The Road to Gretna (2 page)

When he opened them, Henrietta’s abigail was hurrying down the passage towards them, clutching a leather jewel case. She was wearing a poke bonnet and a drab cloak, but he set that problem aside for later.

“Cora,” he appealed to her, “which of these bags are essential to Miss White’s comfort?”

“Oh, my lord, miss needs all of ‘em,” she said nervously.

“There must be some that would not be missed.”

“Indeed, Jason, you cannot expect me to be wed in rags!”

“I suppose not,” he conceded wryly. "But your kitten will be deucedly in the way in the carriage, and I daresay she will not like being shut in. She will be happier at home.”

“Oh no, Lily would be lonely without me.” Henrietta’s large blue eyes filled with tears at this horrid thought. “You cannot be so cruel as to make me leave her.”

Suppressing a sigh, he possessed himself of her free hand and patted it. “When have I ever been cruel to my angel? Forgive me, I had not considered that Lily might be lonely.”

“Miaow,” observed Lily, opening slitted yellow eyes and staring at Jason with disfavour. At least, he consoled himself, the creature was not likely to prove a stumbling block as baffling as the enormous dog that had thwarted his previous attempt to elope with an heiress.

“Come, let us be on our way.” He picked up a vast portmanteau and two bandboxes. “It will take some time to carry all this to the mews and load it onto the carriage.”

“Yes, let us hurry! It would spoil everything if one of the servants heard us and woke Papa. Did you remember the lantern, Cora?”

“Yes, miss, I’ve got it here.”

“A lantern! What do we need with a lantern?”

“Why, if I cannot see my way in the garden, I might stub my toe,” Henrietta pointed out in a tone of the utmost reasonableness.

There was no point expecting her to burden herself with the lantern, so Cora carried it and could manage only a single bag in addition. They made their way to the mews, where Jason handed his sweetheart into the luxurious carriage. Then he and the maid returned to the house for the rest of the luggage while the coachman packed what they had brought into the boot.

Cora climbed into the carriage and settled beside her mistress. Though it was no part of Jason’s plan to take the abigail with them, he ventured only a token protest.

“But if she does not come, who will take care of my clothes and arrange my hair?” asked Henrietta in puzzlement.

He almost laughed aloud. The maid’s inclusion was not prompted by propriety, as he had supposed; apparently no such consideration had crossed Henrietta’s mind. He was tempted to tell her that he himself was something of a dab hand at arranging ladies’ hair, but the information was hardly likely to please her. Nor had he any desire to take on the care of the extensive wardrobe she had brought with her.

With a sigh he leaned back against the comfortably padded squabs. As the carriage pulled briskly out of the mews, he couldn’t help recalling the cheerful, practical attitude of the redhead he had caught climbing out of her window.

She was gone. He wished her well.

CHAPTER TWO

"But I ha’ hired ye to gang as far as Hatfield.” Angus’s protest rang through the quiet yard of the Red Lion at Barnet, not ten miles from Russell Square.

“See fer yerself, mate,” the ragged postilion advised. “Them ‘osses ain’t goin’ ter make it ter Potters Bar, let alone ‘Atfield. It’s ‘Ighgate ‘Ill as does ‘em in ev’ry time, Mr. Cox. The pore buggers’ll founder if they goes anuvver step.”

“‘E’s right, guv,” put in the ostler. “I'll fig you out wiv a fresh pair quick as winking.”

Penny gave up trying to hide and let down the window of the chariot. In the light of two widely spaced lanterns, no one was going to see her well enough to recognize her. They were more likely to remember Angus’s voice.

“Get new horses, Angus,” she called. “And give the man a good tip to make sure of the best they have. Here is some money.” Feeling in her reticule, she took out a guinea.

“Listen to yer missus, guv,” the ostler urged.

Beset from all sides, Angus unwillingly grunted his assent. He took the gold piece Penny proffered and held it up to the light.

“A guinea! Nay, a shilling’s plenty for yon skellum."

“Give him half a crown, at least if the horses look strong.” She dived back into her reticule and produced the requisite coin.

“A waste o’ good siller,” he muttered, but when the new pair was harnessed and a new postilion mounted, he gave the half crown to the ostler before climbing back into the carriage.

