“I doubt I will be given the chance. He would likely be rejoicing in his escape, if that wasn’t a waste of time that could be better spent thinking of important matters. I was never more to him than an item on one of his wretched lists.”
Chapter Three
‡
Robina would have been surprised to know that Wyatt dwelt on his rejection all the way home. Having steeled himself to propose, he was mildly miffed that he remained unbetrothed. Failure was always abhorrent, but in politics, particularly in opposition, one became inured to it. On the other hand, in politics failure was only temporary. One merely came up with a different means to the same goal. In this case, he couldn’t see an alternative, unless he abducted Robina and compromised her so that she had to accept him. Such a dishonorable method was quite out of the question. Moreover, being a thoroughly reasonable man, he could understand that she didn’t wish to live with him for the rest of her life. He didn’t want her, either.
He didn’t want a wife, and now he need not have one. The special license and the half-written letter to his grandfather announcing his engagement would go to waste, but in terms of the efficiency of his life, Robina’s refusal was a net benefit. Also, he had the rest of the morning free.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon, my lord,” his secretary said from his desk in the corner of the book room. Thank goodness he hadn’t shared his intentions with Trumble. “You have a letter from the Bishop of Salisbury about the Church Buildings Act and asking if you could meet the committee on December the eighteenth. You didn’t tell me when you intend to leave for Christmas at Bourton.”
“The seventeenth,” he replied firmly. There were bounds to everyone’s sense of duty, and involving himself in the affairs of the Church and its most boring bishop was where he reached his. Then he thought about three weeks in the freezing corridors of Bourton Hall in December, catering to his increasingly irascible grandfather, without a bride to keep him company or to warm his bed at night.
Robina had looked very pretty this morning. Anger suited her, brightening her complexion and making her eyes glow.
But he wasn’t going to marry. Ever. He didn’t have time, and there were plenty of male cousins with male children to eventually inherit the earldom. Speaking of which…
“I’d better answer Sybilla Herbert’s letter.”
Trumble located the missive, likely aided by the scent of attar of violet that permeated the lady’s person and correspondence. Wyatt held it gingerly by one corner, as far from his nose as would allow him to decipher Sybilla’s curlicued script.
He’d always thought his second cousin Ernest’s widow a very silly woman, and this letter did nothing to alter his opinion. Three months ago, he’d taken over the guardianship of her four sons, the eldest of whom would now be his heir, and so far he’d been called upon only to make routine decisions regarding the trusteeship of the children’s funds. Now his presence was required to consult their mother about…something. Sybilla could wander around a point for days without ever hitting it.
He’d better do it, he supposed. Dinfield Park, Ernest’s house, was in Nottinghamshire and on his route north. He’d stop there a day or two before proceeding on to Yorkshire for Christmas. He’d never been much interested in seasonal celebrations, regarding holidays as something to be enjoyed by those who had nothing better to do. Nonetheless, the thought of a cheerless Yuletide at Bourton, sharing Christmas dinner with no one but his grandfather, made him feel depressed.
Which was ridiculous and unnecessary.
*
Traveling in winter was never agreeable, even on the Great North Road. Wyatt preferred to go post, for speed and convenience, and by the time he reached Stamford, he elected to spend the night at an inn and conclude his journey to Nottinghamshire by daylight. Thoroughly jounced on wet, rutted roads, he entered the elegant confines of Dinfield Park with a good deal more pleasure and less trepidation than he would normally feel.
Sybilla Herbert looked at least ten years younger than her thirty-seven years, and she knew it. Always well-dressed, her light gray gown trimmed with pinkish-purplish things flattered her excellent figure. Widowed just under a year, she had taken an expansive approach to the confines of mourning. As far as Wyatt was concerned—and he wasn’t a man to pay much attention to the details of the feminine toilette—she could have been any fashionable London matron. Which was exactly what she had been before her husband’s demise sent her into retirement on the estate now owned by her eldest son, Ernest, known as Nolly.
