The Resolute Runaway

by Charlotte Louise Dolan

  “Do you mean you actually want to find a husband in London?”

  Dorie looked at her in amazement, and Joanna realized with a sinking heart that the thought of marriage to anyone except Nicholas was anathema to her. But she could not tell Dorie that. Dorie would immediately tell Nicholas, and he would again feel honor-bound to marry her. “No,” she admitted finally, “I do not wish to find a husband in London.” Which was not a total lie, since she had already found the husband she wanted.

  “Then there is no problem,” Dorie said, rushing over to hug her. “When I am twenty-one, I shall come into my inheritance from my grandfather, and then you shall live with me, and we shall both be as merry as grigs.”

  A lifetime of putting up with Dorie’s fits and starts—with trying to keep her out of the worst of the scrapes she seemed always to be wanting to throw herself into—the idea was so appalling, Joanna was almost tempted to demand that Nicholas do his duty and marry her.

  Dorie again began to dance around the room. “You can come with me around the world, and we shall become famous as the intrepid lady explorers.”

  “But, Dorie, have you considered that I am not really very intrepid?”

  “Of course you are. You even ran away from home, which is more than I have done ... yet.”

  “Surely you are not seriously contemplating running away! Dorie, I must make you understand that it is not at all comfortable to be on your own in a foreign country. Please believe me when I say that although adventures may sound exciting when one talks about them afterward, they are not at all enjoyable when one is living through them. Nothing on earth would persuade me to set forth all alone on a journey again.”

  “But you would not be all alone—I would be with you. And I guarantee neither of us would be bored, which is a fate much worse than any other disaster that might befall us.”

  Dorie gave her a smile of triumph, but Joanna felt not the least bit reassured.

  “But... but...” What could she say that would make Dorie understand that blindly courting danger was not a viable option?

  Before she could try once more to persuade her friend to abandon her outrageous plans, there was a tap at the door, and Dorie opened it to admit Nicholas.

  At once Dorie’s look of glee was wiped from her face, and she deliberately assumed the expression of a properly demure young lady. “Ah, Nick, dear, how solemn you look. But you should not be wearing such a long face on Christmas Day. Put away your cares and be merry—enjoy the holidays! ‘Tis the season to be jolly, you know.”

  “I have been giving the matter of your Season much thought, brat, and I have decided your mother will need some assistance with you. So you will be happy to hear that I have arranged to live with the three of you for the entire duration of your stay in London.”

  Dorie grimaced, but was unable even to fake any enthusiasm for Nicholas’s plan. Joanna, however, could not manage to hold back a smile of pleasure. Nicholas was going to be living with them in Mrs. Donnithorne’s London residence. Why, that would mean she would more than likely see him every single day.

  “And before you get any ideas of avoiding me, brat, I shall be accompanying you to every single dance and musical evening and Venetian breakfast and whatever other ridiculous affairs the hostesses dream up.”

  At Nicholas’s words, Dorie actually stuck her lower lip out in a pout, but Joanna rejoiced inwardly. To think, she would have a chance to dance with Nicholas again, to sit beside him—

  “Moreover, do not expect to go driving in the park or attend the theater or the opera or Vauxhall Gardens without me—”

  “You go too far,” Dorie interrupted. It was obvious even to an untutored eye that she had passed the point of being able to disguise her rage. “I shall never allow you to become my watchdog.”

  Joanna was in alt, all her earlier misgivings about a London Season forgotten. In her wildest dreams, she had never thought she would have such an opportunity to be with Nicholas ...

  “Accept what cannot be changed, my dear little cousin, and abandon all your plans to scandalize London society.” His voice held a note of command, as if he were addressing a recalcitrant private. “There will be no scandals, and you will do nothing to make yourself the object of gossip. You and Joanna are now my responsibility, and you will both be under my watchful eye until I find you each a suitable husband. And do not delude yourself that I am looking forward to that chore. I am, in fact, eagerly longing for the day when I can give you into the care of some besotted fool, who will doubtless have his hands full keeping you out of mischief.”

