The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  But then he seemed able to deal with any and every situation that occurred with unerring self-confidence, from petty thieves and amateur whipsters to eloping couples and driving a coach and four, not to mention giving orders to ostlers and innkeepers and making one and all jump to obey. He had been a thoughtful and agreeable travelling companion, when he was not grumbling at her for some misdemeanour or other. He had made an unbearable journey bearable, almost a pleasure.

  If he were to leave her, as he almost had at the last inn, she would feel bereft, as if her last ally had deserted her, which was absurd. They were strangers on a journey, thrown together by circumstance, never to meet again. And it was just as well, she told herself, she had lied to prevent him discovering who she really was. It had started as self-preservation, an unwillingness to divulge the reason for her journey, to admit that she was ashamed of her father and afraid of the future, but the future had to be faced.

  The journey would eventually come to an end. If Captain Blair was still with her when she reached Glasgow, he would see, perhaps speak to, whoever had been sent by her guardian to meet her and that would mean her deception would be uncovered. She had to make sure they parted before then.

  Telling herself it was of no consequence made not the slightest difference; it was as if she had known him all her life, right from the beginning in India, a time she could not remember at all. But that was foolish. He had said his home was in Scotland, not India, though he had admitted he had been there. Why had she been so foolish as to tell that Banbury tale of the nabob’s widow?

  ‘There’s a nasty bend ahead with a high bank which won’t take feather-edging, so don’t point the leaders too soon,’ Martin Gathercole advised Duncan. ‘And you’ve a couple of steep hills too, so watch what you’re at. Don’t let them drop to a walk going up or you will lose the horse’s draught and when you get to the brow, don’t stop to put the chain on; without the guard to do it, it would be asking for trouble. I’ve known many a coach and four gallop off down a hill without its driver.’

  ‘I can imagine it,’ Duncan said, smiling. ‘But I shall take your advice and stay on the box.’

  ‘I can get down and put the shoe on if we have to,’ Martin went on. ‘But I reckon they’ll hold well enough and the tackle is good, I checked it particularly before we left. We should make the outskirts of Leicester in about fifty minutes, though we might have to put the drag on going down the last hill.’

  Duncan grinned to himself in the darkness, taking the advice in the spirit in which it was given, though he did not need instruction. He had not been boasting to Miss Sadler about his prowess and his eyes were younger than the coachman’s; he could see the dark shadow of the trees on the bend. He negotiated it to perfection, eliciting a ‘Good turn, Captain,’ from the coachman.

  Helen, her name was, he had heard Miss Carstairs call her that. Helen, wife of Menelaus. Wasn’t she reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the world? She had run away with Paris and caused the ten-year siege of Troy which ended in the destruction of the city. But this Helen would not behave so shamefully, he was sure of that. He chuckled to himself in the darkness, which made his companion turn and look at him in surprise. ‘Captain?’

  ‘Nothing. I was pleased with the compliment.’

  ‘And very forward it was of me to utter it.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Helen. How did he know that she would not behave shamefully? He was a fair judge of character when it came to his own sex; he could tell when a trooper could be trusted, by looking in his eyes. He could tell a trickster at the card table simply by his hands. There had been men in his own command he would not have given an inch to, and others among the enemy he would have trusted with his life. But nothing in his experience had led him to believe himself a fair judge of the ladies, whatever their station.

  Dorothy Carstairs, for instance. She was a spoiled empty-headed chit, selfishly taking it for granted that everyone would fall in with her wishes, taking and never giving, assuming Miss Sadler would wait upon her. His aversion to the young lady was not based on anything except her behaviour when confronted with a situation she had never met before.

  Was that how you should judge everyone, by taking them out of their normal environment and putting them to the test? In that case, Miss Helen Sadler had passed with flying colours, because he was convinced she was not what she said she was. Every incident on the journey, her behaviour towards the different people they had met on the way, scraps of information she had let drop into the conversation, had revealed just a little more of her character, of Helen Sadler, the woman, a woman of spirit and compassion, culture and education, but as to how those traits were acquired, her family and upbringing, not a thing.

  He was convinced it was deliberate, but why the deception? What was she hiding? Shame, dishonesty, scandal? Such a situation was not new to him. He had suffered at Arabella’s hands. Years ago it had been, when he was green and trusted everyone, before he learned that beautiful young ladies could not be relied on.

  He had been home once or twice since then, to visit his father and brother, Andrew, but he had never stayed very long and had never strayed onto the neighbouring estate where he might come across James, his one-time friend, now Lord Macgowan, or his lady wife. Such an encounter would be painful and embarrassing to them both. But now his father had been taken ill and, according to Andrew, was asking for him. He had been given leave to come home, but oh, how slow the journey was proving to be!

  He had ridden horseback from Vienna to Calais and that had been bad enough, then the packet from France had been delayed by adverse winds and a terrible storm, which had everyone but the hardiest of sailors sick in their bunks. His horse, which had carried him faithfully for years, had broken free in its terror and been so badly injured he had been obliged to shoot it. He had taken the mail from Dover to London but missed the ongoing mail on which he intended to continue and been obliged to take the slower stage. Ever since then it had been one thing after another.

