“Will you be able to afford that?” Penelope asked anxiously.
“Now that the ships are coming in again, yes, I can. And more besides.”
“Oh, good,” Penelope said. “Because Mrs. Albright could use a patron, too.”
“You aren’t jealous?” he asked.
“Maybe a little bit. She got a part of your youth that I’ll never have a chance to share. But I’m not threatened.”
“That’s good,” Benjamin replied. “Because she is part of my past, but you are my future.”
Epilogue
Eighteen Months Later
Stella fussed over Penelope and Edith, making sure their veils were perfectly adjusted, their flounces fluffed and any other small details were properly attended. She might have sniffled once or twice, just out of sentimentality, but it didn’t keep her from making sure that the young ladies were turned out perfectly.
Their uncle met them at the door of the small retiring room outside the large chapel at Castlemount estates. He radiated pride as he began the slow walk down the center aisle toward the altar where two handsome gentlemen stood waiting.
Benjamin stood to the right of the chaplain, and Alfred stood next to him. “Relax,” Benjamin whispered to Alfred, “We can see them now. They have not seen any stray cats, indigent orphans or donkeys to rescue.” This last referred to a joint venture between the sisters and Miss Lola Harrington wherein a cart animal was being beaten.
Behind the bridal party, Stella slipped into the last pew, across the aisle from James. Just in front of them, Mrs. Albright and her students occupied three full pews. Ahead of them, the copyboys, clerks, and other staff of Harrington and Harrington sat in stiff rows, according to their office rank.
The next pews were filled by Lady Agatha, her household staff and friends, along with the curious and those who simply wanted to see a double wedding.
The principals in the ceremony saw very little of the fine turnout for their proposed nuptials. Nor did the words of the ceremony fall on receptive ears, unless a response was required. Vows were exchanged, then rings, then kisses . . . the latter were certainly remembered!
Then, scarcely before one could blink, the ceremony was over and the brides and grooms were headed back down the aisle. Lord Newhorn and Lady Penelope were first, as befitted their rank. Mr. Alfred Harrington and Mrs. Edith Harrington followed after.
At the steps, Penelope tossed her bouquet out into the crowd where it was caught by Miss Lola Harrington. Then Edith threw hers, and it was captured by Bridgette, Lady Agatha’s head maid. There was a general hubub of laughter and congratulations, then the bridal couples climbed into Lord Newhorn’s carriage, preparing to ride into their new lives.
Once they were settled, Benjamin said, “Have you everything you need while we will be gone?” he asked Alfred.
Alfred patted a leather case that Sir Harrington had handed up to him at the last minute. “Powers of attorney, bank notes, everything we could possible want right here. Are you sure you want to be gone for a whole year after having just come home?”
“Quite certain,” Benjamin replied. “Even though I was acquitted of any wrongdoing, especially after all of Steelfrost’s machinations were discovered, the gossip will still abound. Besides, I will be able to pick up where I left off with handling the estate’s affairs, and I am leaving my most able and very interested brother-in-law in charge as my man of business.”
“So far away, though,” Edith said softly. “I will miss you, Penny.”
“And I will miss you. But you will be very busy since Uncle Horace is closing Castlemount townhouse and sending most of the staff with you since there is plenty of room at Newhorn for puppies, kittens, and colts.”
“I worry about him, living in rooms at his club,” Edith fretted.
“I should not be too worried,” put in Alfred. “Lady Agatha has taken quite a shine to him, and I think she has found a lady that she thinks will suit him if he can be persuaded into matrimony.
Penelope gave a little chuckle. “Uncle Alfred?”
“He is quite old,” Edith chimed in.
“Not so old as all of that,” Benjamin said. “I’m surprised that he has not been snatched up already. He is your father’s younger brother, after all. Lady Agatha is an able matchmaker, so he might very well be wed by the time we return.”
The bridal couples took the Bath road out of London, and stopped at a well-appointed, fashionable inn on the way. After a beautiful wedding supper, they went to their separate rooms to celebrate their weddings in the time-honored fashion of newly-weds everywhere.
The next day, they traveled on to the Newhorn Estates. There, Edith and Alfred, and all their baggage were unloaded. After another lovely feast presided over by two butlers and assorted household staff who were just beginning to sort out how they all fit in together, the bridal couples spent the night at Newhorn.
As soon as they could decently take their leave, Benjamin and Penelope were again on the road. This time, however, they let the luggage ride in the carriage while they rode on a matched pair of walkers.
“It is too bad that we could not bring Ranger,” Penelope said.
“He is better off being a comfortable saddle horse for Uncle Horace,” Benjamin said, trying out the familial title. “He’s getting to be too much of an old man for travels. I’d not subject him to the hold of a ship at his age.”