  With those words he turned on his heel and quitted the room, leaving Joanna every bit as incensed as Dorie—and every bit as determined not to let Nicholas pick out a husband for her.

  Chapter 8

  As soon as Nicholas was gone, Dorie began to pace back and forth on the Aubusson carpet. “Now we are indeed in a coil. Nicholas will be a much stricter chaperone than ever Elizabeth would have been. Whatever are we going to do about him? We cannot allow him to force us into marriages not of our own choosing.”

  “Well,” Joanna said fiercely, unable to hold back her feelings any longer, “I do not know what you are going to do, but I fully intend to marry Nicholas.”

  Dorie looked at her in amazement, and Joanna would have given anything to call back her intemperate words, which had surprised her fully as much as they amazed Dorie.

  “Marry Nicholas? Whatever for?”

  Screwing up her courage, Joanna looked her friend right in the eye and admitted the truth she had been trying for too long to deny. “Because I love him,” she said simply.

  Dorie came over and plopped herself down on the bed beside Joanna. “Well, this is quite an unexpected turn of events. But now that I think it over, I can see that you will suit each other to perfection. And I, for one, will be quite happy to call you cousin.”

  “But it is not quite that easy,” Joanna protested. “Unfortunately, he does not love me. You heard what he said—he intends to find me a suitable husband. He is looking forward to getting rid of the both of us.”

  “Oh, pooh, that is nothing but talk.”

  “And you must admit that with his estate and his family connections, he can look much higher than me when he decides to marry.”

  But Dorie was no longer paying attention. She had that faraway look in her eyes that meant she was concocting an impossible scheme. She was, in fact, so deeply engrossed in her thoughts, she appeared not to notice even when Joanna gave up on her and left the room.

  * * * *

  It was the middle of January, and Aunt Theo, as she had instructed Joanna to call her, had departed the previous week to visit her other daughter, Florie Bellgrave. Today their last remaining guest was likewise departing. Joanna stood disconsolately at the window of her room, once again watching Nicholas drive out of her life. This time, at least, it would not be so terribly long until she saw him again—a mere six weeks, in fact, before he returned at the beginning of March to escort them to London.

  Belinda would doubtless also be in London by then, which was a rather depressing thought. If she decided to crook her little finger, Joanna had no doubt but that Belinda could reanimate Nicholas’s infatuation for her. If indeed it was infatuation and not enduring love.

  Behind her the door opened, and a few moments later Dorie stood beside her. “I have been thinking, and what we need is for you to be abducted. Then Nicholas can ride ventre à terre to your rescue, which will make him realize how much he loves you.”

  “And I think that you have not been thinking at all, you have been reading more of those silly romances by Mrs. Radcliffe. Despite your fantasies as to what it would be like, I can imagine nothing more horrible than to have a strange man make off with me. And besides, Nicholas doesn’t love me to begin with, so how can he realize he loves me if in fact he does not? I am afraid he is more likely just to bawl me out.”

  “Just because there are a few drawbacks to my plan does not me
an it will not be feasible.”

  “No,” Joanna said firmly. “Absolutely not. I refuse to allow myself to be abducted, and that is that.”

  “Well, then I suppose I shall have to come up with another scheme to help you, because the way you have been mooning over Nicholas, I think you would be very poor company traveling with me around the world.”

  Joanna looked at Dorie in dismay. “Mooning over Nicholas? Surely I have not made my feelings for him so obvious that everyone has remarked it?”

  “No, no,” Dorie hastened to reassure her. “If anything, you have made it quite apparent that you do not wish to be left alone with him. If I had not heard you say with my own ears that you love him, I would be much more inclined to think you held him in disgust.”

  “I have merely been trying to avoid any compromising situations,” Joanna said, “and I do hope he has not gotten the wrong impression.”