“Ta, guv,” said the man, with a nod and a wink to the postilion.

As they clattered out of the yard, Penny hoped the nod and wink signified a good tip and would bring them better service along the way. Certainly they were moving faster now, the chariot squeaking and groaning in reproach.

In her corner, Mrs. Ratchett snored on.

Faster was a relative term. Penny managed to drowse through Potters Bar, Hatfield, and Welwyn but she was dismayed to discover, when she roused fully, that the eastern sky was paling. Dawn already, and they had not yet reached Stevenage, their next stage. Perhaps they would speed up now it was growing light.

Daylight would bring other problems. Physical necessity was going to compel her to go into the inn at Stevenage. She’d be seen, and she was too used to the way people noticed her height and her red hair to hope that she might not be remembered. They were still much too close to London for comfort. Even if Uncle Vaughn didn’t guess which way she was heading, he could well make enquiries this far out of Town.

At least she would try to persuade Angus to hire decent cattle without her interference, so as not to give the ostlers any particular reason to look at her.

Apparently sleeping peacefully, he was sprawled on the opposite seat, his short-cropped sandy hair ruffled. She felt a sudden rush of affection for him; whatever his faults he was the most noble and disinterested of men and she intended to be a good wife to him. However, her immediate aim was to awake him from his well-deserved slumbers, if possible without doing anything so obvious as shaking him.

She coughed. No response. Coughing again, louder, she ventured to tug on his sleeve, quickly snatching her hand back as he stirred.

“Angus,” she said plaintively, “are you asleep?”

He hoisted himself upright, blinking, and smoothed his hair. “I was dozing.”

“I’m sorry. You moved and I thought you had woken up.”

“No matter. Where are we?” He peered through the grimy window at a hedgerow entwined with silvery old man’s beard.

“Surely we must be near Stevenage by now, we have been driving for ever. You will ask for the best horses, will you not, Angus? And pay extra for them if need be?”

“Yes, yes, my dear. I was maybe a wee bit hasty with you last night—after all, ‘tis your money you are spending. Yesterday was a difficult day altogether. We doctors must go when we’re needed, you understand. We cannot choose our hours to suit, and I was lucky to find Dr. Barnes to take my patients while I am gone these few days.”

“When we are married, it will be your money, too. You shall have an assistant and a proper clinic where your patients can come to you if they are well enough.”

“I trust you do not think I would marry you for your fortune, Penelope,” he said with a worried frown.

“Of course not, or I should not be here with you. You are marrying me to save me from a dreadful fate.” She decided it was time to change the subject. “What posting house are we to stop at in Stevenage?”

“I told the post-boy to go to the Grange, though there’s little to choose between it and the Yorkshire Grey, both being large and busy.”

Penny bit her lip. “Are we not more likely to be found at a popular inn?” she asked tentatively. He had woken in a good humour and she was unwilling to vex him.

“I considered going to the Roebuck Inn, a mile or so south of the town and therefore less frequented. But then it struck me that we shall be less conspicuous in a crowd, for the short time we shall be there. When we stop for a meal or for the night it may be preferable to find out-of-the-way places where your uncle is less likely to seek us out.”

“Oh yes, that makes sense,” she said in relief. “I daresay the larger inns will have a better choice of horses, too.”

“Undoubtedly,” he agreed with a sympathetic smile.

A few minutes later Penny saw the Roebuck Inn. Soon the chariot clattered past the first few cottages of Stevenage, past the Red Lion, and along the wide High Street, lined with chestnuts and limes.

Although the sun had not yet risen, a mail coach was already standing before the Grange, an early Georgian building with a long brick façade sporting a multitude of bay windows. Nothing was allowed to delay the mail. Ostlers sped to change the team while the guard and coachman downed mugs of ale without leaving their vehicle. Waiters swarmed about the arriving passengers; porters rushed to load and unload luggage; departing passengers scrambled to find seats inside or on the roof. In such confusion, Penny realized, they might well go unnoticed.

As the chariot pulled up behind the mail, Mrs. Ratchett grunted and opened her eyes. By the light of day, she was revealed as a stout elderly woman, dressed in black bombazine, with a tiny nose and pursed mouth too small for her large, pale, double-chinned face.

