The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet

by Mary Balogh

  “Thank you.” She collapsed in a rather inelegant heap onto the nearest chair and reached for her bonnet ribbons. But no, it just could not be done. The offending monstrosity must remain where it was for a while longer.

  And then she realized another cause of her distress, which had been drowned out so far by the looks she had been given as she entered the inn. There were strong smells of cooking food in the air. Her stomach clenched involuntarily, and she swallowed convulsively. She drew her gloves off one at a time, holding her hands in her lap so that she could control their shaking. And then her stomach protested with a loud and deep and prolonged growl.

  “The horses will be changed here,” the gentleman said, not waiting for the room to grow silent again. “I wish to press on as far as possible until nightfall. I find travel somewhat tedious. Would you not agree, Miss Gray?”

  He was making an attempt to save her from embarrassment. She wondered if he knew she had lied about the large breakfast. She liked him. It was true that he was handsome and elegant and looked more than a little haughty and even bored, but he had been kind to her. It seemed such an age, an eternity, since anyone had been kind—or courteous. He had shown her courtesy despite her appearance and circumstances. She had almost forgotten what her own voice sounded like, except as she used it with the children during their lessons. But he had listened to her story and prompted her with questions and had seemed genuinely interested in her answers.

  And now he was going to buy her dinner and take her a little farther on her way.

  “Yes, I do, sir,” she said in answer to his question, and she smiled at him.

  His eyes dropped a fraction from hers. She had the feeling that he was looking at her dimple. Her dimple always embarrassed her. It seemed somehow childish. And Mrs. Burnaby had once told her she must bring it under control or else cease to smile at all. She had ceased to smile.

  He sat down on the chair opposite hers, the table between them. The door opened again at the same moment, and the innkeeper himself came in carrying a tray from which rose steam and a smell that set her stomach to clenching again. The innkeeper set a bowl of oxtail soup before each of them, and a basket of fresh rolls on the table between them.

  She swallowed and tested her hands in her lap, squeezing each in turn. Yes, the shaking had gone. She would be able to pick up her spoon and eat. She tried not to rush and waited for the gentleman to pick up his first.

  “Miss Gray,” he said as he did so, “do you have another name to go with the surname?”

  She stared at him for a moment, desperate though she was to eat. No one had used her name, her given name, for so long that she no longer thought of it as public property. It was her own, private to herself, as certain parts of her body were. But there was no impertinent familiarity in his manner. He was looking at her in polite inquiry. His gray eyes, she thought irrelevantly, were so light that they might almost be described as silver. They were keen and rather lovely eyes. She wondered briefly if he was married. How fortunate his wife was to have such a handsome and such a gentlemanly husband.

  “Stephanie,” she said.

  For a moment his eyes appeared to smile. She had noticed a similar expression a few times in the carriage as she talked.

  “Alistair Munro at your service, Miss Stephanie Gray,” he said and lifted his spoon to his mouth.

  She did likewise and immediately thought that the idea of swooning with ecstasy was not quite as silly a one as she had always thought it.

  “Ah,” he said. “A cook of indifferent skills. A pity.”

  She looked at him in surprise. Food had never tasted even half as good as this soup did—and as the rolls did when she tried one, though it was true that it was a trifle doughy in the center.

  “It is obvious, Mr. Munro,” she said in the sort of voice she had sometimes used on the children, “that you have never had to go hungry.”

  His spoon paused halfway between his mouth and his bowl, and his face became coldly haughty. Then he half smiled at her.

  “You are quite right,” he said. “For a moment, Miss Gray, you sounded far more like a governess than a, ah, an heiress.”

  She laughed. “I have not become at all accustomed to the knowledge that I am wealthy,” she said. She really had not. The reality of it still amazed her. She still expected to be able to pinch herself and wake up. “But I hope I will never cease to be grateful for my good fortune. I hope I will never squander my wealth or hoard it all selfishly to myself.”

  “Or complain about food that is indifferently prepared,” he said.

  She felt herself flushing. She had scolded him even though he was showing her incredible generosity.

  “One has a right to an opinion,” she said. “You are paying for my meal, sir. Perhaps that gives you a right to complain about your own.”

  The innkeeper returned with two plates piled with hefty portions of steak and kidney pie and with potatoes and vegetables. He removed their empty soup bowls and bowed himself out of the room. If she could only eat every mouthful of the dinner, Stephanie thought, it would surely fortify her for the rest of today and even tomorrow.

  “And what do you plan to do with your riches, Miss Gray?” Mr. Munro asked. “Perform philanthropic good deeds for the rest of your life?”

  She had a thought, suddenly. She flashed him a smile of bright amusement and noticed that his eyes stayed on her face even though he had already taken up his knife and fork.

  “What I should do,” she said, leaning slightly toward him, “is offer you a large sum to take me all the way to Hampshire. To be paid after I have been safely delivered, of course, since I am unable to pay in advance.”

