The Resolute Runaway

by Charlotte Louise Dolan

  “Men do not, however, marry women for their conversation, nor does sweetness compensate for lack of dowry. Men marry where they find beauty or wealth or powerful connections.”

  “On the other hand, consider this: I have a cousin about Joanna’s age, who is more like a little sister to me. Dorie is quite pretty, she is an heiress, and now that Elizabeth, my sister, is the Duchess of Colthurst, Dorie can be said to be extremely well-connected. She would thus seem to be a perfect candidate for marriage, but she is such a madcap, she would make a most uncomfortable wife, and I pity the man who ends up with her. Although now that I think on it, if she were a man, I would not hesitate to have her serve in any regiment I commanded.”

  “That is all very well and good, but let us be realistic. My sister has many good qualities and I love her dearly, and if the world were a logical place, she would marry a man who loves her and raise a houseful of children. But surely you have noticed that men are rarely thinking logically when they propose marriage—or else they are thinking quite logically of land and estates and government consols.”

  Since his sister had once said virtually the same thing to him, Nicholas could not dispute Mark’s analysis of Joanna’s chances.

  “Your cousin will doubtless receive innumerable offers,” Mark continued, “whereas my sister would not attract the least attention, even were I able to finance a Season for her. No, in spite of what you think of me, I have long ago accepted my responsibility where she is concerned. It is unfortunate, really, the way things turned out, because she was a very pretty child when she was younger.”

  At Nicholas’s urging, they started walking again, picking their way carefully along the cobblestoned streets.

  “My only chance,” Mark said, “since I have no university degree, is to acquire a civil-service position, and to that end I must devote my time here to making contacts. So far I have several promises.” He laughed, and Nicholas could hear the self-mockery in his friend’s voice. “No, I delude myself. I have received no promises at all, only vague half-promises, which may be remembered or may already be forgotten. And there is so little time. Once Napoleon is defeated and the army is demobilized, there will be hundreds of other half-pay officers, all competing for the few positions available in London.”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, and Nicholas cursed himself for having been so blind to his friend’s dilemma. “I can speak to my brother-in-law. If Darius knows of any position, I am sure he will be happy to recommend you. After all, it is not as though he would be recommending someone sight unseen. You served as an ensign under him in the peninsular campaign before he became a duke.”

  The offer failed to produce even a smile on his friend’s face, much less a word of thanks. “Well?” Nicholas asked, feeling a little irate at the lack of response.

  “Well, what? Do you know how many times I have gotten my hopes up at a similar remark? If, if, if—that is all I ever hear. If something opens up, if Lord So-and-so is agreeable, if the position is not already filled. Can you guarantee that your brother-in-law will know of an opening? Bah, you are no different from the rest of them.” Hunching his shoulders, Mark picked up his pace, as if trying to leave Nicholas behind.

  Nicholas easily caught up with him. “No,” he corrected, “I am not like all the rest. I will make you a promise that is not conditioned by any ifs.”

  Mark stopped in his tracks and turned to face him, but did not say a word.

  “I give you my word of honor,” Nicholas said, “that I will find you a good position when this campaign is over, and I shall not even qualify it by saying if we defeat Napoleon.”

  For the first time since the subject of Joanna had come up, Mark smiled. “Aye, and I’ve no doubt either on that score. Wellington will send that upstart corporal running back to Paris with his tail between his legs.”

  * * * *

  Dorinda Donnithorne stood looking out the window of Colthurst Hall. It was raining, raining, raining, and she was bored, bored, bored. If only she could find some way to persuade Cousin Elizabeth to let her go to Brussels, where Nicholas was with Wellington’s army.

  She heaved a mighty sigh, but there was no response behind her. Turning, she looked at Elizabeth, who was embroidering rosebuds on a tiny dress for her daughter.

