The Autumn Bride

by Anne Gracie

  “Grandchildren?”

  “You hadn’t thought of that, had you?” The anger was fading from her voice. She took on a more coaxing tone. “You wouldn’t want your grandchildren living in poverty, would you? A man of your pride and standing in the community?”

  Max understood where the anger stemmed from now.

  She went on. “If this young man of Henrietta’s is a gentleman, and educated, could you not teach him how to go on in business? He already works for you; he must be clever in that way, for otherwise you wouldn’t have employed him.”

  Parsloe gave a cynical humph, but he was listening.

  “Would not that be so satisfying? Every great man needs an apprentice to pass on his knowledge and wisdom to. And so what if he has no title—you did have your heart set on a title, I know.”

  Parsloe looked self-conscious. “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, but for heaven’s sake, you seem like a capable enough man—if you can build great manufactories and amass fortunes, I’m sure you could get yourself a knighthood if you put your mind to it. Would it not be better to be Sir Henry Parsloe than to have your own daughter outrank you?”

  Parsloe’s bushy eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing into his thinning gray hairline. His eyes grew thoughtful.

  Max smiled. That had surely hit home.

  “Sir Henry Parsloe,” the man repeated. “Trying to soft-soap me, young woman?”

  “A bit, but it’s the truth.” She added in an intense voice, “Mr. Parsloe, if you love Henrietta, really love her, you’ll let her follow her heart and be happy, and with your support she can be happier still. But if you cut her off . . .” Tears glimmered in her eyes. “You have no idea of the misery that can result.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I know it.” There was both knowledge and despair in her eyes, as well as the tears she blinked back. “For that’s what happened with my mother and father.” She looked at the older man, all the passion gone now.

  There was a short silence.

  “We’d best get after that minx of mine,” Parsloe said eventually. “I need to find her.”

  “And not cast her off?” she said.

  He paused. “No, not cast her off.”

  “Or disinherit her?”

  “No.” He sighed. “What you saw, missy, was an old man in a foolish, frightened rage. I love my girl and I only want her happiness.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said mistily, and kissed him on the cheek.

  He turned to Max. “Will you come with me, my boy?”

  With an effort Max dragged his gaze off Abby. “I will, sir.”

  “Then good-bye, Mr. Parsloe, and good luck.” She kissed his cheek again.

  She turned and held out her hand to Max, curiously formal. “Good-bye, Lord Davenham. I wish you all the best.” She looked so pale and wan that Max wanted to sweep her into his arms then and there.

  But there was one last thing he had to do to make things right with Henry Parsloe—help him find his daughter. Only then could he come to Abby free and clear and offer her his heart.

  He’d waited all his life for her. A few more days wouldn’t make any difference.

  He took the hand she held out and kissed it, then turned it over and placed his mouth gently in the center of her palm. He hoped it would say the things he couldn’t say in an entry hall with Parsloe and the butler looking interestedly on. Her fingers curled to gently cup his face around the kiss—an involuntary response or a brief caress?

  He glanced up, hoping to read a message in her eyes, but they were full of tears again. “Good-bye. Take care,” she whispered.

  Max hesitated, but Parsloe was already at the door. “Come along, lad. They’ll be halfway to Scotland by now.”

  “I’ll be back soon,” Max told her.

  She nodded.

  Max ran down the steps and climbed into his phaeton, where Henry Parsloe was already seated. “I hope you won’t let that little lass get away,” Parsloe said as they pulled away from the curb.

  “Don’t worry, sir; I have no intention of it.”

  “A grand little lass. The tongue on her!”

  Max grinned. “I can see I’ll have to watch my step.”

  Parsloe gave a huff of laughter. As they headed for the Great North Road, he said, “Sir Henry Parsloe, eh? What sort of a daft notion is that?” He gave Max a cautious glance.

  “Not daft at all,” Max said carelessly, knowing the older man was hanging on his every word. “I’d have thought it well within your capabilities. Might take you four or five years, though.”

  “As long as that?” Parsloe sniffed. “Aye, well, I might think on it.”

  Max smiled to himself. Two years at the most, he thought.

  Abby stood at the foot of the staircase and watched him go. She held her hand cradled against her breast, her fingers still curled around his kiss.

  She stood there long after Featherby had shut the door. He paused. “Are you all right, miss?” She nodded blindly, and he went away.

  “Abby, are you all right?” It was Jane.

  At the sound of her sister’s voice, Abby’s legs gave way. She sank down on the stairs and burst into tears.

  * * *

  Max returned home five days later. It had taken them two days to catch up with the eloping couple, but at least they hadn’t reached the border. When he’d left them, Henrietta and Papa Parsloe had been enthusiastically planning a lavish spectacle of a wedding, to be held in Manchester, not London, and to take place rather more quickly than spring, the young couple having anticipated their vows. Henrietta Parsloe, like her father, left nothing to chance.

  Max took the front steps two at a time. “Where’s Abby?” he asked the moment Featherby opened the door.

  “Not here, m’lord.”

  “Oh.” Damn. He hadn’t thought past taking her in his arms the moment he saw her. A letter addressed to him lay on the hall table. He picked it up, glanced carelessly at it and said, “Gone out, has she? When will she be back?”