  She was instantly sorry that she had spoken. It had been meant as a joke, of course. But he looked at her so intently and so haughtily, his eyes roaming her face and moving upward so that she was reminded of the ridiculous bonnet, which she never had taken off—she almost squirmed. She had been a mouse for so long a time. Was it possible that she had actually suggested something so very brazen and improper even as a joke?

  “And are you offering, Miss Gray?” he asked.

  He was undoubtedly a wealthy man. He must be hugely offended.

  “No.” She laughed again. “It was a joke, sir. No, of course not.”

  “Of course not,” he repeated quietly, and then unexpectedly his eyes had that half-amused expression again. “But you have not told me of the advantageous match.”

  She wished she had not mentioned it to him in the carriage. He had been wonderfully polite and kind, listening to her story when it could be of no interest whatsoever to him. And yet she had never been much of a talker, even when she had lived at home with her parents. Certainly she had never talked on and on about herself. She had always been too conscious of the fact that she must be of no particular interest to anyone except herself. And marriage she knew was a subject that fascinated women far more than it did men. Mr. Munro could not really wish to hear about hers. He was just being polite again.

  “You would not really wish to hear about it, sir,” she said. “I must have bored you dreadfully in the carriage with the other details of my story.”

  “On the contrary, Miss Gray.” When he raised his eyebrows, he looked downright arrogant, she thought. “You have saved me from a few hours of dreadful tedium. I will feel cheated if I do not hear about the advantageous match.”

  She chewed on a mouthful of pie. He was the complete gentleman, it seemed. He knew how to listen and appeared genuinely interested. She liked him a great deal despite his general air of lofty grandeur. Had she seen him from afar in other circumstances, at Mr. Burnaby’s, for example—though she could not quite imagine him as a participant in any of Mr. Burnaby’s rowdy gatherings—she would have disliked him on sight, seeing him as cold and arrogant and insufferably high in the instep. How looks could deceive!

  “I am to be married,” she said, “within four months. Actually, it was six months. That was what my grandfather stated
in his will. But it took them two months to find me.”

  Mr. Munro pursed his lips. “Let me guess,” he said. “You inherit from your grandfather only on condition that you marry within six months of his death. Otherwise the inheritance will pass to someone else.”

  How had he guessed? She nodded.

  “To a distant relative?” he asked, his voice quietly sympathetic. “There always seems to be a distant relative waiting in the wings to seize one’s property at the first glimmering of an opportunity—usually a wicked distant relative.”

  “I do not know him,” she said. “I know none of Mama’s family. But I doubt he is wicked. Very few people are in reality, you know. Only in fairy tales or Gothic stories. Most of us are a bewildering mixture of near-goodness and near-badness.”

  “But usually one of the two predominates,” he said, smiling and revealing himself as a man who was purely handsome with the layers of aloof pride stripped away. “And who is the fortunate bridegroom?”

  “Actually,” she said, “my grandfather’s will did not state who he must be. After all, I might have been married already, might I not? I am six-and-twenty, you see. All he did state was that I must be married within six months, and that if I was not already married before his death, my choice must be approved by both his solicitor and his nephew on my grandmother’s side. The nephew apparently has a nephew of his own who is prepared to marry me. He is a man of substance and impeccable reputation and has not yet passed his fortieth birthday. I suppose I will have him. I will not have a great deal of time to find someone of my own choosing, will I?”

  She smiled. In truth, she was somewhat elated at the prospect of marrying, even though she had not yet met the man and knew about him only what her grandfather’s solicitor had written. All she had ever really dreamed of achieving in life was marriage and a home and a family. She had ached for all three since her father died when she was twenty. For six years she had lived a life of loneliness and invisibility as a governess. She had long ago given up the dream and adjusted her expectations. She was to be a spinster for life. All she could hope for was a post someday that would give her more satisfaction and that would bolster her self-esteem better than the first.

  Yet, now suddenly she was wealthy and independent, and would remain so, provided she married soon. It was no difficult condition. Indeed, the prospect of being married lifted her spirits even more than the wealth and the independence did—both would pass into her husband’s hands once she was married anyway. It was true, perhaps, that she would have liked to choose her own husband. It was true that deep within that original dream had been the hope that she would marry for love as her parents had. But this was the real world. In reality many people—most people—married for reasons other than love. And most marriages were to a greater or lesser degree arranged.

  Mr. Munro had finished his dinner—he had eaten everything on his plate. He set his napkin on the table and leaned back in his chair. “You would cheerfully enter into an arranged marriage?” he asked. “When for twenty-six years you have preserved your independence?”

  Ah, he had a man’s blindness to some of the more bitter realities of life for a woman.

  “I believe that marriage, sir, even an arranged marriage, is preferable to a life of independence as a governess,” she said.

  His eyes gazed deeply into hers. “Of course,” he said, his voice sympathetic. His eyes looked above her head to the gaudy plumes of her bonnet. “But do you not dream of a love match, Miss Gray?”

  “Dreams have no part to play in the waking world, sir,” she said. “Besides, love can grow where there is respect to begin with. Or if not love, then at least companionship and affection.”