  “It is no use your standing there sighing, Dorie,” Elizabeth said without looking up from her needlework. “You are not going to get my permission to go to Brussels, no matter how bored you are here with us. Your mother would positively expire of the vapors if I let you go there. And even if you persuaded me, there is still my husband, and I doubt even I could convince Darius of the wisdom of such a course of action. I know it is small consolation, but Gorbion says the rain will end by evening and tomorrow will be fair.”

  “Oh, Beth, ‘tis not you who are boring, and it is not the rain that I find so depressing.” Dorie hurried to her cousin’s side and sank down on her knees. “I love visiting you here at Colthurst Hall and playing with Louisa and the twins. But the days keep going by in the same way, with nothing to look forward to.”

  “You have only to endure another ten months of our company, and then you will be presented at court and have your Season.”

  “Oh, pooh, as if I cared about that.” Dorie stood up and began to pace around the room, feeling as restless as a caged fox. “I don’t even want a Season in London. Do you think I have any interest in such things? I would gladly trade my entire Season for a chance to go to Belgium this week. Everyone is in Brussels now, simply everyone.”

  “And everyone will be in London next spring, so I fail to see why you are so set on going to a foreign country just so that you can attend dances and parties, which I am sure are no more exciting than the assemblies in Bath. Your mother has given her permission for you to attend them this fall, you know.”

  “But that is not the point. Oh, no one understands me. I should have been born a boy so that I could be a soldier like Nicholas. History is being made, perhaps even while we speak. When Wellington comes face-to-face with Napoleon, people will finally learn which one is the better general. And I don’t want to be left out of the excitement. I want to be part of it. Oh, Beth, please help me persuade my mother to let me go with the Jamisons. They are leaving for the Continent the day after tomorrow, so there is still time to send them word. Please?”

  Elizabeth laid her sewing in her lap and looked up at her. “I had not thought you so callous, that you would look forward with such glee to the slaughter of hundreds of young men. I can only hope you have not expressed such views to Darius, else you will have sunk yourself below reproach in his esteem.”

  Dorie felt the blood drain from her face. Hurrying across the room to her cousin, she cast herself on the floor, and clasped Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “Oh, Beth, do forgive me. You know I am not truly hard-hearted or unfeeling, and I know that war is not the glorious, heroic affair that so many people think it is. I remember too well what it was like when we were fearful of finding Darius’s or Nicholas’s name on the casualty lists. But the battle will happen, no matter if I am there or here, and I would so much rather be there. Oh, can you not understand? I look at my future and see myself trapped in a marriage with a proper and eminently suitable young man who will doubtless bore me to distraction. I know it is my fate and the fate of all the young ladies of my position in society. But I cannot look forward to it the way they do. Oh, Beth, is it truly wicked of me to want a little adventure before I must settle down as a wife and mother?”

  Looking up into her cousin’s eyes, Dorie saw understanding and forgiveness, and with relief she laid her head down on Elizabeth’s lap. “I should have been a boy,” she repeated. “Then I could have been a soldier like Darius and Nicholas.”

  Elizabeth began to stroke her hair, and in spite of herself, Dorie felt some of the restlessness leave her.

  “Someday, my dear, you will meet the right man, and even if he is proper and suitable, you will not find him boring.”
<
br />   “It is not as if I would be all alone with no family in Brussels,” Dorie persisted. “Nicholas is there, and he can take care of me.”

  “Nicholas is too busy being a soldier to waste his time looking after a brainless chit like you,” Elizabeth said with laughter in her voice.

  “Brainless? Brainless?” Distracted by the insult, Dorie lifted her head. “If I have no brains, then how am I able to best Darius at chess? And piquet? And billiards? And I would be able to beat him at fencing if he would only consent to teach me to handle a foil, I know I could.”

  “There is nothing to stop you from asking him again. Perhaps you can change his mind. You may tell him I heartily recommend that he give you fencing lessons.” Elizabeth prayed her husband would forgive her for suggesting such a thing, but she had reached the point, after two days of listening to the rain and to Dorie’s entreaties, that she had to have a little peace and quiet herself. And if Dorie failed to persuade him, maybe she herself could convince her husband that Dorie was never going to fit into the common mold, so they might as well give her an outlet for her excess energy.