  “I think you’d better talk to your aunt, m’lord.”

  Something in the butler’s tone caused Max to turn and look at him. “What is it? Where’s she gone?”

  “Your aunt is in the small sitting room.”

  Max stuffed the letter in his pocket and went in search of his aunt. He found her listlessly flipping the pages of a magazine. When she saw him she cast it aside and sat up. “About time! Where the deuce have you been? Preventing a marriage, I suppose.”

  “Yes, but—”

  She made a disgusted noise. “Stupid boy! You should have been here, not gadding after that wretched Parsley chit.”

  He ignored that. “Where’s Abby?”

  “Gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  “Is there more than one meaning to the word?” she said with asperity. “I mean gone—left—departed.”

  Gone? Max stared at her blankly. “Where to?”

  She shrugged, her gaze accusing. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Do you mean she’s left here for good?” Max couldn’t believe it. He ran his fingers through his hair. “But why would she leave? And without a word.”

  “Possibly because you went off chasing after that Parsloe chit.”

  He stared at her. “But she knew why I went. I had no choice.”

  His aunt snorted. He took a few restless paces around the room, thinking furiously. And halted, thinking about that last, curiously formal good-bye Abby had made. “When did she leave?”

  “The same day you did.”

  “All of them? Without warning?” She nodded.

  “Then something must have happened to make them go—it can’t have been to do with me going after Henrietta Parsloe. But what?” He paced around the room, thinking back over all the events leading up to his departure. “Was it the brothel arrests? Did she fear her sisters having to give evidence in a public court? Surely she’d know I’d protect them fr
om that. Why did she think I took Daisy and not Jane or Damaris? No one would think twice about a cockney maidservant giving evidence—and besides, she used her real name—Daisy Smith, not Daisy Chance.”

  His aunt watched balefully as he paced back and forth, saying nothing. Clearly she blamed him for letting Abby leave, though how he could have prevented it when he wasn’t even here . . .

  After he’d exhausted every possibility, she said, “It was because of this.” From the side of her chair she withdrew a folded sheet of paper, holding it disdainfully between finger and thumb.

  He opened it, read the beginning and swore. “Who sent this piece of poisonous filth?”

  She shook her head. “Anonymous, of course. Such cowardly things always are.”

  He read it again more slowly. “The bastard. The filthy bastard.” He looked at his aunt. ”She left to protect you.”

  “And you.”

  “I don’t give a damn what people say about me.”

  “And you think I do?” she scoffed. “But Abby cares.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “It’s what she does—cares.” He sank, despairing, into a chair. “She should have told me. Dammit, why didn’t she?”

  “You were on the road to Scotland, chasing that stupid little—” He stopped her with a sharp look. She hunched a shoulder and said, “She couldn’t wait; the letter gave her one day.”

  “She left without a word?”

  “No, of course she told me, showed me that disgusting thing and wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say. Hell-bent on protecting me from the consequences of her deception!” She snorted. “Deception. I wasn’t deceived for a moment. But she’s stubborn, that girl. Once she thinks what she’s doing is right . . .”

  Max nodded. He knew. But stubborn was the wrong word—she was strong, steadfast. “The last time I saw her she was trying not to cry. She must have known then. Blast it, I wish she’d trusted me enough to confide in me. I wouldn’t have let her buckle under this sort of cowardly filth.” He smashed his fist into his palm. “I thought—fool that I am—that the tears were about something else, something to do with her past.”

  His aunt nodded and in a voice that cracked with emotion said, “If you’d only seen her, Max, breaking her heart but so brave, trying not to show it, saying that all along she’d known this was just a lovely fantasy. But I’m no dratted fantasy, and I refuse to be part of one! It was real.” She rubbed away a tear and added, “I love that gel and her sisters, Max.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you, Max? Do you?”

  He said impatiently, “Of course I do. I couldn’t care less about false names and burglaries—except that she shouldn’t be living in such a blasted precarious fashion; it makes my blood run cold to think of her alone out there. Why didn’t she tell me she was in trouble—surely she’d know I’d help her?”

  “Why would she know it, dear boy?”

  “Well, because . . .”

  “Does she have any idea how you feel? Have you told her how you feel?”

  “I couldn’t, not until I got everything straightened out with—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake—spare me the thought processes of men!” his aunt declared acidly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you surely don’t, you blockhead. You’ve been so busy dashing about, being the gallant knight, routing enemies and fighting dragons, that you forgot about the heroine.”

  “I damned well did not,” Max said hotly. “Abby was at the heart of everything I did—everything! She wasn’t out of my mind for a minute.”

  Her expression softened. “Perhaps I should have said, you forgot to talk to the heroine.”

  “Talk?”

  “Yes, dear boy, talk.”

  “But . . . she should have known. . . .”

  “How?”

  He stared at her blankly. He’d thought . . . He assumed . . .

  “Think for a moment how everything unfolded that day: First someone tried to abduct Jane, and in the aftermath Abby confessed to you everything she’d been trying to hide all this time—the brothel, the false names, the burglary—”

  “Yes, yes, what of it?” Max said impatiently. He knew all this; none of it mattered.