“‘The sleep of a labouring man is sweet,’" she announced, and closed her eyes again. The steady snoring at once resumed.

Penny giggled. “That’s the second thing she has said to me,” she told Angus, “and the first was also a quotation from the Bible.”

He obviously failed to comprehend her amusement. “Mrs. Ratchett was housekeeper to a clergyman,” he explained, opening the door and stepping down from the carriage.

“Wait, I’m coming, too. I need to...er..."

He helped her out without further elucidation. At least as a doctor he was conversant with the biological necessities!

“Do you wish Mrs. Ratchett to accompany you?” he asked solicitously.

“I should not dream of disturbing the sweet sleep of a labouring woman.” With an effort she kept her face straight. “I believe I can manage without her.” In the early-morning chill she was glad of the warmth of her bronze-green merino pelisse. She hurried into the inn.

When she returned to the chariot, a pair of sturdy bays had been harnessed and the new postilion, in his short yellow coat and top hat, was waiting impatiently. Grinning, he saluted her.

“Ge’mun says ye’re in a hurry, miss.”

“Yes. Please go as fast as you can.”

“‘Tes an easy stage. I’ll spring ‘em,” he promised. Pulling out of the inn yard they gave way to an arriving vehicle with a team of four, a smart travelling carriage, maroon picked out in gold. As it swept past, Penny recognized a face at the window, blond ringlets beneath a stylish straw bonnet garlanded with blue silk flowers—Henrietta White.

So Henrietta and her lover were also driving north. They could be on the way to Gretna Green, but they might equally well be going to take shelter with some friend or relative. Meeting him in the garden, Penny had assumed the gentleman to be a fortune-hunter, for Henrietta’s father was enormously wealthy. However, the elegant carriage suggested that Henrietta’s suitor stood in no great need of funds. He must be deeply in love.

She wondered what Mr. White’s objection to him could be, that forced the pair to elope. Henrietta was more than capable of twisting her father round her dainty little finger, so the gentleman’s flaw must be serious. Perhaps he was a libertine. He was gallant and charming, surely prime requisites for success with women.

Penny resolved to watch out for the maroon carriage along the way. It would add interest to what promised to be a long and tedious journey.

Angus had once more composed himself for sleep, oblivious of Mrs. Ratchett’s snores and the rattles and screeches of the road-shaken chariot. Penny had grown used to the noises and scarcely noticed them, but she was too wide awake to sleep. Hanging on to the strap—the postilion had taken her at her word and was speeding down the highway—she watched the hedges slip by, bright with red campion and yarrow and a mass of tall yellow ragwort.

She wished there were time to walk in the fields she saw through the five-barred gates along the way. Going to school in a rural village had taught her to love the countryside and she had missed it during the years in London since then. There had been occasional outings until Papa died, but she had been limited to city streets since her aunt and uncle had moved into the house in Russell Square.

Leaning forward, she silently urged the horses on.

The chariot slowed a trifle as they entered a village, but it was still moving at a fair pace when it swung round a corner. Mrs. Ratchett swayed forward. About to land on the floor, she saved herself just in time by grabbing the strap.

“Mercy me!” she squawked, then fixed Penny with a disapproving eye. “‘The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.’”

Penny sternly stifled a snort of laughter. Angus, pressed into his corner by the swerve, half woke, then drifted off again.

“There’s gentlemen can sleep through anything,” said Mrs. Ratchett tolerantly in her high, breathless voice. “The Reverend Jones, now, as I was housekeeper to, he could of slep’ through one of his own sermons if he hadn’t to stand up to deliver ‘em, and so I told him.”

She proceeded to regale Penny with her life history, a tale of singular dullness enlivened by quotations from the gloomier Old Testament prophets.

“And then the reverend up and went to his reward,” she said at last. “‘He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.’ So I went to live with my brother. Tom’s a baker in Cheapside. ‘Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.'” She patted her enormous belly complacently.

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,’" Penny suggested.

“No, nor woman neither. I’ve got a sister married to a butcher and a cousin as is a grocer. We’ll be stopping at the next post house for breakfast, I make no doubt? I’m getting downright peckish.”