What was the expression in her wide gray eyes—challenge? Panic? He was too dimwitted to decipher it. He stopped and turned toward her, taking her other hand. “Cass,'' he mumbled, with no idea of what he was going to say next.

But Wally wanted no candid
tête-à-têtes
at this late stage, and hustled them forward with encouraging pats on the shoulders. “Now, now, can't keep the tollkeeper waiting.”

“Wait a minute, damn it!” Riordan shook Wally off and they stopped again, within arm's length of the cottage. They all looked at him. Cass waited with a hurting, hollow fatalism, wishing now she'd taken the initiative; it would have softened the humiliation a little. But to her surprise, he didn't speak. Instead he ran his fingers through his wet hair a couple of times to comb it. He retied his wilted cravat and buttoned his waistcoat. Then he reached out with a shaky but gentle hand to push a wild strand of black hair away from her cheek and repin it on top of her head. For a second their gazes locked. She searched his face, but could not discover what he was thinking.

“Let's go, let's go,” Wally urged, wary as a sheepdog.

And then, without touching, they were through the door and inside the cottage, and a bald man was waddling toward them, rubbing his hands.

“Top o' the morning! Name's Bean, George Bean. Let's see if I can guess which one's the lucky couple. Aha! Reckon it's this pasty-faced pair right here. Am I right? Whichever's whitest is the ones gettin' spliced, nine times outa ten. Not going to be sick on me, are you, girlie?”

Everyone looked at Cass. She was certainly pale enough to warrant the question. But she shook her head and straightened her spine, staring back at all of them with a sort of skittish valor. In that moment, Riordan knew he was going to marry her.

“Good. Now, first things first. The fee's four guineas.”

“Four guineas!” Wally protested, and commenced to argue. Riordan pulled a handful of coins from his pocket and thrust them at Mr. Bean.

“Well, now,” said the tollkeeper, pocketing the coins with a pleased smile, “appears like the groom's eager to begin. There ain't much to it, really. Most couples take hands about now. That's it. The groom goes first. All you say is, ‘In front of these witnesses, we declare our wish to marry.' Got it? ‘In front'—”

“I've got it.” Riordan drew a deep breath, not knowing he was squeezing Cass's hand so hard she had to bite her lip. “In”—he had to clear his throat—“in front of these witnesses, we declare our wish to—marry.” Afterward he listened to the echo of the words, his mouth open, eyes unfocused.

“That's it. Now the lady. See, you both have to say it.”

Riordan looked down at Cass. She seemed far away, an image through the wrong end of a telescope. The tip of her tongue came out to moisten her lips. He heard a breath of air enter her lungs, watched her chest expand. “Before these witnesses.” She stopped, and nobody breathed. “We declare our wish to marry.”

Mr. Bean grinned. “Then you are!”

A second of silence while this was absorbed, then Wally and Tom were yelling, Cora and Tess were crying, and Cass and Riordan were staring at each other with equal parts amazement and horror.

“Kiss her! Kiss her, so we can!”

He did, with his eyes open, seeing his own shock reflected back at him in hers.

“Now, after you sign this here certificate, you'll want to stop at the Rose and Thorn for a nice wedding breakfast,” Mr. Bean told them when the kissing and back-slapping were over. “Best little inn in town, and I don't say it because it's the only one, nor because my brother owns it. Ha ha!”

The dining facilities at the Rose and Thorn consisted of one huge table surrounded by wooden benches and chairs. Cass and Riordan were given the place of honor at one end, with their friends seated on either side. Wally proclaimed himself best man and set about ordering a lavish feast, for them as well as anyone else who happened by on this warm August morning. To Cass's silent chagrin, he took it upon himself to rent the “honeymoon cottage” for the newlyweds—a two-room house behind the inn, separated from it by a line of trees and a bridge over a useless but picturesque pond. He ordered champagne and invited strangers to join them, proposing toast after toast, seemingly unaffected by the prodigious amounts of food and wine he consumed. Everyone but Cass seemed to be bouncing back from the night before—even Riordan, who joined in the drinking and revelry just as though an hour ago he hadn't been sitting on the edge of a horse trough, trying not to be sick.