Lois Menzel

by Ruled by Passion

  “You are right,” he said. “We will definitely be warmer this way. Now what diverting subject shall we discuss to wile away the night?”

  Chapter 18

  Tenbury wearily dismounted from Orion in the stable yard of the Blue Swan and walked inside. It was nearing two o’clock in the morning, yet the tap room was awash with light and a large fire burned on the hearth. As he placed his unlit lantern on one of the trestle tables, Weaks hurried in from the kitchen.

  “Shall I refill it for you, m’lord?”

  “Fill it if you like, but we won’t be going out again. We have searched the ditches where the reticule was found, even the nearby woods. We covered a good distance in both directions time and time again. There is no trace of them. I want you to draw me a map with all the public houses and as many of the farms and cottages as you can remember. At first light, we will start calling at them, starting with the ones closest to where we searched tonight.”

  “Perhaps you and your groom should eat something, m’lord, and sleep, to be better prepared for the morrow.”

  Both Murdock and Tenbury ingested some cold meat and bread, but when Murdock accepted the offer of a pallet near the kitchen fire, Tenbury refused to retire. He spent what remained of the night in the taproom, pacing the worn oaken floor before the hearth, stopping only occasionally to add another log to the fire.

  He had begun his search earlier with high hopes, convincing himself that Jack and Anne had simply been left afoot and that a diligent search would discover them. But after miles of searching and hours of calling, they had found nothing, no trace, nor had any sound answered them from the silence of the night woods.

  Now his weary mind thought back to Kimble’s information concerning the trunk the couple had taken with them. Tenbury supposed it could have contained the necessities for a journey. They could have departed in the curricle to allay suspicion, and then switched to a post chaise once they had won free of the city. There could be no denying a strong attraction existed between his brother and Miss Waverly.

  Yet despite the evidence in support of this theory, there was much about it that made no sense. Primarily, there was no need for this particular couple to even contemplate a run-away match. They were both of age; they could marry where and when they chose and needed no one’s permission or blessing. Secondly, such unconventional behavior was not typical of Jack. Another fact, perhaps trivial, was Tenbury’s feeling that even if Jack had eloped and switched at some point to a chaise, it was not his way to simply turn loose a team that his brother prized. Tenbury was certain that Jack would have arranged to have the horses properly returned to London. Finally, there was the blood on the curricle—a circumstance not easily explained.

  As the first blackness of night lifted in the east, Tenbury was convinced that with the new day he would find the missing couple. They would be in a farmhouse, a cottage, or a forester’s shed, somewhere …

  When it came time to leave, Tenbury reviewed the map Weaks had drawn, then he and Murdock walked together to the inn yard where their horses waited.

  Before dawn a light mist began falling. By the time they called at the first three farms on their map both the rain and the wind had increased. Neither man seemed to notice. Despite the cold rain slicing against their faces, they trotted their horses steadily on.

  They rode without speaking along a gently descending road. Trees crowded close on both sides. Such a wood normally reverberated with bird song at this time of day, but the chill rain had driven most of the birds to seek shelter. The full-throated chorus of a normal morning was limited to an occasional isolated twitter. A pond soon appeared on their right, where frogs emitted their monotonous call, undaunted by the wet morning. A thin layer of fog hovered three feet over the water, while the pond’s surface rippled with the impact of closely falling raindrops.

  As they passed the pond and rounded a bend in the road, they approached a crossroad. Set off to one side was a public house, the Boar’s Head. Leaving Murdock with the horses, Tenbury entered the small establishment and encountered a bearded landlord in the tap room. He immediately stated his business, as he had at his previous stops that morning.

  “I am searching for a young man—fair, twenty-four, and a young woman—dark-haired, tall, and thin. Have you seen such a couple?”