  “A life without dreams,” he said so quietly that it seemed he was talking to himself more than to her. “Ah, yes, it is a lesson one learns with the experience of years, is it not? Have all your dreams been destroyed, Miss Gray?”

  “If they have,” she said, “I have not allowed their destruction also to destroy me, sir. There is always some satisfaction to be drawn from life. And there is always the future and always hope, even if there are not dreams.”

  “And yet,” he said, looking fully into her eyes again, the half smile back in his, “some of your dreams—or perhaps they seemed too impossible even to be dreams—must have come true for you recently.”

  “Yes, indeed,” she said. “My point is proved, you see.”

  “If you have finished,” he said, “we should be on our way. I hope to be considerably closer to London before nightfall forces me to stop.”

  She had been unable to finish everything on her plate, much to her regret. She knew that even before the day was out she would look back with longing on the abandoned food, but she could hardly ask the innkeeper if he would wrap it up for her so that she might take it with her. She got to her feet.

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “It is kind of you to be willing to take me on to the next village.”

  “It is my pleasure, Miss Gray,” he said. “We will while away the time in conversation. You must tell me about your life as a governess. Did you have just one charge or several? Were they eager to learn? What did you teach? Did you have influence over the formation of their characters as well as their minds? I shall be interested in hearing what you have to say.”

  He looked interested—almost amused. She could not imagine why he would be interested except that he was kind despite appearances, and he was a gentleman. And of course it would be very embarrassing to occupy the confined space of a carriage together if they had nothing to say to each other. She would talk to him, then. She was finding it strangely exhilarating to tell someone about her life and her good fortune. The telling was helping her forget the ill fortune of the day before—and of the night. And somehow it helped her to regain the identity she had submerged six years before in order to make her fate as a governess bearable.

  She smiled and preceded Mr. Munro through the door. But the smile quickly faded. She had to walk the gauntlet of insolently staring guests and servants again in order to reach the haven of the waiting carriage.

  She regretted the loss of her gray cloak and bonnet perhaps more than that of her valise. And she marveled at the respect Mr. Munro showed her. He was the only one.

  HE COULD NOT quite make up his mind about her. What was she, exactly? An actress? She was certainly able to play a part. Sometimes she spoke so earnestly about her prospects and about her past life that he was almost convinced. But then she would flash him that smile, and his insides would turn over before he could catch himself. She must never lack for male admirers and protectors. It was difficult not to be drawn by the practiced mixture of innocence and artlessness on the one hand and the bright invitation of her eyes and her smile—and her dimple—on the other. And there was her beauty, of course. She was extremely pretty, despite the bright clothes, which if she only knew it, detracted from rather than enhanced her beauty. He would love to see her hair without the bonnet and without the pins.

  Or was she merely an adventuress, setting out for the south, where she expected life to be more lively and more lucrative? Had she dressed this way on the mistaken assumption that she would look more fashionable? Or had she come north with a protector who had abandoned her? That was the interpretation he rather favored. But why would any man abandon her in the middle of nowhere? What had she done to displease?

  She was clearly in search of another protector; there was no doubt about that. Her invitation to him to take her all the way to Hampshire and be paid after she was safely delivered there had been artfully done, but she had used every weapon in her considerable arsenal before withdrawing and pretending that it had all been a joke.

  He was half inclined to take her up on her offer. She sat now on the seat opposite him, her head turned so that she could gaze through the window, though she was occasionally dozing. She had stopped talking, and he had stopped asking questions just for the amusement of discovering how inventive she could be
. They had passed through several villages since they had stopped for a meal. At the first she had looked inquiringly at him and sat forward in her seat. Since then she had almost visibly held her breath every time a cluster of buildings appeared through the carriage windows.

  Soon he must stop for the night. The landscape was growing gray with dusk. He could not quite decide what to do about her, Miss Stephanie Gray. She must have regretted the very dull surname she had given herself and had made up for it with the Christian name. Should he let her down and forget about her? Give her some money, maybe, so that if she was serious about going to Hampshire, she could take herself there on a stagecoach? Or should he keep her with him?

  He was surprised and somewhat alarmed at the tightening in the groin he felt at the latter thought. He always chose his bedfellows with meticulous care—never as the result of a simple flaring of lust. But it had been a long time. And she was both pretty and attractive—and willing. Doubtless she would be delighted to provide him with a couple of nights of pleasure in exchange for a ride to wherever she was going and food along the way. And a bed in which to sleep even if she must work first in order to earn that sleep. Not that he would make the work unpleasant for her. He liked to pleasure the women who pleasured him.

  But she was a stranger with vulgar appearance and refined tongue. And she was the most accomplished liar it had ever been his privilege to encounter. Some other man had recently abandoned her for offenses unknown.

  It would be better to set her down and give her money—and sleep alone.

  And then her head jerked forward with such force that it brought her whole body with it. He had to lunge with both hands in order to save her from falling right off the seat.

  “Oh.” She looked up at him with blank eyes from a pale face. He kept his hands on her upper arms until awareness came back into her eyes and she sat up and leaned back again. “I am so sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”