“Dear Carbury.” She greeted him in her parlor with outstretched hands. “I am so glad to see you. You shall tell me what to do, and I can stop worrying.” It was such a pleasant change from Miss Robina Weston’s lack of respect for his advice that he kissed her hand and got a mouthful of lace. Her fingers were covered with the most idiotic mittens he’d ever seen. “Come and sit down and let me ring for wine. You must be tired and cold. Winter always has a dreadful effect on my spirits. I am quite downcast.”
She didn’t seem downcast now, and Wyatt warmed at her flattery, her attention, the blazing fire that dispelled the December damp, and her excellent Madeira. They sat for a while, speaking of London news. He disappointed her by knowing fewer details of the latest ton scandals than she did, but she listened with almost convincing interest and very little comprehension to the political gossip.
“What can I do for you, Sybilla?” he asked finally. “The change in guardianship has been completed, and I saw your banker before I left. There’s nothing amiss there.”
“It’s Nolly!” she exclaimed tragically. “He has fallen into low company, and you must save him.”
“The boy should be at Oxford,” he replied. “At seventeen, he must be bored to death at home and bound to get into mischief.” He did not add that there was plenty of mischief and low company to be had at university, which was the main point of attending if you were entirely without academic pretensions. The boy needed the freedom to explore such delights free from his clinging mama.
“I can’t do without him. I am accustomed to having a man about the house, and I could not manage his brothers without him.”
Wyatt frowned. “You can’t keep him here forever. A young man needs to see something of the world.”
Sybilla’s eyes glistened, and she blinked bravely. Wyatt recalled that his late cousin Ernest had been helpless before that look. “I cannot let him go now. Next year perhaps, if I am no longer alone.” She tilted her head coyly. She’s got a new suitor, he thought. Good. Let’s hope the man is sensible.
Never in the mood to hear sentimental tales of courtship, he ignored the opening. “What seems to be the problem now? Has he taken up gaming? If so, I’ll nip that in the bud by cutting off his allowance.”
“Worse!”
“What can be worse?”
“He’s in love with a scheming hussy, a low creature.”
“I daresay that’ll happen a few times before he grows up. Do the boy some good. It’s not as though he can marry her. Who is the girl?”
“Peg Wattles, the daughter of the innkeeper at The Duke’s Arms.”
“My dear Sybilla. No one could possibly fall in love with a girl with a name like that.” He stopped and thought about one of the (very few) indiscretions of his youth. “Not unless she is especially pretty. Does the girl have designs on him? I shall speak to her father, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“Thank you.” She leaned over and took one of his hands between both hers. “The boys need a father.”
“Indeed, they do. In the meantime, you may rely on me to take care of things.” He was a little disappointed. Such a simple problem could be solved in an hour or two, and he was committed to remain at least a couple of days before going on to Yorkshire. He’d caught up on all his correspondence before he left and felt very strange not to be busy. “How are the other boys?”
Johnnie, Toby, and George apparently were giving no trouble at all, excellent boys except
for an excess of energy that sometimes fatigued their mama, with the twins home for the holiday and George’s tutor gone to spend Christmas with his family. Their rude health and buoyant spirits were admirably displayed during dinner, a meal notable for the absence of the eldest son of the house. After the meal, to forestall any hysteria on Sybilla’s part, Wyatt announced that he would go to the inn now and see what Nolly was doing.
In need of exercise after days on the road, he elected to take a lantern and walk the mile into the village of Hopewell-on-Lyft. Picking his way briskly through patches of snow, Wyatt skirted the woods at the edge of the Dinfield estate and was greeted by the lights of the village.
The Duke’s Arms was a typical country inn, situated on the main road a little way past the bridge over the River Lyft. Inside, he was greeted by the obviously respectable landlord—not a man likely to risk his livelihood by encouraging his daughter to seduce members of the local gentry.
“Wattles, at your service, sir. Are you wishing for a room?”
“Thank you, no. I am Lord Carbury, staying over at Dinfield Park. I had heard young Mr. Herbert might be here.”
Wattles shook his head. “I haven’t seen him tonight, my lord, but he often stops in of an evening for a mug of my home-brewed. Will you take a seat by the fire and take off the chill while you wait for him? Our Peg’ll bring your ale, unless you prefer brandy.”
