by Gay, Gloria
“Do you wish everyone else to know or do you want it secret until the deed is done?”
“The only ones I wish to be in on the secret are the ones that will be with us at our marriage ceremony. Everyone else can wait until Uncle Harold informs the newspapers.”
“It will be thus, then,” Simon said. “I will prepare the notice for your uncle to send to the newspapers once we are married. I’m sure they will agree that under the circumstances it would be better that way. We don’t want that woman and her cohorts to disrupt our plans.
“Even now they’re probably sending spies to find out our plans. But I am quite certain I will be able to secure the special license from the Archbishop between today and tomorrow and keep it secret.
“The rest of the plans must be done in secrecy, too. I will let the aunts and uncles know how important it is that Jalenta not find out our plans and the date when we are to leave. We must all coordinate for the journey, so that no glitches appear, for as you know, it is a long journey and it will take several days to reach the border.
“We will arrange to travel with the aunts and uncles, as well as their attendants, in total secrecy, with all three carriages leaving separately and at different dates and times. Hopefully, it will be tomorrow or the day after for the first carriage to leave London.
“I will have a meeting with the uncles in a town nearby that is close enough for easy access but large enough to make it difficult for Jalenta and her criminal cohorts to find out our plans.”
“The family will be glad that our marriage is to be as free from gossip as it can be under the circumstances. The four of them as well as their attendants, will return to London together while you and I will “disappear’ toward the secret site of our honeymoon.
“This is the way I think we should proceed…”
Chapter 27
“Were you able to learn what they’re up to?” Jalenta asked Dwain.
“I have and you won’t like it, Jal.”
“Just say it. I’ll be the judge of it. Do they have plans to go to Gretna Green?”
“Only whispers that I couldn’t confirm at first but then I found a young footman who is the newest hired. He was like putty in my hands.”
“I suspected something was up,” said Jalenta, the color rising on her pale face. But listen to me, I won’t allow it. When is it to be?”
“That’s what’s strange, Jal. No matter how much blunt I offered, I could not squeeze any information about ‘journeys out of London.I only found out they’re going to attend the Malving ball tonight and it is there that they will announce—get this, Jalenta: Lydia’s engagement to the earl!”
“If only I could attend the Malving ball, too, to chaperone Lydia,” said Jalenta. But I had a bad stomach this morning and when that happens, I’m miserable the next day, in pain. However, it may be different this time and I may not feel bad tomorrow.”
“I hope you don’t attend,” said Dwain. “Remember how you exploded on the street that time? Thankfully you spread all that yuck on the street and not inside our house. Lucky I was able to move away from you in time.”
“There you go, always thinking of yourself.”
“Well, we have the three days to plan,” she added with a smirk: “Lydia is going to Gretna Green, but not to be the bride of the Earl of Westrick. She’ll be married to Freddy Dale Panky, instead. After Freddy gets through with her, she’ll be glad to have him make an honest woman out of her. Nobody else will.”
“Freddy already got in touch with you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jalenta with a satisfied smile. “He’s agreed to my terms, too.
“He’s got himself in a mess with a gambling hell and wants to pay his vowels before they come get him. The Black Spirit at Seven Dials, it was. They’ve already sent him a very threatening note.
“Freddy has agreed to the figure I stated and not a peep.”
“Good,” Dwain said. “I’m beginning to feel a lot better about this. We might as well cut our losses. We’ll at least get the mouse’s trust account, which you haven’t been able to get your hands on—just the quarterly stipend for her care.
“But once Freddy becomes her husband, he’ll have control of her fortune,” right Jal?”
“Right! And we’ll have control of Freddy,” said Jalenta with a satisfied grin. “I have a stack of his vowels.”
“I was impressed that you were able to get the information about their plans for Gretna Green, Dwain,” said Jalenta. “How did you manage that?”
“I bribed a footman—the newest one there, to eavesdrop. I had to tell him how to eavesdrop, the twerp!”
“Well done, Dwain!” said Jalenta.
“That’s the first time you complement me,” he said.
“Compliment,” Jalenta corrected.
“Whatever. It’s the first, anyhow. You should do it more often.”
When his sister said nothing and shook her head, he asked:
“Did Freddy get the two men from Seven Dials that are going to help him?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jalenta with a wide smile, “And I can tell, you, Dwain, I wouldn’t want to meet those two in an alley!”
“I feel good about everything now, Jal,” said Dwain. “And I’m so glad you’re up and about. I don’t like it when you can’t give the orders.”
Chapter 28
“What’s the matter,” asked Dwain.
“They’ve sent me a note, saying Lydia has a cold and will not be attending the Malving ball.
“How strange, that just when I had recovered from my stomach ailing and had sent them a message that I would attend the ball and would chaperone Lydia again, she becomes ill!”
“Can’t you tell them you want Lydia to spend the night here, at her home, so you can take care of her while she recovers from her cold?”
“No. They wouldn’t agree—not with that court order.”
“What are we to do?” Dwain asked.
