How to Wed a Warrior

by Christy English

  Pru laid her head on his chest, sighed once more, and let him sleep.

  * * *

  Pru must have napped as well, for she woke an hour later, her heart pounding. In the first moment, she did not know where she was or why. Robbie’s bare chest was beneath her chin and she was hot from his body so close to hers in her borrowed bed. She looked around the room, lifting her head gingerly so as not to wake him. It was then she remembered that he had come to her room and that he was still there, and still naked.

  The clock on the mantel told her she had not slept long. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and rose slowly, gently tugging Robbie’s arm away from her waist. For one heartbeat, she was afraid that he was going to wake and tighten his grip on her, but he was deep enough asleep that he merely turned on his side and snuffled.

  She stood next to him for one long moment after she had climbed off the bed, tempted to wake him and argue with him again. She let the temptation pass, dressing herself quickly and silently in the breeches and shirt she had borrowed from Mary Elizabeth.

  She kissed him once before she left, high on his cheek, where hopefully the touch would not wake him. He stirred and murmured, but slept on. She knew that if she waited for morning, cooler heads would prevail. Catherine would cry and Mary Elizabeth would tell her to stay with them, and Alex and Robbie would ride off into danger alone. If they managed to rescue him, Bertie would disappear once more, knowing that she was safe with her new family. If she did not go to London now, she might never see Bertie again.

  If she could get far enough down the North Road heading toward London, once he caught up with her, Robbie would not take the time to bring her back again. He would accept that she must come to London. She knew he would.

  She moved to the dressing table and pinned her hair up, tucking it beneath a large wool cap that threatened repeatedly to fall over her eyes. She pushed it back on her forehead, and stood looking in the mirror for a moment.

  She looked like a fool. But perhaps the angels really did look after fools and children. She was banking on that, as she turned on her heel and went downstairs to steal a horse.

  * * *

  Robbie woke as dawn came in over the sound of the sea to find his Prudence gone. He stretched. Where would he have to run her to ground? Once they were married, she would not be able to sneak away from him.

  He was tempted to be disgruntled, but then he remembered the special license he had in his pocket. He would run her down and carry her to the first curate he could find, no matter what gown she was wearing.

  He whistled his way down to the breakfast room. When he found neither Mary Elizabeth nor Pru in there, eating as they should be, he strolled to the stables, only to find his sister facing off with the recluse duke, glaring at him like the Wrath of God.

  “Prudence Farthington is no thief!” Mary Elizabeth shouted.

  The duke answered her, as calm as you please, his white shirt and waistcoat pressed and neat. “And yet, my finest horse is missing, and she, too, is gone.”

  “Your horse? Your horse, is it? Just because you feed him oats does not make Sampson yours.”

  “And yet, my name on the bill of sale does.”

  “Excuse me,” Robbie said, trying to piece together some sense from their conversation, and failing. “May I ask, are you referring to my Lady Prudence?”

  “Yes, Robbie.” Mary Elizabeth turned her back on him dismissively, about to round on the duke again, but Robbie’s hand on her arm stopped her.

  “And she stole Sampson for a morning ride you say? Dear God, that horse will kill her.”

  “She did not steal him,” Mary Elizabeth repeated. “She borrowed him, which is a world of difference. I know the way she thinks. No doubt she’s gone to save her brother. She will return Sampson, right as rain, as soon as she comes back from London.”

  Robbie stopped caring that his sister was almost at fisticuffs with their host. His head reverberated with fear that was quickly turning to stark terror. Prudence was brave to the point of folly, she was half-mad, but surely even she would not attempt to ride alone along the North Road from Northumberland to London. She would not leave him flat.

  The ground swayed beneath his feet, and he felt unaccountably sick. Though a man of action, he found himself at a loss, floating in an uncharted sea. He could not seem to keep his wits about him or, indeed, even to find them. All he could think of was the sight of her, laid out under the boot of some highwayman before the bastard raped and murdered her.

  He felt a hand on his arm. He looked down at that hand, and then up at the man’s face, expecting to find his brother Alex beside him, as he had during every crisis in his life. But instead of Alex, the duke stood by him.

  “You’ll take my second fastest horse,” the man was saying. “He’s not as fast as Sampson, but then Sampson isn’t likely to run his fastest for a stranger. She only has a three-hour lead on you, at best. You’ll find her. The North Road only runs two ways.”

  The old saying made Robbie smile, for he had heard the same in Edinburgh when he was there. He blinked at the man beside him and finally spoke. “I thank you,” he said. “Your Grace might send a carriage behind me. Once I find her, we won’t be able to ride to London all the way on horseback.”

  “Consider it done. You’d best get on. You’re losing daylight.”

  Robbie mounted the horse a groom had brought as he tuned out the shouting from Mary Elizabeth behind him. It seemed she had not known until that moment that her stable-lad friend was a duke.

  * * *

  Robbie rode hard until he came across a fine inn along the roadside. It was a respectable, well-kept place, and Prudence was in the yard, eating a large breakfast of oatcakes and bacon.