Carbury ensconced himself on a wooden settle in the taproom and awaited developments. In short order, a girl brought him a foaming tankard, curtsied, and asked him if he needed anything else. “That’s all,” he said. “Busy night?”
“A bit less than usual, sir,” she said. “I reckon the highwayman is keeping them home.” Her eyes shone in her pleasant, pink face. Peg was no beauty, but she had a friendly manner and a pretty smile. He could imagine a bored boy finding her a suitable object for his first infatuation.
“Highwayman?”
“Oh, yes, sir. The New Sheriff of Nottingham, they do call him. He’s robbed ever so many carriages this last week or so.”
After such a sensational revelation, it was going to take some tact to bring the subject around to Nolly. Though a measly challenge to his political skills, Wyatt was willing to undertake it when a hullabaloo of voices drifted in from the entrance. “The Sheriff has struck again!”
Chapter Four
‡
If anything would make a young woman regret turning down an offer from a rich man, it was three days on the stagecoach with another to go. It was almost a relief when, at some distance past Grantham, the coach lurched sideways, its wheel stuck in a frozen rut. Although still early afternoon, the coachman expressed his gloomy opinion that it was likely to be dark before help came and the vehicle was back on the road. Though chilly and damp, the kind of weather when drizzle or sleet might commence at any moment, Robina accepted an offer from a farmer to take the two female passengers in his cart as far as the inn at Hopewell-on-Lyft, where they could wait in warmth until the coach caught up with them.
Huddling on a pile of hay in her warm cloak, she tucked her chin into the swan’s-down tippet that was her godmother’s parting gift and enjoyed the clean air free from the odors of sweat and onions exuded by her fellow passengers on the stage. Lulled by the clip-clop of the cart horse’s hooves, she dwelt on visions of tea and soup and a fire. She could have traveled in a comfortable private chaise if she’d accepted Carbury. But he would have ordered her life to his convenience. That her querulous employer would do the same, without providing the benefit of luxurious transportation, she tried not to dwell on. As she counted her blessings that she wasn’t on foot, a cry interrupted her thoughts.
“Stand and deliver.” A bad day just got worse.
It didn’t take much for the horse to stand. The beast’s driver lowered his reins, and the cart jolted to a halt. “That’ll be the New Sheriff of Nottingham,” he said without any show of panic. “Give him your money, and he won’t harm you.”
Robina examined their assailant through the gloom. His face was hidden beneath a tricorn hat and a turned-up collar, but the metal of a small pistol gleamed in the fading daylight, trained on the farmer.
“I ain’t got nothing,” the latter said laconically. “Naught but a load of hay. No coin.”
The robber turned his pistol on a thin, nervous woman whose complaints had irritated Robina since she’d boarded the coach at Stamford. “Deliver your valuables, or I’ll shoot this old mort.”
“Give him everything. He’ll kill me,” the woman shrieked, and delivered. She tossed her purse over.
With regret, Robina abandoned a half-formed notion of distracting the fellow, who wasn’t very large. She couldn’t trust the driver to take advantage of the moment to take his whip to the thief. And the woman might be a ninny, but she didn’t deserve to be shot. Robina’s reticule joined the woman’s purse on the ground, and the highwayman, his pistol steady, scooped them up and stuffed them into the capacious pocket of his long coat. “Drive on now, and don’t look back. If you stop, I’ll shoot.”
The cart lumbered on, the woman wept, and the farmer said nothing. After a minute or two, Robina dared to turn her head and glimpsed the robber slipping off into the woods. Her heart sank. She was a day’s journey from her destination without a penny to her name to pay for food and lodgings. It had seemed wise to keep all her valuables—her money and the few pieces of jewelry inherited from her mother—in her reticule instead of her valise. Her bag was safely in the stagecoach, defended by an armed coachman, and she was now penniless. Stiffening her back, she refused to mourn the loss of her pearl brooch and coral necklace. She would not think about the way she’d whistled away a brilliant marriage, or her drab future. She needed to solve the immediate problem of how to quiet a stomach that hadn’t been fed since breakfast and was rumbling ominously.