Jalenta could see he was at a loss, starting to fidget at the upset of their plans. She shook her head. He could only function with simple plans. Anything a bit complicated threw him off.
He was a good sounding board but not much else. She had to decide everything.
“Freddy has things set for tonight, Jal! What are we going to do?”
“I think this thing about Lydia having a cold is just a ploy,” said Jalenta—a trick. I have a suspicion they’ve made plans to head to Gretna Green.”
“Go over there, Dwain, and try to talk to that footman again. Take this purse,” she added, handing him a small sack.
“There are a few coins here. If you can’t find the footman find a maid to give you information.”
“All right,” said Dwain, “I’ll be back soon.”
“Take enough time to do the job right,” Jalenta instructed him. “Don’t try to hurry anything.
“You understand what I said,” she asked at the door, as he prepared to leave.
“Yes,” Dwain agreed meekly. “I’ll do it just like you want it.”
Jalenta was now able to walk around her bedroom, so she paced back and forth for a while once Dwain was gone, a worried frown on her face.
Finally, she settled down to read a newspaper on her bed.
But she was extremely nervous, she read paragraphs over and over, her mind elsewhere.
After an hour had gone by, she got up and paced again, mumbling to herself as to whether Dwain would do things to her liking.
After more than three hours, Dwain finally returned.
“Tell me quick,” the woman almost screamed at him.
“You were right, Jal,” he said with a smirk. “They’re leaving tomorrow night under cover of darkness, headed toward Gretna Green: Lydia, her aunt, Lady Sandvel, and a lady’s maid.
“Just as I thought,” Jalenta exclaimed, her voice brittle. “They just wanted us to think Lydia had a cold so we couldn’t keep an eye on her.
“They must have changed their plans when you told th
em you were well enough to chaperone her again, Jal.”
“You’re sure of this, Dwain?”
“Yes, I’m sure, Jalenta. Ask Freddy if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” Jalenta replied and asked: “Is Freddy near?”
“Yes. He and some fellow that’s going to help him are waiting in The Blue and White Bear and—”
“Where’s that at?” interrupted Jalenta.
“In Seven Dials. I can go get them in a hack in no time at all.”
“Go get them, then. We need for them to watch the front and back entrance of the townhouse.
“Wait! I think we’re going to need two more men as outriders. Ask Freddy to get them.
“There must be some of his cronies over there who hang around Seven Dials who are in hock with vowels to the place, just as he is.”
“Two more, Jal? You got the brunt for it? It’ll get expensive.”
“That man is stealing our income from us, Dwain!” Jalenta stood up from where she was sitting, her face aflame with nerves and anger.
“I’ve been saving for years for just such an emergency!”
“All right, all right, settle down, Jal, no use getting all riled up.”
Dwain was alarmed at how enraged Jalenta had become and glad the rage wasn’t directed at him.
“Go on, go get Freddy,” Jalenta yelled. “I want to talk to him in person once he gets the men to agree. You got that?”
“Yes, Jal,” said Dwain. “I’m on my way!” Dwain was perspiring heavily. He had not done anything that required such exertion ever in his life. His heart thumped alarmingly.
He cursed Jalenta under his breath for putting him in such a position. What if they got caught? Where would he be then?
But Jalenta had assured him they would not get caught, and Jalenta was always right.
Chapter 29
Hiding behind a hill at a curb on the Great North Road, twenty miles before reaching the town of Gretna Green, Freddy Dale Panky, Dwain, and Freddy’s six-men band waited for the earl’s carriage. Through the bribing of servants Freddy had been alerted that the carriage was light blue and that it had the earl’s crest on both sides. Also, that it had two outriders trailing it.
Perspiring heavily, Dwain locked his glance on Freddy’s eyes. He was struggling to contain the tremors on his body and forced himself to look at Freddy, for the order Freddy had told him to look out for.
Finally, Freddy nodded with great satisfaction and gave the loud order to attack.
Cutting through the dusk of approaching night, Freddy’s seven men galloped downhill, raising dust toward the carriage that stood out in the bright dusk with its four lamps.
The men were yelling at the top of their lungs as they reached the carriage and dismounted raising dust all around.
They circled the carriage and waited amid yells and confusion. Freddy then opened the carriage door from one side and Dwain opened the opposite door.
They stared at the two women inside the carriage and then at each other.
The “women” were dummies made of cloth!
For a few seconds, Dwain had felt that they could win. That Freddy could pull this off.
Just for a few seconds.
The sound of galloping horses going downhill towards them did not surprise him. All his life he had waited for the galloping horses to appear, as in his recurring dream.
He just never thought the horses would be galloping toward him so soon.
“Returning from Gretna Green through another route makes me feel more at ease, Simon,” said Lydia, “Even though we have four outriders.”
“How well you planned it, darling,” she added. Our aunts and uncles are on the way back to London and we are on our way to our honeymoon in Rome and Venice, from Liverpool—right?
“Right.”Simon laughed with great satisfaction.