  “Well now, sir,” the proprietor replied slowly, scanning his tall aristocratic visitor from top to bottom. “It’s not my ‘abit to be givin’ information to any nob what ‘appens through my door—” He broke off suddenly and his eyebrows lifted with great interest as Tenbury tossed a golden guinea onto the counter between them. “Come in the middle o’ the night, they did, on foot,” he promptly offered. “Bone tired they was. I ‘ad number three empty, and like I told the lady, I could ‘ardly turn ‘er away.”

  Tenbury heard nothing beyond the room number. This had to be Jack and Anne. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise. He climbed the narrow stairs two at a time, hope putting a tired smile on his face.

  The numeral indicating room three appeared to have been carved into the wood with a knife. The door was neither locked nor bolted. It opened noisily on rusty hinges to reveal a tiny room under the thatch. A not particularly large bed occupied a space less than four feet from where he stood, and on the bed, cuddled together like two newborn hares in a nest, were his brother and Miss Waverly.

  Conscious of the landlord standing at the bottom of the stairs and gazing up at him, Tenbury stepped into the room. His budding relief at having found Jack and Anne did not survive the condition in which he discovered them. He had been prepared to find them tired, perhaps hungry, cold, or without money. He even knew that one of them could be wounded, perhaps seriously. He was not prepared, however, to find them intimately asleep in the same bed.

  The closing of the door, which Tenbury did with more force than was necessary, brought Jack instantly awake. He sat up suddenly, a movement that woke Anne as well.

  “Tenbury!” he exclaimed. “I knew you would come.”

  Tenbury stood immobile, appearing huge in the small room, his wet cloak dripping onto the floor at his feet. He neither smiled nor moved, but said, “Very pretty Jack, very pretty indeed.”

  Acutely aware of their extremely compromising situation, Anne sat back in the corner of the bed, closely gathering Jack’s cloak around her. Tenbury’s face was more stern than she had ever seen it. She struggled to explain. “We had not intended … we were talking … we needed to keep warm—”

  “I can explain everything, Nate,” Jack offered.

  “Later,” the earl replied. “I have paid your shot here. The coach will collect you in half an hour and convey you to the Blue Swan. I believe you will find that Kimble has sent anything you might need.” He tossed a small pouch of coins onto the bed beside his brother then turned and left. They heard his booted feet descend the stairs and the soft thud of hooves as he rode away.

  “Is he angry?” Anne asked.

  “I think it is safe to say that, yes.”

  “But why? We did not do anything wrong.”

  “You did nothing wrong, Anne. But I am very much at fault in this whole situation.”

  “You are not!” she insisted.

  “I am. I should have been more careful on the road, and I should have slept in the taproom last night or, at the very least, on the floor in here.”

  “It was too cold to do that.” Tears glazed her eyes and threatened to fall. “We were only being practical. Is that so wrong?”

  “Don’t cry,” he said. “I will make it right with Tenbury; I promise. We cannot undo what is done. We know what happened here last night—that is really all that matters. The coach will be here soon. Make yourself presentable while I try to find myself some boots.”

  When Anne and Jack had been conveyed from the squalor of the Boar’s Head to the relative luxury of the Blue Swan, Mr. Weaks’s short, spare wife stood just inside the door to receive them. If this good woman had any misgivings about the st
range goings on of the previous night, she had no intention of voicing them. When a customer was as free with his gold as Lord Tenbury was, she could show as little curiosity as an idiot and be quiet as a mute. Regardless of what she thought about the relationship between the lady and the two gentlemen, her natural sympathy was aroused by her first sight of Anne. With her hair loose and tangled and her dress crumpled and soiled, she was a sorry sight.

  “The maids are already carrying hot water for your bath, miss,” Mrs. Weaks said. “And your own maid is abovestairs awaiting you. I will show you up now, if you like.” Then turning to Jack she added, “His lordship would speak with you in the private parlor, sir. It be that door to your right.”

  As Mrs. Weaks turned away, Anne hesitated. “Should I come with you, Jack? If he is angry—” She broke off, conscious of the landlady waiting, hearing every word.