  Prudence sat under a great oak tree, at a table by herself, a blanket drawn up over her knees and a fine repast before her. Robbie did not ask what she was doing or why she had stopped. He simply vaulted off his horse and stood looking at her, as if he would memorize her face.

  She finished a dram of her cider, then stood up, dropping her blanket to the ground. He saw then that she was wearing breeches, and he cursed, roundly and loudly for all the world to hear.

  “Robbie! Language, please! Mrs. Wilkes will hear you!”

  “And who in God’s name is Mrs. Wilkes?” he asked in an effort to think of something, of anything, other than turning her over his knee and tanning her hide in the middle of the inn yard. Robbie had never lifted his hand in violence to a woman, and he never would; inane questions would have to do to keep himself calm. It did not seem to be working, however. All he saw was red.

  “She is the innkeeper’s wife who gave me this lovely breakfast and this blanket to cover myself while I ate it. It seems I do not make a very good boy.”

  Robbie could not keep his eyes away from the curves of her hips and thighs in those breeches, and no other man alive would be able to, either. “I don’t give a fig for all that. You left me, Pru. How could you leave me behind?”

  “You were going to leave me. You said that you and Alex would be off to handle my brother.”

  “And so we will. The docks are no place for a woman.”

  “I won’t go to the docks,” Prudence said. “But I will go to London. We’ve taken up enough of the day already. We can’t linger here, or go back.”

  “We’ll linger here long enough to fetch a curate. I won’t spend another moment wondering if you’re going to run off on me.”

  They stood glaring at one another as a large coach with the arms of the Duke of Northumberland rolled into the inn yard.

  “So you’ll take me to London with you?” she asked when she saw the coach and four. Her face lit up like a sunrise, and for a moment, he was taken over by it, consumed by how he loved her. In her sweet face, he saw her loyalty and her bravery and the sheltered life that she had led that made her think that a woman m
ight traipse off alone without meeting her doom. He breathed deep and long, and let it out again slowly, and his temper with it. She had not fled because she didn’t love him. She had fled for love of her brother and had not counted the cost.

  He took her hand. “I’ll take you to London, and we’ll save your brother together,” he said. “But first, we will find a curate, and you will marry me.”

  “If you marry me, Mary Elizabeth will never find a decent husband among the English.”

  “There’s little danger of that in any case,” Robbie groused. He pulled Pru close and kissed her. She stayed by him, though he knew he had not won her yet. “But that is no matter now. Mary’s duke looks to be a fair way along the road to winning her,” Robbie said. “God help the bastard.”

  “Robbie, I don’t think you understand my family’s position. The earldom is gone, my brother is disgraced, and our name is hated everywhere. If you marry me, you’ll be cast out from all good society for the rest of your life, and your family with you. I cannot be responsible for that.”

  Robbie kissed her again, and this time he lingered at it until he felt her soften and press her body against his. He waited, and when she did not try to pull away from him again, he spoke.

  “Pru, I don’t give a flying goose what any English thinks of me. If they have something to say about you, or to you, they had best keep a civil tongue in their heads from now until the end of time, for you will be my wife, as soon as I can find a curate.”

  Just in that moment, the bells of the village church chimed ten o’clock. “And I think I know where to look,” Robbie said.

  Thirty-three

  Pru was amazed that Robbie was not angry with her after the stunt she’d pulled. But it seemed he understood her at least as well as she understood him, and knew that she had done what she must so that she might help her brother. Her plan had not a hitch in it, for Robbie had come to her, just as she’d hoped. She had not foreseen that he would not go another foot down the road without his ring on her finger, however.

  Her fear of the future and of all the pain she might cause his family had not fled. But Prudence had looked into the clear blue of his eyes and had seen that he meant what he said. Robert Waters of Glenderrin was a man who knew what he wanted, and he wanted her. After she dressed in one of the gowns Mary Elizabeth had packed for her and stowed in the ducal coach, she said a prayer of thanksgiving in the village chapel before Robbie came to meet her there.

  Robbie had acquired a bundle of roses tied in a pink ribbon that looked as if it had come from some woman’s hair. The ribbon matched the pink of the gown she wore, one of the new dresses Robbie had bought for her in London. When she caught sight of the pink against her skin in Mrs. Wilkes’s looking glass, she smiled at what she saw. The light rose made her look younger, and she was happy to have something more appropriate than her usual brown worsted to wear on her wedding day.

  So within the half hour, with the feeling that her past and all its sorrows were far behind her, Prudence Farthington of Lynwood Hall found herself standing before a curate with hedge roses in her hand and Robert Waters by her side. He had never officially bothered to ask for her hand, but as she said the vows before God and the curate, Pru decided that she would chastise Robbie later.

  The ceremony was quick, but the old words filled her heart with a kind of quiet joy. She felt truly transformed by them, so that when she signed the special marriage license with Robbie afterward, she already felt utterly and completely married.

  She mentioned this to her new husband after the curate left them alone in the sacristy.

  “You’d better feel married, for so you are. Never forget it.” Robbie kissed her, his hands wandering, and for a moment she found herself forgetting everything else but him. “We’ll marry again before a priest of the true church when we get home, if you have no objection.”