“I’m just sorry we weren’t there to see their surprised faces when they stopped my carriage and found out that ‘Lydia’ was only a dummy made up of my clothes,” said Lydia, “with a round cushion to pose as my head and a large hat to masquerade it.”
“And your ‘lady’s maid’, sitting opposite you in that carriage so that she may be seen through the small carriage window, was wearing a cap that covered the fact that her face was also made of cloth-covered cotton wads,” Simon added, laughing.
Lydia joined in his laughter.
“I’m so glad the ‘cloth ladies’ volunteered to pose as Aunt Julia, her maid, Pansy, and me,” she said.
“What a surprise it must have been for Jalenta’s cohorts when they stopped the carriage and attempted to kidnap me.”
“It was a clever slight-of-hand that you did when you transferred me to this carriage and substituted the ‘cloth’ ladies in the first change of horses.”
Simon chuckled and kissed Lydia’s cheek and gazed with love at her.
“It was a good plan you devised, Simon, to alert the servants to be on the lookout for anyone trying to bribe them.
“Yes,” agreed Simon. “That young footman I hired recently came to me the same day and disclosed their offer. I told him to agree to inform them and thereafter I fed them a spiel worthy of Drury Lane.”
“The Bond Street runners took Jalenta’s brother and the men Jalenta hired directly to the Magistrate, once the bandits tried to ‘kidnap’ the cloth ladies,” he added with a laugh.
“They stopped at Dwain’s house long enough to have the men pick up Jalenta for conspiracy to kidnap and for all her other crimes against you.
“The head runner told me Jalenta did not go easily, she struggled when they arrested her, flinging insults at them. They had to use force to restrain her.
“The Magistrate of the area has been alerted as to this gang’s shenanigans.”
“I’m glad,” Lydia said, sighing at Simon’s kiss, “It would have been satisfying to see their faces.”
“The Magistrate will add the other charges against them once Jalenta and her brother are secured.
“They’re not going to get away from punishment for the years of beatings they inflicted on you, darling, and the way they forced you to live, as a servant, while they lived off your income. I have collected quite a few declarations from past and present servants.”
“Also, Doctor Vending is going to testify as to your wounds from their beatings.”
“My runners have also located two maids that worked there before. They will testify to the punishment you were subjected to.”
“Jalenta and Dwain are going to find that life in gaol is like living in one of Dante’s circles of hell.
“They have no idea what awaits them.”
“You rescued me from one of those circles, my love,” said Lydia with tears filling up her eyes.
“Throughout my childhood, I knew no other kind of life.
“The sweet years with my parents faded against Jalenta and Dwain’s cruelty, and at times it seemed as if I had never known a moment of joy, except for the two occasions I spent time with my Aunt and Uncle Sandvel, who were cruelly denied contact with me.
“Only the fact that I was Jalenta’s present income and a promise of even larger riches to come when she married me to a man who would be in her pocket, saved me from a horrible fate.
“After Dwain’s second attempt on me, Jalenta moved me to a room with privacy and a lock on the door, which she secured for me. She advised me to keep the key in a place where Dwain could not get it.
“It was the only kind gesture I ever received from her, although kindness toward me was not her intent. She was protecting what she considered her property:
“She had realized she could lose her golden egg if she allowed Dwain access to me. That was the only reason I was saved from that horrible creature.”
“My life was a misery, Simon…until that day I looked into your eyes.”
“And I looked into yours, my love.”
Epilogue
“Venice is breath-taking,” Lydia said. “It’
s like walking into a painting—with those tones of rose-gold and azure and a scarlet so vivid it almost looks alive. It just cannot be described.
“I gasped the first instant I beheld it. I did not know a city could be so lovely at first glance.
“It’s just as beautiful as I remember it,” Simon said. “It never changes.”
“I knew you would love Venice, my darling,” he added. “The first time I saw you it was a similar experience to the first time I saw Venice. I was warmed by its beauty and innate goodness as I was warmed by yours.
“I knew then that there would never be anyone who could compare to you.”
Their driver-led gondola wove in and out of streets and under picturesque bridges. It lapped lazily over the blue and gold-reflecting water as their driver led them in and out of waterway streets.
They reached their hotel and the driver secured the gondola until they were all safely on the sidewalk.
“My lady,” said their nursemaid, Melina, as they walked into their hotel suite, “little Simon is wide-awake now. He was asking for ye.”
“Hand him to me, Mel,” Lydia said. “Is the baby still asleep?”
“Yes, my lady,” replied the maid. “She is very soothed by the sound of the lapping water.
“Maybe she will be a sailor,” Lydia said.
“Hopefully not,” said her father with a laugh. “You do say the craziest things, my love,” he said, kissing Lydia on the mouth as she held their son, who was a tiny replica of his father at the age of three.
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THE END
About the Author
Author Gloria Gay writes Regency and Regency time travel romances. Her most recent books can be found in Gloria’s Amazon Page.
Gloria and her husband Enrique, an architect, have three grown children and six grand-children and they are lucky to have them all living near them in San Diego, California.
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