  “Well, you would do better to cast yourself at his feet and beg him to marry you,” Dorie said impatiently. “If I were in love with a man, I should certainly not hesitate to tell him exactly that.”

  “But you are in a completely different position than I am.”

  “If you are referring again to your lack of dowry, then you are slandering my cousin. Nicholas would never let such mercenary factors enter into consideration.”

  Stung by the criticism, Joanna replied rather tartly, “I was referring to my lack of courage. Not everyone has your intrepid spirit.”

  With a grin, Dorie linked arms with her. “But I do believe the Lady Catherine does, so let us ignore all men and go up to the nursery and play with the babies a while.”

  “Are you forgetting that Lord Edward is a member of the male half of the population? And he is not at all willing to be ignored.”

  “We may easily exempt any male under five from exclusion,” Dorie said cheerfully. “Unless, of course, he also decides to start telling us what to do.”

  * * * *

  Three weeks after he returned home, Nicholas received a long letter from his sister, in which she enumerated with quite unnecessary enthusiasm all of Joanna’s current beaux. His recently acquired little sister, or so Elizabeth wrote to him, was becoming quite the belle of Bath, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that even without a dowry, there would be no difficulty at all in finding her a suitable husband.

  With an oath, Nicholas crumped up the letter and pitched it into the fire. Despite her intelligence, Elizabeth sounded like a total lack-wit, prattling on about Joanna’s suitors. Nicholas had met the majority of them during the holidays, and they were all suffering from severe deficiencies—major drawbacks that rendered them totally unsuitable as potential husbands for Joanna.

  Blast it all, if he were in Wiltshire now, he would take a horsewhip to the lot of them! But he wasn’t there, and Darius, who had earlier seemed a right enough sort of fellow, persisted in letting those callow youths run tame around Colthurst Hall. It did not bear thinking of!

  Feeling too angry to write a civil response to his sister’s letter, Nicholas strode out to the stable, where he ordered his favorite horse to be saddled.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but a storm do be coming up.”

  One fierce look from Nicholas, and Richards jumped to obey the command, with no further attempt to dispute Nicholas’s right to ride his own horse on his own land whenever he might choose.

  During his long ride through the wind and then the rain, it gradually became clear to Nicholas just why he was so angry. He did not feel antipathy for Joanna’s suitors because of their own deficiencies, but because the mere idea of her married to anyone but himself was absolutely, positively, totally unthinkable!

  Why had it taken him so long to know his own heart? He had not been blind to Joanna’s good qualities—he had even prattled on to her brother about what a good wife she would make. And yet he had never thought of her in that light until he had seen her at Christmas.

  Did that make him as shallow and foolish and blind as the majority of men? Apparently so, for he should have offered for her long ago, before she attracted such swarms of suitors ...

  With a sinking heart he remembered abruptly that he had offered for her before, and she had gotten hysterical at the mere mention of marrying him. Not that she did not care for him—at Christmas she had made it quite clear that she held him in affection ... as a brother.

  Well, it was a start. At least she did not hold him in disgust. He would just have to make a concerted effort to work on those feelings and deepen them into the kind of love necessary between a man and wife.

  But suppose Joanna accepted one of her other suitors before he himself even had an opportunity to win her affections? Before he had a chance to woo her properly? Before he managed to get her to think of him as something other than a substitute brother? Blast his sister for encouraging all those Bartholomew babies to run tame around Colthurst Hall!

  Nicholas gradually became aware that he was just sitting on his horse in the rain, several miles from home, accomplishing nothing except to get wet. Turning his mount in the direction of the stables, he began mentally composing a very irate letter to his sister, telling her in detail just exactly what he considered to be the deficiencies of each of Joanna’s suitors.

  * * * *

  “It ain’t goin’ ter be enough, yer grace,” Billy said, surveying the mountains of baggage being strapped onto Aunt Theo’s traveling coach.

  “They need only enough clothes to last them two days until they reach the London modistes,” Darius replied with a chuckle.