  If he had gone on with the coach instead of staying the night at Northampton, he would have been at least twelve hours ahead, but that would have meant forgoing that delightful meal with Miss Sadler and carrying her up to her bed. He did not regret that for one moment. For the first time for years he had forgotten his avowed antipathy to the female of the species and enjoyed her company; she had been intelligent, funny, naïve. He smiled to himself in the darkness. Fancy wearing all those clothes! Did she imagine they were travelling to the Arctic?

  But she had also been clever enough to parry every attempt to find out where she was going and why, and was not in the least over-awed by him. But why should she be? She did not know who he was other than his name and he had no intention of revealing his antecedents and spoiling the rapport they had built up, soldier and lady’s companion, nobodies enjoying each other’s company for a day or two, even if it was all a sham.

  But supposing she did know who he was, supposing it was all a game to her? Many a man had been ensnared by a woman’s apparent helplessness; they were not helpless at all, but artful, as he knew to his cost. What had set him thinking along these lines? Deceit and dishonesty, that was it, and whether Miss Sadler was capable of either.

  For the first time since Arabella’s betrayal, he was unsure of his judgement. All the evidence told him he was being a fool, that the more he became entangled the more difficult it would be to extricate himself. On the other hand, his curiosity had been aroused; he would not be satisfied until he knew all there was to know about Miss Helen Sadler. But it was more than that, it was the girl herself.

  She was as unlike Arabella as it was possible to be. Arabella was fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a rounded figure which he had to admit might become even rounder as she grew older. It was a fashionable figure and she had been a fashionable young lady, dressed in the latest mode, her conversation tempered by the instruction she received from her mama. It was not her fault she could not stand up to the pres
sure of her parents, he told himself in those early days of his disappointment, but she should have told him, not waited until he came home and found out for himself.

  Miss Helen Sadler, on the other hand, was tiny and dark with huge green eyes which looked straight at you, a girl with a mind of her own and who was not afraid of expressing it. What she lacked in stature she made up for in fire; he could not imagine her allowing herself to be coerced into a marriage she did not care for.

  ‘There’s no call to go at a snail’s pace, you know.’ A voice at his elbow broke in on his reverie. ‘You’ll have the cattle asleep as they walk.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, flicking the reins alongside the leaders and setting them going at a trot. ‘I was thinking.’

  ‘The only thinking you should be doing, Captain, begging your pardon, is what you are about. Once over the next crossroads, you can spring ’em to the top of the next hill. Then you’ll be able to see the lights of the town ahead of you.’

  Duncan smiled and shouted over his shoulder to his passengers. ‘Leicester coming up.’

  His answer was a toot on the guard’s horn from Tom.

  Ten minutes later they drew up at the staging post and everyone tumbled out. Duncan, standing by the coach in true coachman fashion, tipped his hat to each of the passengers and wished them a safe onward journey, not in the least disturbed when he was given a coachman’s gratuities, even from the old lady, who was by now so tired that she did not recognise him. Tom, in the spirit of the jest, handed over half a crown, saying, ‘Thank you, my good man, a very pleasant ride. I congratulate you.’

  ‘And you?’ Duncan asked Helen, speaking softly, his brown eyes looking down into her uptilted face, making her insides quiver. ‘Was it a pleasant ride for you?’ For a brief moment they held each other’s gaze.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said then, averting her eyes, delved into her reticule. ‘I suppose I had better tip you too, or I shall be labelled a pinchcommons.’

  ‘Oh, indeed you must.’ The moment of intimacy was gone like a dandelion seed on the wind.

  She gave him a handful of loose change, which he took and sorted out in his palm. ‘This will do nicely,’ he said selecting a farthing and returning the rest to her. Then he turned and tipped all but the farthing into the coachman’s good hand. ‘Give this to your guard when you see him next.’

  ‘I will, Captain.’ He touched his low-crowned beaver. ‘I wish you both a pleasant journey.’

  Duncan pealed off the huge coat and handed it back to its owner before offering Helen his arm. She put her hand on it and they walked into the inn behind Tom and Dorothy. The old lady had completed her journey, the parson was making a local connection and the outside passengers were either retiring to their beds or joining another coach which was getting ready to leave.

  ‘Tom and I are going to stay here for the night,’ Dorothy said, as they joined them. ‘If we go on to Derby now, we shall arrive in the early hours and we cannot wake my aunt up then; it would give her a seizure. Besides, we shall both be tired and not in a fit state to explain ourselves. I want to be fresh when I come face to face with her.’

  ‘That’s very wise of you,’ Helen said.

  ‘You and the Captain must be in haste to continue your journey,’ Tom said. ‘So please don’t let us delay you. We will manage very well.’

  ‘I could not possibly leave you now,’ Helen said. ‘I am determined on keeping you company until we reach Derby.’

  ‘You think Miss Carstairs is in need of a chaperone?’ Duncan queried, sighing heavily.

