Peterson spoke. “Don’t blame yourself, John. You aren’t the first man who has been betrayed by his own family, and you won’t be the last. The question is, are you going to let Louis get away with it?”
“Absolutely not.” John ran through his options in his mind. “But I am going to let him believe that he has. I’m going to pretend to leave the country.”
Mallory placed her napkin beside her plate. “But how does that help us find Louis and your money?”
“It will make him careless,” John told her. “My uncle is not the smartest man. If he thinks he has won, then he’s going to do what he’s always done.”
“And what is that?” she asked.
“Spend money,” John said with a smile. “You met Louis once, Mallory, at our wedding. He’s shorter than my father and that day he wore a lime green silk jacket and red heeled shoes. The collar points on his shirt were starched so high, he could barely turn his head. Fortunately, he has developed better taste over the years.”
She shook her head. A very attractive blush stained her cheeks as she admitted, “I don’t recall meeting him. But then, my mind was on other matters that day.”
Suddenly John was curious to know exactly what “matters” had occupied her thoughts on their wedding day. Had she been against the marriage? Is that why she’d been drugged? Once he’d set his course, he hadn’t stopped to evaluate his action. He was certain she hadn’t taken his desertion in a flattering light.
“And how do you plan to pretend to leave the country?” Peterson asked, bringing John’s thought back to the moment.
“Mallory and I are going to hide.”
“Hide?” Mallory cried.
“It would be best,” Peterson told her. “If anyone sees either of you, you’ll be thrown into debtor’s prison.”
John continued outlining his plan. “You, Victor, will return to London and tell everyone that I’ve left for the Continent. No, wait! It would be best if you rode to Dover and purchased two tickets to Italy or Greece. That way, if anyone checks behind you, there will be evidence of our flight.”
“And then what?” Mallory asked.
“Then we wait for Louis to surface, nab him, and take him before a Magistrate,” John said.
“Just that simple, hmmm?” she asked.
“Just that simple,” John agreed with a smile.
Mallory held his eye. “I think it’s a ridiculous idea.”
John’s smile became a frown. “Why?”
“What if he doesn’t ‘surface’? We could be hiding for years!”
“He’ll surface.”
“And if he doesn’t in a reasonable amount of time?”
“Mallory, we won’t just be waiting. I’ll have Peterson organize a search. We’ll find Louis one way or another.”
“And with what will we manage all that?” she asked. “We barely have money for our dinner, let alone tickets from Dover to Italy, or paying men to search for your uncle.”
It gave John great pleasure to pull the velvet lined case out of the pocket of his coat jacket. He flipped up the lid, and the diamond neck collar spilled out onto the table. “Do you think this will cover our expenses?”
Peterson whistled under his breath. Mallory appeared speechless. She reached out and gently lifted the collar off the table. Her fingers held the stones up to the candlelight. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“And worth a fortune,” Peterson added.
“Unfortunately, nowhere close to ninety-eight thousand pounds,” John said.
Mallory tilted her head in his direction. “Do you always walk around with necklaces in your pocket?”
Now, John questioned the wisdom of showing her the bauble.
She held it out to him. “It would have looked lovely around Lady Ramsgate’s neck,” she said coolly.
“What makes you think it was for Lady Ramsgate?” he asked stiffly.
She smiled in reply, and John felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of her intelligent, all-too-knowing gaze.
Peterson cleared his voice. “If I may interrupt, I have an idea of where the two of you could hide.”
John turned to him, grateful for his intervention. He didn’t know how much longer he could have continued to hold out in a staring contest with his wife. “What is your idea?”
“I called on my mother yesterday before I rode down to London. She’s upset over the estrangement between me and my father and wants us to make our peace.”
“Will you?” John asked.
“No. I won’t forgive him for the things he said about Liana. My conversation with Mother was somewhat strained after I told her that. However, in the course of fishing around for a topic of discussion, she said they were still having trouble with my Uncle Bartholomew Woodruff and his management of an estate Father inherited six or seven years ago called Cardiff Hall. It’s in Sussex, and since our family seat and most of our holdings are in Hertfordshire, the place is a bit of a nuisance.”
“Go on,” John said.
“It’s not a very large estate,” Peterson said. “Uncle Bartholomew is a bit eccentric—nothing as sad as your Uncle Louis, of course. Bart tried the church, but he’d rather write bad poetry than preach sermons. Of course, he is no better a farmer than he is a poet. The estate is in terrible shape.”
Peterson pushed his chair away from the table. “Mother says, because of where the estate is located, our land agent wants nothing to do with it, but we can’t get rid of it. Otherwise, Bart will move in with my parents, something my father won’t tolerate. Mother believes the best solution is to hire a steward to manage the estate. She asked me to deliver this advertisement to the papers for such a position, but I didn’t get around to it.”
“I could be the new steward,” John said.
“Yes,” Peterson answered. “No one would search for you on a farm, John. Nor would it seem odd for the steward to have a wife.”