  Prudence was not troubled by that, for her father’s people had been Catholic all their lives, as far back as anyone could remember. “I’d marry you twice a day if you wish, Robbie,” she said.

  When they walked back to the inn, Mrs. Wilkes took away Pru’s wedding flowers and handed her a tankard. Pru sipped at it, knowing that they still had far to drive. She had no more news of Albert than she had yesterday, but she was married, and Robbie was with her, and that joy could not be dimmed by fear or sorrow.

  Robbie held her close as he helped her into the coach and whispered in her ear. “I knew I’d have you, and here you are.”

  “Here we are,” Pru said. “On the happiest day of my life, but one.”

  “And what other day might be better than this?”

  “The day you save my brother.”

  Robbie kissed her then, hard and fierce. “I will find your Albert, and I will save him. I swear it.”

  She felt comforted by that oath, and by his clear-eyed determination. She did not know how they would manage it, but they would. She was certain of it, just as she knew the sun would set that night and rise once more in the morning.

  “I love you, Robbie Waters.”

  She saw him blink, and for a moment, she thought her new husband might have teared up. But he was grinning at her as the carriage drew onto the North Road, his crooked smile warming her to her toes. “Aye, and of course you do. I’m a lovable man. All the girls say so.”

  She moved to slap him with her fan when he kissed her and drew her close, his face serious. “I love you, Prudence Waters. And I will make sure you don’t forget it.”

  * * *

  When they stopped to change horses, Robbie disappeared from the sitting room he’d procured for her and was gone a long while. She waited patiently, but was fairly jumping out of her skin by the time he came back.

  “I had to search this town from stem to stern, but I finally found what I was seeking.”

  “A livery stable?” Pru asked.

  “No, Mrs. Waters. A man who keeps birds.”

  Robbie offered her his arm and led her out through the taproom.

  “A man who keeps birds?” Pru asked absently, trying to keep from staring back at a woman who was glaring at her in the inn yard.

  “It seems to me your brother may be needing help long before we can get to London. I sent word by carrier pigeon to my brother’s people in Town. If Albert can be found, they will do it.”

  “You sent a message by bird?” Pru shot a glance past her husband’s shoulders and confirmed her suspicion. The woman was indeed frowning at her like thunder, whispering to her husband, who turned to stare at her as well. Prudence finally placed her as one of the ladies who had been a guest of the duchess, one of the many women who had hoped to foist her daughter off on the unsuspecting, recluse duke.

  Prudence felt her stomach flip, as she tried valiantly to listen to what Robbie was saying.

  “Aye. It’s unreliable, because the birds sometimes get eaten on their way. But I’ve sent three, all with the same message. It is a small thing, but it might make all the difference to your Albert.”

  At the mention of Prudence’s brother, the lady drew back, lifting her skirts as if some nastiness was spreading outward from where Prudence and Robbie stood. The lady raised her voice so that all in the inn yard might hear it, even as she blocked her daughter from stepping out of the family carriage.

  “No, my dear, this inn simply will not do. This place caters to all kinds of nefarious sorts. Were we to refresh ourselves here, even for an hour, we might find the horses stolen from their traces. No, indeed, we must move on.”

  Prudence felt the heat of her humiliation rise up from the ground. She felt her skin burn as if she had caught fire, and she wished fervently for one of her false widow’s veils to hide behind. For his part, Robbie had not seemed to hear a word of any of it, and simply handed Prudence into the ducal carriage, rapping on the roof to signal his readiness to depart.

  Prudence tried no
t to stare out of the window as they passed, but she could not tear her eyes away from the woman and her husband as they stared back at her with venom in their eyes. It had been years since she had been on the receiving end of such an insult, and she shook with it.

  She hid her face against Robbie’s shoulder so that he would not see her horror. He must have felt her shudder, however, for he pulled her close and kissed her temple. “Are you cold, Pru? Rest easy on my shoulder awhile. We’ll be in York before you know it.”

  Prudence did not answer him, but kept her head pillowed against him, feigning sleep.

  Thirty-four

  Robbie had not slept enough the night before. So with his sweet wife cuddled beside him, he let himself sleep the afternoon away. It was twilight when he woke again, one of the long, lazy gloamings of late summer that lasted almost all night in the North. He was not sure how long he had been asleep, but as the carriage drew to a stop outside some coaching inn, Prudence was still clinging to him like a limpet.

  “Well, then, wife, let’s go and find a bed and a hot dinner. No doubt this is a fancy inn, or the fancy coachman the duke is lending me never would have stopped here.”

  Not a word from his Pru, not even a small smile. She did take his arm, however, and let him lead her into the taproom. There was raucous darts game in play in the corner, but when the players got a glimpse of his wife in her new pink gown, they tipped their heads and lowered their voices. Prudence did not seem to notice, but stared off into space as if her wits had left her. Robbie began to think that he would prefer her glaring at him, and sniffing as she had on the day they met.

  He took her upstairs to the sitting room and bedroom he’d obtained for them. It was a neat room, with a fire laid on, and clean herbs strewn about the place in bowls that gave off the light scent of thyme and rosemary. Those scents made his stomach rumble, and he sent the serving girl downstairs for a roast chicken and whatever else she might bring up for their dinner.