  After her cousin left the room in search of Darius, Elizabeth did not immediately pick up her embroidery. Two worries had kept her awake on many a night recently. The first was, of course, concern for her brother’s safety during the upcoming battle. The second was the question of Dorie’s future husband.

  What was needed was not only a man who would not bore Dorie to tears, but also one with enough strength and determination to keep her under some degree of control. Unfortunately, it had recently occurred to Elizabeth that if such a man were indeed to be found, he would most likely not be found in London, since he would doubtless find drawing rooms no more to his liking than Dorie did.

  * * * *

  Alexander Mathers, Baron Glengarry, rolled the wool over the ewe’s back and stood the sheep up, switching his attention to its head, where he quickly cleared its neck and right shoulder, then belly. “Wool away,” he called a bare minute later. He was not the fastest shearer on the estate, but he was adept enough that his help was welcomed.

  Young Jamie darted forward to retrieve the fleece, and the ewe was released to run bleating off to join her shorn sisters, who were huddled together as if embarrassed by their nakedness.

  An unexpected hush momentarily settled over the group of men, and Alexander turned his head to see a man in Lowland garb picking his way down the path toward the sheep pen. Recognizing the man as one of his mother’s footmen, Alexander swore softly to himself.

  Then he deliberately turned his back and grabbed another sheep. Tucking its shoulders between his knees, he began to clear its belly.

  “Excuse me,” the stranger said, his voice proclaiming him English. “Can anyone here tell me where I might find Lord Glengarry? I have an urgent message for him from his mother.”

  Alexander did not slow the steady rhythm of his shears, but there was an unnatural stillness from the rest of the men, which should have been enough to arouse the footman’s suspicions had he not been as obtuse as all the English.

  Finally Walter Robertson replied, “His lordship is no’ here at the moment, but if ye give us the message, we will do our best to pass it on.”

  “I am to tell him that his mother is deathly ill and requires his immediate attendance at her side.”

  For a moment Alexander felt stricken, and pain twisted deep in his chest, but before he could reveal his presence, a nasty suspicion reared its ugly head. Over the years his mother had become more devious in her attempts to entice him to Edinburgh....

  But surely she would not go so far as pretending to be on her deathbed....

  On the other hand, with each year that passed, she was becoming more determined to find him an English bride. It was just possible she was that treacherous.

  After a long pause, during which he made no effort to respond to the messenger, Robertson spoke again. “Do ye no’ have any other message from Edinburgh?”

  “Just one from Mrs. McPherson, the cook. She requests that you send a pair of fat geese and three young goslings back with me if you have such to spare.”

  All the tension went out of Alexander immediately, and he resumed clipping the ewe. So his mother had two friends staying with her, complete with three marriageable daughters. With such an overabundance of candidates for his hand, he could see why she had tried such a desperate gamble. But pretending to be on her deathbed was going too far, and so he would tell her. But only after Mrs. McPherson sent word it was safe to go to Edinburgh.

  Bless Mrs. McPherson. She was just as determined to see him wedded as his mother, but only to a proper Scottish lassie. Well, he had no intention of marrying any woman, be she Scottish or English, until he was much, much older.

  There were too many salmon waiting to be hooked, too many stags ripe for the chase, too many willing lasses to be bedded. He was not ready at five-and-twenty to give up spending most of his days in the Highlands, not ready to dance attendance on a wife, who would, more than likely, whine and complain if he came home reeking of wool and sheep, or if he vanished for weeks at a time with his cronies.

  Perhaps in ten years, when he was thirty-five, he would consider marrying to please his mother ... or he might even wait fifteen or twenty years. There was no hurry. Granted, he must someday provide an heir, but he could see no reason to get leg-shackled in the near future, especially not to some thin-blooded English miss who would probably be terrified at the mere sight of a proper elkhound.

