by Fran Baker
Obedient to the tones of one obviously used to giving orders, the landlord scrambled to do as he was told. As the door clicked shut behind him, a babble of voices assaulted the baronet.
“What can you mean, Thomas?” Francie demanded.
“Sir, I beg you will cease to play your jests upon us,” Harvey stated sourly.
“Do you mean, Sir Thomas, that you do not wish to marry me?” Mary inquired.
“It is not that I would not wish to marry you,” Sir Thomas returned gallantly. “But the world takes a dim view of a man having more than one wife.”
“More than one . . .?” Mary’s bewilderment was abruptly transformed into a burst of joy. “Francie! Are you truly? Oh, that’s truly wondrous news! I am so happy!”
Mary streaked in a flurry of pink to her sister’s arms, where she was received with much laughter. “Yes, we are truly. I cannot quite think how it came about,” Francie said with a glowing glance at her new fiancé, “but I have agreed to marry Sir Thomas. And when we return to London, we shall convince Mama that you can marry only Mr. Harvey and no one else.”
“Ahem.” Sir Thomas coughed diffidently. Three pairs of eyes settled on him as he said in the voice of one making a confession, “I rather feel I should tell you, my dear, that we are not returning to London just yet.”
“What?” chimed all three voices in perfect harmony.
“It has occurred to me,” he explained as he drew off his gloves, “that we should, after all, continue northward.”
“Are you mad, sir?” Mr. Harvey inquired. “We cannot possibly place the ladies in such a scandalous position.”
“Of course we are not going north,” Francie said. “He is only funning.”
“I, for one, think the baronet is serious,” Mary interjected, “and I am quite willing to go onward. I don’t want Mama or Lord Rockhill or anyone putting a stop to my marriage!”
Sir Thomas held his gloves in one hand and looked at them at last. A wicked determination sparkled in his sapphire eyes. The curve of his mouth was charming, yet steadfast. “I do not think you need fear your mother’s rejection of Mr. Harvey for you, Mary. Nor her condemnation of our elopements.”
“I agree with you, Mr. Harvey,” Francie exclaimed. “He is quite, quite mad.”
Crossing with easy deliberation, Sir Thomas took up Francie’s right hand, turned it in his own, and lightly laid his lips on the inside of her wrist. “My lovely bride, do you think your mother a fool? Why is it, do you think, that she so often arranged for us to be alone?” With each question, he dropped another kiss upon the pulsing vein of her wrist, increasing its rate considerably. “Or that she wrote you as she did when I asked for Mary? Had you not wondered why she did not suffer the vapors this evening? And what, dear heart, did you think she meant when she directed me to settle this matter ‘once and for all’?”
“I—I—oh, Thomas, I cannot think—I can’t,” Francie floundered, curiously out of breath as she stared at the ebony waves bending over her wrist. Inhaling deeply, she made a valiant effort to finish. “It cannot be right for us to get married over the anvil. Think what people will say!”
“Hang the people!” Sir Thomas said with one last flick of his lips upon her now-furious pulse. He raised his head and commanded her eyes with his darkly glittering gaze. “I have been most . . . unfortunate, shall we say, in betrothments. I do not intend to chance another, Francie. We go on to Gretna Green.”
“B-but the school,” Francie faltered. In dismay, she heard the hiss of his breath and saw pain cloud his eyes. An anxious need to rid that hurt from him overwhelmed her.
“You can go back to your school or you can come with me,” he clipped out. “If you want to marry me, Francie, its on to Gretna Green tonight.”
The demand in both look and tone set Francie’s heart to fluttering wildly. Objections evaporated like morning mist. She nodded and felt a ridiculous rapture shoot through her.
“Do you know, I’ve long felt that Agnes is much better suited to running the school than I. She loves it as I never can. I shall give it to her as a . . . a wedding gift,” Francie pronounced.
She was rewarded with a brilliant flash of love in Sir Thomas’s eyes. Her skin tingled where his hand still circled her slim wrist, and she thought surely he must feel it. Two heavy raps upon the door broke the spell. Her wrist gained unwanted freedom as Sir Thomas straightened to face the landlord. Their carriage, they were solemnly informed, had been made ready.
“I must voice my protests to your outlandish scheme, sir!” said Harvey, standing his ground despite Mary’s insistent tugging on his sleeve. “A double elopement. Why, it passes all bounds!”
“I have ever been told, Mr. Harvey” stated the baronet, “that I am one to set my own bounds. Come, either stay and know you lost Mary to propriety, or join us and be happily wed. I will not delay further.” He cast his eyes over the features of his bride-to-be and added softly, “I cannot delay.”
To her disgust Francie blushed and trembled like the veriest miss fresh out of the schoolroom. She put out a hand to Mr. Harvey. “Frederick, we know you love Mary deeply, else you would not have begun this journey. If we go on together, we shall contrive to breeze through all that society may have to say.”
He seemed to hesitate, and suddenly Mary’s face took on the cast of Medusa. “Pray, do not continue to plead on my behalf, Francie. It is obvious to the least intelligence that Mr. Harvey does not hold that regard for me that would make a trip to Gretna Green of the least use.”
“Mary! How can you say so? Of course I have that—that regard for you!” protested Frederick.
“Ha!” she said, spurning his attempt to take her hand. “It is I who should beg pardon for importuning upon you, sir! I have dragged you here when your reluctance to wed me could not be more plain.” She whirled away from him to plant a tearful kiss upon Francie’s cheek. “Good luck, best of sisters! Do not, I beg you, worry about me. I shall contrive to return home.”
Her brave words faltered suspiciously. Mr. Harvey came up behind her with her name spilling from his lips, but before Mary could either accept or reject him, Sir Thomas took her chin and tilted it upward. He signaled Mr. Harvey away with his other hand, then used it to gently wipe away her flowing tears.
“You must consider very carefully what you are about, Mary. One injudicious word can bring a lifetime of misery. An argument that should never have been cost Francie and me three years of happiness. Do you want to suffer as we did? Think hard, child. You loved him enough to risk the scandal of elopement. Do you now wish to throw that away for a moment of pride?”
Her eyes glimmered up at him, her lips quivered. Very, very slowly, Mary shook her head.
“Darling,” Frederick Harvey whispered hoarsely from behind her. “You must know how I love you. But how shall I support you? Lord Rockhill shall surely release me from his employment once this story is out. You would be wed to a penniless, out-of-work secretary. It is not the sort of life I would wish for you, my love.”
“If that is all that has been forcing us to stand here for the past five minutes,” Sir Thomas said with a heavy sigh, “then for God’s sake, let’s not dally further. Harvey, I offer you a position at double—treble—your current salary, if you’ll just take the chit and marry her.”
He narrowly escaped having his neck fervently wreathed by a grateful Mary and his hand ardently wrung by her equally grateful fiancé. He did so by means of sweeping Francie within his arms and striding toward the door. Mr. Harvey was heard to utter one last word about impropriety as he and Mary followed them out.
“Hang the impropriety!” Sir Thomas declared loudly, causing the inn’s landlord to shake his head again.
“Hang the impropriety!” Francie echoed emphatically.
Their laughter carried softly on the night air.
Copyright © 2011 by Fran Baker
Electronically published in 2011 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.