“I suppose that is true,” Penelope said, steadying her mount as he pretended to shy at a leaf. “But this fellow is rather frisky at times.”
Benjamin had made sure that their mounts were geldings, which meant they were from the second raters from his stable. But he did not want to deal with the temper of a stallion or the complications of traveling with a mare. Besides, they might even have to sell off or trade the horses at some point, and he did not want to bring any favorites.
“Are you sorry to be leaving home again so soon?” Penelope asked.
“It isn’t really all that soon,” Benjamin said. “It took nearly eighteen months to get all the inheritance requirements sorted out. And at the same time, there was the investigation into Lord Steelfrost’s death and his machinations.”
“I am glad to have all that behind us. Are you sure it was wise to leave Alfred and Edith in charge of Newhorn?”
“I suspect that it is one of the better decisions I have ever made. Alfred has a good head on his shoulders, and is so ethical that I cannot see him as functioning well as a barrister. He will be an admirable man of business for me. All the more so because Edith will be there to make him toe the mark.”
“Edith? My shy, retiring Edith?”
“Oh, Penelope! Even I know her better than that now. As you said the night Steelfrost burst into Lady Agatha’s house, she is retiring, not stupid. Besides, she has Alfred completely wrapped around her dainty little fingers.”
“She does have a way of getting people around her to do what she wants,” Penelope admitted. “Look how shamelessly I impersonated her just because she professed to be afraid of you.”
“Quite so. Although I truly do not regret how that has turned out. I much prefer the lady who has become my wife.” Since they were riding knee to knee, Benjamin picked up her free hand, and kissed her fingers. “Such great adventures we shall have together.”
“I’ll own I am looking forward to it,” Penelope said. “It just seems too bad that you have been home for such a brief while, only to go into exile again.”
“Not quite exile this time, with all the commissions and errands I have from the Crown and from other peers. Are you sure that you wish to leave civilization and go haring off with me into the wilds?”
“Rather than what? Have two brief nights of marital joy and then to emulate the Penelope of classical fame? No thank you! I am not cut out for weaving, let alone spending half the night picking out everything I wove during the day. I would far rather brave the clashing rocks or fight off pirates by your side than wait years and years for you to return.”
“Just making sure,” Benjamin grinned at her, keeping hold of the hand he had kissed.
For a time they held hands, riding side by side until the ruts forced them to pay more attention to their horses.
After the way grew smoother, Benjamin said, “We could have ridden inside the coach.”
“And waste this beautiful day? No, thank you!” Penelope declared. “I’d much rather ride to our grand adventure, hand in hand, with the wind on our backs and the sun in our hair.”
“So would I,” Benjamin said.
The End?
Extended Epilogue
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Prologue
She woke to screams, a fist pounding at her door.
Bolting upright on the narrow inn bed, she scented smoke, saw with panic reaching to close her throat, the glow of flames under the door. The heavy fist pounded again, and a voice yelled, “My Lady!”
Clad only in her linen shift, she snatched the covers back from the bed, a wild thought whipping through her mind—do I have time to change into clothes? Grabbing a robe, she threw it over her shoulders, and ran to open the door. Her father’s steward stood there, sweat running in rivulets down his face from the heat of the fire.
“We must go, My Lady,” Stephan, the steward’s assistant cried, coughing from the smoke, rushing into her room to grab her satchel, her shoes.
The steward frantically waved at them from the doorway, coughing, turning his head to watch something in the hallway.
“Papa,” she screamed, trying to dash past the assistant. “Mama!”
“They cannot get out,” the steward, Conrad, yelled, even as she began to cough from the thick smoke. “They are trapped. We must go or we will all die.”
The steward grabbed her hand, pulling her with him while the assistant seized the satchel. He led the way, turning away from the rooms where her father and mother lay. Hauling back on his grip, she turned in a wild effort to rush through the flames that ate through the walls, the ceiling. A beam crashed to the floor in front of her—flames devoured the rug and reached for her bare feet.
“No, Papa,” she cried, coughing, weeping. “No.”
“They are gone,” the steward shouted, yanking on her hand again. “We must go, or we will die, too.”
Terrified, she ran with the two servants, rushing down the stairs amid the crush of the other survivors in the inn. Thrown heavily against the wall by a panicked woman carrying a screaming child, she followed the hand that pulled her along, out the front door and into the cool, sweet darkness, the sweat from the flames’ heat already drying on her body.
The inn was engulfed. Men came with a horse-drawn wagon loaded with barrels of water. The horses plunged and tried to rear, their manes tossing redly under the light of the fire. Buckets of water were heaved onto the flames, but how they hoped to put them out was beyond her comprehension. Several men soaked the structures to either side in the hope of saving them, as there was no more hope for the inn.
Like many who had escaped the inferno, she paused, coughing, gagging, to watch in horror as the conflagration consumed everything it touched. “Papa,” she whispered. “Mama.”