  “You go upstairs,” he reassured her. “I will talk to him alone.”

  She nodded and then smiled wearily as she turned away. The prospect of a hot bath was heavenly to contemplate, especially since she knew she was not prepared either physically or emotionally for a confrontation with the earl.

  Jack entered the private parlor to find his brother seated alone at a cloth covered table, eating.

  Tenbury glanced up as the door opened and asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “Ravenous.”

  “Sit then, and eat, and tell me what happened yesterday.” As Jack pulled out a chair, Tenbury noticed the bandaged wrist for the first time. In his shock at finding his brother and Miss Waverly sleeping together, he had completely forgotten the blood on the curricle. He pointed at the wrist with the knife in his hand. “Is that serious?”

  Jack shrugged. “It throbs. It’s not been properly cleaned.”

  Tenbury rang the table bell and Weaks himself appeared in the doorway. “Can I get you something more, m’lord?”

  “Have you a doctor nearby?”

  “There be one in the next village, sir. Shall I fetch him?”

  “Please do. My brother’s arm needs attention.”

  Weaks nodded and disappeared, while Jack took an empty plate and commenced piling it with sliced beef.

  While he ate and related the events of the robbery and the subsequent journey through the forest, Tenbury said nothing. His lack of comment struck Jack as severe criticism of his actions, and he finally departed from his methodical telling of details to declare, “I am sorry, Nate, but I did the best I could. Had I been alone, I would have simply followed the road to the nearest inn. But I could not trudge down the road with a woman. I dared not risk those fellows coming back. I had no way of knowing there would be miles of bloody thicket between us and the next road. Add to that the darkness and the cold—”

  “Jack—enough! I have not said I disapprove of your actions. I would probably have done the same thing under similar circumstances.”

  “What is it, then? You are sitting there like a statue, cold and silent. Is it how you found us? In the same room?”

  “In the same bed,” Tenbury corrected.

  “I can explain.”

  “So you said earlier.”

  “It seemed such a little thing after the struggle of our walk. We had found shelter for the night, and we were both cold. Anne thought if we sat together and shared the blankets we would be warmer, and she was right—we were. We planned to talk but—we were both exhausted …”

  “And that was all there was to it?”

  “What do you mean? You certainly don’t think I would take advantage of a situation like that? Nothing else happened. I respect Anne. I would never do anything to harm her.”

  “Yet your little adventure has compromised her.”

  “I am well aware of it, and I am prepared to make things right in that regard. I decided last night that I would ask Anne to marry me.”

  “Have you already done so?”

  “No. There was no appropriate moment.”

  “Would you ask her to marry you if the past twenty-four hours could be erased?”

  “If you are asking—are we in love and was I contemplating marriage?—the answer is no. We are close friends, no more than that.”

  “In that case, Jack, I am afraid I must take exception to this match. I cannot permit it, even assuming Miss Waverly would accept your proposal, which is not at all certain.”

  “You cannot interfere, Nate. It is a question of honor.”

  “I understand that. But I think you must also see that I am not willing to stand by idly while you offer for the woman I love.”

  “You? In love with Anne?” Jack said, his shock evident in both his face and his voice. “I would never have guessed it! The two of you are always so formal, so … Does she love you?”

  “There was a time when I believed she did, but we had a disagreement. Lately, as you remark, she has kept her distance.”

  “If you are in love with her, then you must have been ready to strangle me this morning when you walked in on us.”

  “Very nearly. I applaud myself for showing admirable restraint.”

  “I can see that this complicates matters,” Jack said.

  “Rather,” Tenbury agreed. “I had hoped that in time, Anne and I could come to an understanding, but now my hand is forced. I must make an offer today.”

  “Will you tell her how I feel? What I offered?”

  “I believe I must, yes. Though somehow I am hoping that I will ask, and she will accept, and there will be an end to it.”