  To be sure, his mother was English, but then she was an exception.

  “Mrs. McPherson says if you cannot send any right away, she can have them fetched in a day or two.”

  Alexander almost dropped his sheep in surprise. Surely Mrs. McPherson was not trying to tell him his mother was prepared to drag her friends up into the Highlands if he did not present himself on her doorstep?

  “Wool away,” he said in an unnaturally gruff voice, and Jamie darted forward to peer up at him anxiously. “The Western Isles,” Alexander hissed.

  The boy had the good sense to wait until he was well away from Alexander before he piped up, “Lord Glengarry has gone on a verrry long trip to the Western Isles.”

  Robertson immediately picked up his cue. “I am afraid he didna tell us which island he was going to, so it may take us a good while to track him down, but we shall do our best to deliver the message. We can only hope his lordship will arrive in time to bid his mother farewell.”

  Alexander risked a glance at the messenger and saw such a guilty look on the man’s face, he knew for certain his mother was not suffering from anything more than a desire to acquire a daughter-in-law as English as she was.

  Not that she would be put off long by a mere fib. With three prospective candidates on hand, he had better make haste to the islands in actuality, before she could come in person and catch him unawares.

  Unlike the footman, she would be able to recognize him even when he was dressed in rough work clothes and standing in the middle of a herd of sheep whose bleatings were surprisingly reminiscent of the silly chattering of a gaggle of society misses.

  * * * *

  The orchestra was playing a waltz, and Joanna sat beside Mrs. Dillon, watching Belinda dance with Captain Goldsborough.

  “Do they not make a handsome couple?” Mrs. Dillon commented for the second time that evening. “He is so personable, so charming, and he has such address. It is too bad Captain Goldsborough has no title and his estate is no more than respectable. He is highly connected, to be sure. His brother-in-law is the Duke of Colthurst, and his cousin is married to Simon Bellgrave, whose wealth is unmatched.”

  Joanna murmured an automatic response.

  Beside her Mrs. Dillon continued. “Sometimes I think we shall never find the perfect combination of title and wealth and good looks for my daughter. Still and all, if Belinda sets her heart on her captain, I am sure Mr. Dillon can arrange for some kind of title to be granted him. One has only to con
tribute enough to the proper causes, you know, and that kind of thing can be handled discreetly. To be sure, being the first man to bear a title is not as prestigious as being the seventh or the tenth or whatever, but still, I quite have my heart set on my dearest Belinda being the wife of a peer.”

  Mrs. Dillon continued speaking in much the same vein, until they were interrupted by a commotion at the entrance to the ballroom. Looking over to see what was occurring to attract so much attention, Joanna saw that several officers in uniform had entered and were surveying the crowded room. Something about their expressions made it clear to her that they had not come to dance.

  Then, to her surprise, she recognized her brother among them. He spoke to one of the others, who turned and looked at her also; then Mark began to make his way around the room to where she was sitting. The other officers began likewise to move about the room, obviously searching out specific men, who left off their dancing to consult with the newcomers.

  Beside her Mrs. Dillon began to complain. “Mercy me, I declare, something important must be afoot. Oh, if only we could have wangled an invitation to the Duke of Richmond’s ball, then we would be among the first to know. Joanna,” she said sharply, “do be sure to ask your brother for all the details. I do not wish to be the last to hear what is going forward.”

  Mark arrived at Joanna’s side only moments before Captain Goldsborough and Belinda joined them. Ignoring the dictates of propriety, Joanna cast herself in her brother’s arms and hugged him with a desperation born of total fear.

  He returned her embrace, but did not offer her any false assurances.

  “Napoleon?” Captain Goldsborough asked beside her.

  “He crossed the River Sambre this morning and has already engaged some of Blücher’s outposts and driven them back.”

  Mrs. Dillon gave a shriek, and Joanna clutched her brother more tightly. He gave her one last hug, then disengaged himself from her arms.