Numb with shock, she might have stood there and gaped until dawn had Conrad not tugged on her hand. “We must go. The horses have not been hurt.”
“No,” she screamed. “I cannot leave them.”
“My Lady, there is no time. They will know you survived. They may be watching us even now.”
“Oh, God.”
She bit her knuckles to halt the scream of horror and grief from emerging, even amid all the other cries from the survivors and the neighbors roused from their slumber to watch the inn perish in fire and smoke. Conrad pulled her around to face him, his hands boldly planted on her cheeks as he stared fiercely into her eyes.
“Your father made provisions,” he said, his own tears coursing down his face and she knew they were not from the smoke. “Just in case. We ride to the docks.”
“Docks?”
“Yes. We will take a ship for America, for Philadelphia. Your aunt is there. She will look after you. Here he comes with the horses.”
The assistant ran down the cobbled street leading two saddled horses. He had slung her satchel—with the cedar wood box inside—over the pommel of the one he swiftly mounted, and threw the reins of the other to the steward.
“Forgive me, My Lady,” Conrad said, and picked her up with his hands on her waist and flung her aboard the nervous, prancing horse. Her bare feet dangling, she clutched the pommel in a death grip as the steward mounted behind her.
“We ride!”
Kicking the horse into a headlong gallop, the steward held the reins in one hand while his other held her lightly about the waist. At this time of night, the streets of London were empty and dark, and the horses’ hooves cast sparks from the cobbles. Unfamiliar with this part of the city, she clung to the saddle, her tears of grief and fear whipped back from her eyes.
Miles they galloped, lather blooming on the horses’ necks and chests. She heard their gasping breath, scented the salt from their hides. Then she smelled the fish tang of the river, saw below them the moon glinting off the Thames. Though it was hours before dawn, lights flared from many of the ships moored at the docks.
“The ship sails on the tide,” the steward said in her ear. “I hope we get there in time.”
Down the steeply curving hill the horses plunged, their shoes often sliding on the slick cobbles. She feared her mount might fall, flipping over backward to crush both of them under its weight. It kept its footing, however, and raced on, galloping hard to the shipyard.
The assistant reined in his horse, and leaped from the saddle. He seized the satchel from his pommel, and let the horse go with a slap to its rump. The steward also reined in, and slid down, then assisted her down, and set her on her feet. Her hand in his, he led her across the wharves to the huge ship, its prow rearing high above them.
As the steward spoke to the ship’s master, she looked back at London, the crushing weight of her grief all but forcing her to her knees. “Papa,” she whispered. “I am so sorry. I left you behind. Please forgive me.”
She wept silently, ashamed of her cowardice in running away, crying for her loss, for the deaths of those she loved. Even as she wept, the steward’s hand wrapped around hers and led her up the gangplank and onto the vessel, and her heart felt as though it were being ripped from her chest as she left everything she ever knew, and loved, behind.
Chapter 1
The Valkyrie soared effortlessly over the calm, blue sea, under full sail nearly as swift as a bird. Her owner and captain, Lord Christopher Buckthorn, stood near the bow. With his hands held behind his back, he listened to the wash of the sea under the ship’s wooden hull, and gazed out at the distant horizon.
If the clear skies and stiff winds continued, he estimated the ship would drop anchor in London on the Thames within three weeks. Yet, he also knew the weather was too often fickle this time of year. A brisk breeze one day, calm the next. Squalls blew up with little warning in this part of the Atlantic, but he’d never met a squall he could not best.
A sudden shout from above had him turning toward the crow’s nest above him.
“Ahoy, Cap’n,” the sailor yelled. “Something in the water, ten degrees to starboard, sir.”
Christopher pulled the spyglass from his belt, and peered through it even as
Richard Mayhew, his first mate, ran to join him. “M’lord?”
Ignoring him for the moment, Christopher focused intently on the object bobbing up and down gently on the waves. It was a dinghy, that much he could tell, but was there something in it? It appeared as though there could be, and from this angle he couldn’t see what it was.
The words to shout up to the sailor stilled in his mouth as the man in the crow’s nest called down, “There be someone in the dinghy, Cap’n.”
“Prepare to come about,” Christopher told Mr. Mayhew. “Furl the mainsails. Slow us down and bring us alongside.”
“Aye, M’lord.”
Staring intently through his glass again, Christopher half-listened as his orders were relayed through Mr. Mayhew. Behind him, the crew scrambled up and down the lines to lower the boom and furl the great canvas sheets that caught the wind and sent the Valkyrie hissing through the sea.
The ship slowed her pace considerably as only the jib drove her forward, and the sea swells had her bobbing like a cork. The rudder guided the Valkyrie toward the small dinghy, and Christopher saw her course would take her right next to the tiny boat.
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