  Some minutes later, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of the doctor. While the physician attended to Jack’s wrist, Tenbury observed his efforts with a critical eye.

  Cleansed by a hot bath and draped in a warm dressing gown, Anne felt much restored. Restless and anxious, she ate sparingly, then lay down at Cassie’s insistence and was soon lulled to sleep by the steady rhythm of raindrops on the roof overhead, a sound that from her earliest memories had soothed her. When she awoke nearly an hour later, she found Cassie bent over a trunk, extracting a gown of moss green muslin.

  “Cassie. Did I sleep?”

  “A bit, miss,” the girl replied, curtsying. “I was just about to wake you. His lordship means to travel today and wants us below stairs in thirty minutes.”

  Anne threw back the covers and rose immediately, her relief at being safe again causing her to make light of the previous day’s exertions and the shortness of her rest. She dressed quickly and allowed Cassie to arrange her hair. When she descended the steep stairs, Mrs. Weaks scarcely recognized her as the same wretched woman of a few hours earlier.

  “His lordship wants a word with you, miss. This way, if you please.”

  As they moved down the corridor Anne said, “I should like to thank you for your kindness.”

  “’Twas nothing, miss, I’m sure.”

  The landlady opened the door to the private parlor and Anne stepped inside. Tenbury stood before the fireplace, where several large logs crackled and hissed, driving away the dampness.

  Anne realized that Kimble had overlooked no detail when he dispatched the coach to Hounslow, for Lord Tenbury had also been transformed since the early morning. He wore a dark gray cutaway coat and waistcoat buttoned over a crisp white shirt and snowy cravat. Pristine breeches disappeared into top boots shiny enough to be used as a looking glass. He turned his head when she entered and smiled at her.

  “Your appearance is much improved since last I saw you,” he said as he indicated a bench near the fire. She walked to it, the smell of freshly baked bread making her realize she was still hungry.

  “I think the landlady barely knew me,” she remarked.

  “Quite likely,” he agreed. “Earlier you looked more like a ragged beggar than a lady of quality.”

  She feigned a look of outrage. “Perhaps I did. But how ungallant of you to say so, sir.”

  “Are you not the one who insists upon honesty in all things?” he challenged. “No half truths—no deceit?”

  Hi
s voice had gone in a moment from lightly teasing to deadly serious. She looked up to see him regarding her, his blue eyes penetrating.

  “Yes, certainly,” she replied. “Honesty in all things.”

  He sat beside her near the warmth of the fire. “Jack explained what happened. He regrets that you had to endure such hardship,” Tenbury said.

  “Mine was not nearly so difficult as his. I had shoes, and my feet for the most part stayed dry. Did he tell you that he carried me across a stream, walked through freezing water in stocking feet, just to secure for me some degree of comfort?”

  “No, he did not tell me that. But I am not surprised.”

  “Did he explain that our being on the bed together was my idea? He was on the floor to begin with, but if you had felt his feet, they were like ice, and I know his wrist must have pained him dreadfully, though he never complained. I insisted it was the only prudent thing to do.”

  Tenbury turned slightly and took her hands in his. “Your concern is touching, and I am certain there is no one who could find fault with your motives. Believe me, I understand.”

  “You looked very angry when you first found us.”

  “I was up all night. I was anxious for your safety. I apologize if my reaction overset you.”

  He raised one of her hands to his lips, and pressed a gentle kiss on it. “What happened to your wrist and your hands?” he asked as he turned them and held them palms up before him. The right wrist was discolored and swollen, while both hands were crisscrossed with long reddened scratches, some of which had raised welts.

  “When Jack dropped the pistol, I picked it up. The highwayman twisted my wrist until I dropped it. The scratches are from the brambles in the woods. In some places they were very thick, and even though Jack broke a path, I still had to fend them off.”

  He lowered his head and kissed each of the scratched hands, while his lips lingered even longer on the bruised wrist. It was an act so unexpected, she knew not how to react.