“You’re right,” John agreed, feeling a hum of excitement. “Furthermore, Sussex is close enough to London that once Louis makes an appearance, you can contact me immediately.”
“That’s what I thought,” Peterson agreed.
“There’s only one problem,” Mallory said, interrupting their discussion.
John threw himself back in his chair, letting his impatience show. “Of course,” he said under his breath.
She glared at him, but didn’t back down. “You don’t know anything about farming. Or do you?”
He smiled. Very deliberately, he took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed the back of her fingers before saying softly, “But I imagine you know a thing or two.”
She blinked. “You would take instruction from me?”
John felt a flash of irritation. “But of course.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing the expression on Mallory’s face change from haughty skepticism to dumbfounded amazement. She sat back in her chair. “Well. I suppose the plan might work.”
“Of course it will,” John assured her.
The three of them spent the next few minutes discussing details. John told Peterson to get in touch with his butler Richards. The former sergeant would fence the diamonds in the necklace for the best price. Peterson called the servant for paper and they set to work on drafting a suitable letter of introduction to Lord Bartholomew Woodruff.
John and Mallory would become Mr. and Mrs. John Dawson. The letter told the story of their confrontation with robbers, who’d stolen all their worldly goods, and of the Duke of Tyndale’s determination to help the young couple by offering them the position at Cardiff Hall.
“Smooth,” John said with satisfaction. “Your uncle won’t even think to question us.”
Peterson signed his own name, reasoning that his mother had given him permission to act on his parents’ behalf. He then left to buy John and Mallory a ticket on the morning post to Sussex, a two-and-a-half-hour journey.
John was thankful for his friend’s help. After he paid for the private room
and supper, he would have only two gold guineas to his name until Peterson sold the necklace. Enough, but by no means the fortune he was accustomed to.
“Is it possible I could write a letter to my mother and assure her that I will be all right?” Mallory asked.
“Of course,” John said. He handed her the ink bottle, pen, and paper. “Peterson will deliver it to her at the Red Horse Inn.”
While Mallory wrote, John rose from his chair and stretched his legs. He discovered that if he moved around the room a bit, he could stop and read over her shoulder without her being the wiser.
Her letter began in the standard manner. She urged her mother not to be alarmed and told her all was well. She then begged her mother to turn to Hal Thomas for protection.
Hal Thomas.
“Who’s Hal Thomas?” John asked, before he could stop himself.
She looked up with a puzzled frown that turned thunderous when she realized he’d been reading over her shoulder. She covered the letter with a protective arm. “He’s a friend of the family.”
“Is he the man who wants to marry you?”
She glared at him before saying a curt, “Yes.”
John grunted. She would be bold enough to admit it out loud. He ignored the fact that he’d asked her point blank. “Does he know anything about farming?”
“Of course. He’s the squire in our shire.”
“A squire?” John said the words as if he could taste them, and they tasted terrible. “You would leave me for a mere squire?”
“Yes.”
John threw himself down in the chair beside her. “And do you ever lose your temper with him?
She fidgeted with the pen. “John, what an odd question. Of course not.”
“Not even once?”
“No, and I’ve known Hal since childhood. He’s a very reasonable man.” She added sweetly, “I’m certain he will not walk around with necklaces in his pocket.”
With a frown, John got up from his chair and crossed to the room’s only window. He stared out into the night.
Mallory continued to work on the letter. She was probably adding some postscript to Hal, he thought with derision. Dear Hal, please rescue me from the rakehell I married.
In the reflection of the windowpane, he watched her carefully sand the letter, fold it and affix a wax seal. She looked so serene and graceful sitting in the golden candlelight that the thought struck him. She’s lovely.
More than just lovely. His child-bride was now a woman grown. He was tempted to cross the room to her, brush aside the heavy braid lying against the smooth column of her neck, and place a kiss right on the sensitive spot below her shell-shaped ear. But he stood, rooted to the earth.
He had a rival. Hal Thomas.
He’d never had a rival before.
And Peterson was right—he’d never pursued a woman. They’d always come to him.
Finished with her letter, Mallory pushed her chair back, the legs scraping the bare wood floor, and froze.
John stood by the window watching her, and for one moment, the hunger in his eyes held her mesmerized. No man had ever looked at her that way before.
Peterson’s entrance into the room broke the spell between them. “I have the tickets. The first post should be arriving within the hour. You’re lucky. Yours will be the first stage of the day.”
“Thank you,” John said. He walked over to the table and picked up her letter. “Will you see that this is delivered to Lady Craige at the Red Lion? It’s off Blackman Street.”
“I’d be more than happy to,” the major replied. Mallory looked for her reticule, wishing to give him a coin with which to use to tip the porter at the Red Horse, and then groaned.
“What is the matter?” John asked.
She sank down in the chair. “My reticule. It’s gone. I must have left it in your friend Hadley’s coach. I set it on the seat beside me when I took off my gloves.” She covered her face with her hand, heartsick at the loss.