  “That weren’t what I was referrin’ to,” the boy replied rather gloomily. “Capt’n Goldsborough is a fine man, and I don’t want you ter think I’m criticizing him, ‘cause I ain’t. But he ain’t been around Miss Dorie enough to be up on all her tricks. I’m thinkin’ that someone what knows her oughter be goin’ along t’ Lunnon for t’ keep a watchful eye over her.”

  Looking down at the boy, who though small for his age had such a way with horses that he had been made an under-groom on his twelfth birthday, Darius asked politely, “And might that someone be you?”

  Billy heaved a mighty sigh. “I s’pose it’ll have ter be me. Ain’t no one else near as good as me at ferretin’ out Miss Dorie’s secret plans, and now that you learned me to keep me clapper shut about what I knows, I reckon I’ll have t’ make the sacrifice.”

  There was much truth in the boy’s statement: he knew more about what was happening on the estate than anyone else, and he did have almost as much rapport with Dorie as he did with the horses. Besides, the boy was a hard worker and deserved to have a vacation in London.

  “It is indeed noble of you to offer your services this way,” Darius replied, “especially since it means you will be missing the entire foaling season. But there is much merit in your suggestion, and I shall willingly avail myself of your assistance. There is only one thing I feel I must insist on. Please take this money along in case you have an emergency.”

  Billy gave him a dubious look, as if doubting he had actually heard correctly. Then he pinched himself on the arm and immediately yelped. “Just checking,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Though fer a minute I must be dreamin’.” With no more hesitation, he pocketed the proffered money and dashed off to the stables to fetch his things, which Darius suspected had already been packed and ready for some time.

  * * * *

  While the carriage was being loaded under the watchful eye of Miss Hepden, Elizabeth was having a late breakfast with her aunt and the two young ladies, who were busily engaged at the other end of the table in whispering to each other.

  “They do make a lovely pair, do they not?” Aunt Theo commented. “I am so glad Joanna is not blond, since her black hair sets off Dorie’s fairness to perfection. I could only wish that my daughter were not so ... so robust.”

  “I should not worry about that if I were you. Dorie will need a very strong man, and I have noticed that such men have a very low tolerance f
or feminine weaknesses.”

  Aunt Theo looked at her dubiously, and Elizabeth acted quickly to forestall a tediously long recitation of all the strong men Aunt Theo had ever met during her many years in the ton who had preferred clinging vines to capable women.

  “Now, do not forget that Darius insists you use Colthurst House for Dorie and Joanna’s coming-out ball. Kelso will come to London in time to supervise all the arrangements, so you will have nothing to do on that score.”

  “Oh, dear,” Aunt Theo replied, and Elizabeth immediately realized to her deep regret that she had only succeeded in replacing one worry with another. “I do wish you could be there at my side. Could you not consider coming to London just for a week or so? You would not wish to miss out completely on Dorie’s triumph, would you? We have reserved a very auspicious date quite early in the Season, so you would only be ...” She began to count on her fingers.

  “Only six months along,” Elizabeth said.

  “Oh ... well, perhaps you will not be showing too much, assuming you do not intend to continue producing babies at double the normal speed.”

  “When the time comes, we shall see what Darius has to say. He has rather strict ideas about what a St. John may and may not do, you know.”

  “But a duchess may do anything she pleases,” her aunt replied in a voice that brooked no arguments.

  “But the mother of a future St. John may not,” Elizabeth countered in just as decided a tone.

  “But you are so robust, I am sure sitting around at a dance will not fatigue you unduly.”

  “After, of course, two days of driving in a carriage, followed, of course, by two days of driving in a carriage—”

  “Well, if that is your attitude, I am sure you will never persuade your husband to let you attend the ball.”

  “I shall see how I am feeling at the time, and that is all I can promise you, and,” she added quickly, when her aunt began to look mulish, “there is no point in saying you are having spasms at the mere thought of coping alone, because Darius is more than likely to throw a bucket of cold water in your face and then claim that is what he was used to doing in Spain.”