According to the farmer, who became quite chatty, the picturesquely named New Sheriff of Nottingham had robbed a number of vehicles and was being sought, fruitlessly, by the authorities. Robina thought the man wouldn’t be relishing the tale if the thief had run off with his hay. By the time he pulled into the yard of The Duke’s Arms, she’d had enough of his tales and could barely summon the civility to thank him for the ride. Her apology for being unable to pay him bordered on the waspish.
The landlord rushed out to greet them, and Robina’s fellow passenger relapsed into even louder hysterics and described a massive brute of a man who had all but ravished them.
“Come, madam,” Robina said, putting an arm around her. “Calm yourself.” She urged her into the inn and managed to request tea over the shrieks, wondering how on earth they were to pay for it. Suddenly, she felt chilled to the bone and on the verge of joining her unwanted companion in a bout of tears. She’d set out bravely to make a life for herself without the charity of friends and relations, but her bid for independence had started poorly. Tantalizing smells wafted into the hall, spicy and delicious and reminding Robina that Christmas was almost upon them. It was possible that she would spend the holiday working off her debt in this inn in the middle of nowhere.
Plucking up courage to explain her plight to the landlord, she was scarcely aware of a door opening to her side.
“Robina?” Her first reaction to the familiar voice was disbelief, followed by heart-stopping joy and an urge to hurl herself into Carbury’s arms. “What on earth are you doing here?” He strode out looking handsome and disapproving.
“My cart was held up by a highwayman.”
“Your cart?”
“The stagecoach was stuck, so I accepted a ride in this farmer’s cart as far as the inn.”
If he’d expressed any concern for her ordeal, she might indeed have flung herself at him, an action he would doubtless regard as childish. He saved her from making a fool of herself. “You are going to Yorkshire for Christmas, I presume. I cannot believe that you were foolish enough to go alone on the stage, or that Mrs. Madsen permitted it. You should be traveling post, or
Edwin Weston should have sent his carriage. Really, Robina. I had more confidence in your common sense.”
Gathering tears of self-pity turned to rage. “My arrangements are none of your affair. I told you that you aren’t responsible for me. Neither do you have any right to criticize my conduct. Please go about your business. I must speak to the landlord about accommodation for the night.”
Even as she spoke, she knew she was a fool. Refusing to marry him was one thing. Brushing him off in her present plight was sheer pigheadedness. But his self-righteous arrogance made her want to scream.
He rolled right over her dismissal. Taking her arm with his usual deliberation, he attracted the attention of the landlord merely by looking Carburyish. “I need a vehicle, Wattles,” he said. “Anything will do, just as long as it will carry Miss Weston and me to Dinfield Park.”
“It would be most improper,” she said, trying to shake off his grip.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am staying with my cousin Mrs. Herbert.”
Her resistance weakened. “I can’t impose on her.”
“Sybilla will do as she is told.” Perhaps he realized this was high-handed, even for him. “She has a large house and will be delighted to welcome another guest. Where are your bags?”
“On the stagecoach. I can’t go without them.”
Not deigning to answer this objection, in a few efficient sentences he had commandeered the inn’s gig, arranged for her luggage to be retrieved and delivered to Dinfield, and ordered tea. The innkeeper bowed and scraped, agreed to every demand, and carried it out immediately. Carbury gave her two minutes to swallow her drink, then bundled her into the gig and giddy-upped the horse down the road.
“I’m sorry it’s an open vehicle, but I had to take what I could get. It’s barely a mile, which is why I walked over earlier. Are you cold?”
Softened, slightly, by his concern for her comfort, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. The awkwardness of being rescued by the man she’d turned down choked her. She was both grateful and humiliated, a noxious combination. He didn’t seem to notice her silence as he described his host’s family and assured her of her welcome. “It’s lucky for you I came up to visit my wards on the way to Yorkshire. If you had any sense, you would have asked me to escort you since we are going to the same place. You, my dear girl, need a keeper.”
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