“Don’t worry about it,” John told her. “In fact, don’t look back. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way.”
“Do you need any money?” Peterson asked.
“I’ve got two fat gold ones,” John answered. “They’ll keep us fine until we hear from you.”
Mallory stepped forward. “Major Peterson, thank you for all your help.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “Think nothing of it, Lady Craige.” He squeezed her hand lightly and added in a low voice, “Believe it or not, you married a good man.”
Mallory shifted, uncertain how to take his words. She was still mulling them over an hour later when she and John climbed onto the post to Sussex, beginning their new life together as “man and wife.”
Chapter 7
The trees they do grow high,
and the leaves they do grow green;
But the time is gone and past, my Love,
that you and I have seen.
It’s a cold winter’s night, my Love,
when you and I must abide alone.
“The Trees They Do Grow High”
Mallory woke to the sound of someone whistling a jaunty tune. She groaned. It was too early to wake up.
She curled over on her side and hugged the pillow—but it wasn’t a pillow she was hugging; it was a man’s doeskin-clad thigh.
A very hard, muscular thigh.
Startled, Mallory started to sit up and almost toppled off the back of the farmer’s hay wagon.
John caught her just in time, easily pulling her into his arms. “Did you have pleasant dreams?”
Memories came rushing back to her. After they’d been dropped off at the inn by the Sussex post, they’d begged a ride on the back of a farmer’s hay cart to Cardiff Hall. They could walk faster than the ox could pull the wagon, but John had reasoned that they needed to rest. He’d been right.
She pushed away. “Why couldn’t it all have been just an unpleasant dream?” Uncomfortably aware of how close she still sat to him, she scooted across the wagon bed to put a little more space between them, but it was very little. He had her trapped against the bowed rear of the wagon and the load of hay.
“Good morning, or afternoon, to you, too.”
Mallory shot him a discontented look before stretching to work the kinds out of her muscles.
It was a bright, sunny afternoon. Around them were low, rolling fields bordered by hedgerows.
Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Mallory reflected that the harvest in this part of the country would be a good one. Already, the fields of wheat were turning. Her fields at Craige Castle wouldn’t be ready to harvest for another six weeks.
Jacketless, John leaned back against the hay pile, one booted leg against the high side of the wagon, the other bent at the knee. His face, shadowed with the beginnings of a beard, was already turning a healthy color from the afternoon sun.
It wasn’t fair that he should appear so completely handsome while she felt as dirty and used as a dishcloth.
Mallory raised her hands to her face. “I wish I had my bonnet. I’m going to get more freckles.”
“I like freckles.”
“My mother assures me you are in the minority. May I have the brush?”
He pulled it from a pocket in his jacket lying beside him and Mallory unbraided her hair and brushed it out.
“You have pretty hair.”
Mallory shook her head. “It’s too brown.”
John pulled the piece of straw he’d been chewing out of his mouth. “Ah, but when the sunlight hits it, it is the color of rich toffee.”
“Toffee?” The word triggered a memory. “You like toffee, don’t you?”
He smiled, his teeth flashing white. “Yes, I do. How did you know that?”
Because for our wedding, your father told my mother that toffee was your favorite. Mallory and the cook had spent hours making toffee for him. It was also one of the few things he’d eaten that day. She wondered if he had any memories of their wedding day.
&nb
sp; “No reason,” she said. “You just look like you have a sweet tooth.” She rebraided her hair.
He started whistling again, the same tune he’d been whistling when she’d first awakened.
“Do you sing, too?” she asked archly.
He laughed. “No, I can’t carry a tune in a bucket with this gravelly voice of mine, but I like music. Do you?”
She tossed her braid over her shoulders. “I like to listen to good music.” She emphasized the last two words. It was childish of her, but she felt like being childish. What she’d really like would be hot water and a change of clothes.
He didn’t acknowledge her sarcasm. “I’ll bet you sing. Every young Lady of Quality must have some musical talent,” he said, as if quoting a source. “I imagine you have a lovely singing voice.”
“Mother insisted I learn the harp and take voice lessons, but I never enjoyed them. Besides, I never had time for nonsense like singing or painting,” she added righteously. “I had an estate to run.”
“There is always time for music.”
She focused her eyes on the toe of his expensively shod foot. His boots no longer sparkled with the shine of champagne blacking. “Not when you have responsibilities.”
He let his breath out slowly and she realized she’d struck a blow. She also heard how shrewish she sounded. She glanced at the farmer driving the wagon. He wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation but started at the ox’s rump, lost in his own thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m not at my best when I first wake.”
“No. You were right to say it. I just wonder what I can do to earn your forgiveness. Walk over hot coals? Cut off one of my arms? Bleed to death from the sharpness of your tongue?”
Mallory frowned, feeling a stab of guilt in the face of his justifiable anger. But she refused to back down. “See that Craige Castle is returned to me,” she answered coolly. “Its return will be penance enough.”
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