  “When she’d finished telling you, what did you do?”

  “I damned well went out and got that bastard locked up; that’s what I did.”

  “Before that.”

  Max didn’t understand what she was getting at.

  “When Abby had finished telling you about the worst things she had done in her life—”

  “Worst things? That girl is a heroine, Aunt Bea; can’t you see that? All those things she did, the desperate circumstances she faced, the courage it took—if you can’t see that she’s the finest, bravest, most wonderful girl . . .”

  “Oh, I see it, dear boy, but does she? And did you tell her so then, when she most needed to hear it from you—the one person whose good opinion she cared about? Or did you say, ‘I need to think,’ and rush out of the room? As if disgusted.”

  “Disgusted?” he repeated, appalled at her interpretation. “But I went out—”

  “—to kill dragons, I know. But did Abby?”

  Stricken, he stared at her. Abby couldn’t have thought he was disgusted, surely? It was so much the opposite of what he felt for her, he could hardly imagine it. But his aunt’s words made a ghastly kind of sense.

  “And then you stayed out for the rest of the night, and in the morning, what must you do but go off chasing after that stupid fiancée of yours.”

  “She’s not my fiancée.”

  “Well, of course, since she’s run off—”

  “I broke it off with her that same day.”

  “You what?” Her eyes popped.

  He gave her a tired smile. “You should be pleased, Aunt Bea. That was why Henry Parsloe was so angry with me. He thought Henrietta had run off because I’d jilted her.”

  She made an impatient gesture. “I don’t give a fig for the Parsleys. Max, you broke your word? For Abby?”

  He nodded.

  “You love her?”

  “Of course I love her.” How could anyone not?

  “And did she know that?”

  “No,” he said heavily. “I wanted to tell her, but first I had to make everything right, so I could come to her free and clear. I needed—”

  “To kill dragons.”

  He nodded. “I thought she knew how I felt.” He sat down, despairing at the mess he’d made of things.

  “My dear boy,” she said gently, “women need to hear the words. They don’t need the world conquered for them, but they do need a man to speak the words that are in his heart.”

  “I’ll find her,” Max said. “I don’t care where she’s gone or how long it takes; I’ll find her. They would have left by stagecoach. Four pretty girls traveling together shouldn’t be impossible to trace.”

  “They didn’t go by stagecoach.”

  “What?” He gave her a sharp look. “How do you know?”

  She snorted. “Do you think I’d let my nieces just disappear?” She snorted again. “I sent them off in the barouche with Turner and Hatch in attendance, of course.”

  Max stared at her in disbelief. “Then why the hell did you let me go through all of that?”

  She shrugged. “For all I knew you were still betrothed to La Parsley.”

  He clenched his fists and said in a voice that was remarkably calm for a man who was itching to strangle a beloved but infuriating relative, “Where. Is. Abby?”

  “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell.”

  “Aunt Bea!” He couldn’t believe his ears.

  She laughed. “Oh, pish-tush, don’t look like that, dear boy; you know what I think of stupid promises—and this is a really stupid one. Featherby has the address.”

  “Bless you, Aunt Bea.” He kissed her on the forehead.

  “So you’ll bring Abby back for me?”

  “
No, I’ll bring her back for me.”

  “Then you’d better have this.” She dropped a ring into his palm.

  Max stared at the gleaming emerald ring. “One of your rings? I thought they’d been stolen.”

  “I must have hidden them in the hollow post of my bed when I got sick. Featherby and William found them when we moved here.” She nodded. “That one’s my favorite. It’s for Abby—don’t look at me like that; you haven’t bought her a ring yet, have you?”

  He grinned and pocketed the ring. “Aunt Bea, you’re a gem. All right, I’m going. Featherby!” he shouted.

  “Yes, m’lord?” Featherby appeared right beside the door. “I took the liberty of ordering you a post chaise, m’lord. It’s waiting outside.”

  “A yellow bounder?”

  “Yes, m’lord, since you’ve been driving for days already. It’ll be quick and you won’t be so tired when you get to Bath.”

  “Bath? She’s in Bath?”

  “Yes, m’lord, safe and sound.” Featherby pressed a small piece of paper into Max’s hand. “Miss Abby’s address, sir.”

  “Good man. Remind me to increase your wage.”

  As Featherby handed Max his hat and coat, he added, “I’ve packed your bag with clean clothes, and that and a basket with various victuals are waiting in the carriage for you. Godspeed, m’lord, bring Miss Abby home.”

  But Max was already running down the steps.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

  —JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

  Bath was damp and cold, and the air was crisp with the promise of winter when Max arrived. He’d driven through the night, and it was midmorning. He took a suite of rooms at York House, the best hotel in Bath, and quickly shaved, bathed and changed his clothes before setting out in search of his beloved.

  He called in at her lodgings, a respectable enough place, but faded, shabby. He vowed she wouldn’t be there for long.

  The young ladies had already gone out, their landlady told him with a speculative look. He set off down Milsom Street, heading for the Pump Room in the lower part of town, then stopped dead. There she was, with her sisters, having an animated discussion in front of the window of a millinery shop.