  ‘Yes, don’t you? It will help her when it comes to telling the story to her aunt if she is able to say she was not alone with Mr Thurborn.’

  ‘So you intend to stay yet another night? Three days on a journey intended to take twenty-four hours. At the rate we are going we shall have to buy the coaching schedules for the whole of Britain.’

  ‘We, Captain Blair? There is no call for you to stay.’

  ‘Goodness, you surely have not quarrelled,’ Dorothy said, looking from one to the other.

  ‘No, of course not, but what has that to do with it? What the Captain does is his own affair. We are not travelling together.’

  ‘You’re not? But I thought…’ She stopped in embarrassment.

  Duncan laughed. ‘Oh, my dear Miss Carstairs, please do not be discomfited. It is perfectly simple. Miss Sadler is determined to look after you, whether you will or no, and I am determined to look after her, even though she maintains she is perfectly able to manage alone. We will, all four, stay here for the rest of the night and journey on together tomorrow morning. I will endeavour to procure rooms.’ And with that he sketched a small bow and left them to seek out the innkeeper.

  Dorothy smiled conspiratorially at Helen. ‘Your secret is safe with us, is it not, Tom?’

  ‘What?’ He was busy watching how Captain Blair handled the innkeeper, intending to learn by his example. ‘Oh, yes, of course, perfectly safe.’

  ‘My secret?’ echoed Helen. How did they know? Had she some time in the past, met Miss Carstairs and forgotten it? But Miss Carstairs had said she thought Helen was a lady’s maid; why had she said that if she knew the truth? Was she testing her, trying to find out just how far she would go to deceive?

  ‘Yes. We will not say a word.’

  Before Helen could try to explain, Duncan rejoined them. ‘There is a room available for the ladies on the first landing,’ Duncan said. ‘I am afraid you will have to share, I hope you do not mind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Dorothy said.

  ‘I have asked for your baggage to be sent up.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain,’ Helen said coolly. ‘If you do not mind, I think I will retire. It has been a very long day.’

  If she had hoped to be allowed to go to bed and straight to sleep, she was mistaken. Dorothy needed help undressing and she was determined to talk, notwithstanding that Helen was being very quiet.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry if I put you out of countenance with the Captain,’ Dorothy said over her shoulder as Helen stood to undo the buttons on her gown. ‘I would not for the world have put you to the blush, but I did not think it was meant to be such a secret.’

  ‘What was?’ She was weary beyond imagining, not only from the journey, but from watching every word, playing her little game with Captain Blair and looking after Dorothy, who seemed to have recovered completely from her distress and was now bright and cheerful and anxious to exchange confidences.

  ‘Your elopement. I did not think it mattered mentioning it, considering we are all on the same errand.’

  ‘My elopement?’ So the secret Dorothy thought she had uncovered had nothing to do with her identity, after all. But to imagine she was running away to marry was ludicrous. ‘My elopement! It is Tom and you who are eloping, not me…’

  ‘But you and the Captain…’

  ‘Good Heavens! I am quite sure Captain Blair did not tell you that.’

  ‘No, but it is obvious.’

  ‘Not to me it isn’t. I do not know the gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, come, Helen, be blowed to that for a Banbury tale. You and he already behave like an old married pair, arguing all the time…’

  ‘That is because we do not agree and I am not so pudding-hearted as to let him have it all his own way.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’ She stepped out of her gown and rummaged in her luggage for her nightgown. ‘I’ll say this for you, you are carrying it off with a great deal more aplomb than Tom and me.’

  ‘Once and for all,’ Helen said sharply, leaving the girl to tug a brush through her own hair, pulling at the tangles and hurting herself. ‘I am not eloping with Captain Blair. He does not even like me. In truth, he does not like women at all; he as good as told me so.’

  ‘Fustian! Anyone with half an eye can see he is in love.’

  ‘Not with me.’ She got into bed beside Dorothy. ‘Now, if you do not mind, I want to go to sleep.’

  But sh
e could not sleep. She was wide awake long after Dorothy’s heavy breathing told her that her bedmate was out to the world. Whatever had given Dorothy the idea that Captain Blair was in love with her? He had been chivalrous, to be sure, but that meant nothing more that he had been well brought up to care for the weaker sex and he obviously looked on her as weak and helpless and needing protection.

  The trouble was, she did need him. Without him she would have been robbed by everyone with whom she came into contact: coachmen, ostlers, innkeepers, urchins with honest blue eyes. You couldn’t call that love, could you? Not only had they met just two days before, but she also knew very little more about him than she had at the beginning and that only what he chose to reveal.

  But it was equally true she had not been very open either. She had led him to believe she was a lady’s companion, which was not, she decided, the sort of person a captain in the Prince of Wales’s Own Hussars would consider as a wife, especially as he had said he was a second son. That usually meant he had come from a titled family. But would such a man be travelling on a public coach without a servant? Had he invented it? But wasn’t that exactly what she was doing, pretending to be someone she was not? She really ought to put an end to the pretence, tell him the truth, apologise. But if they were both playing the same game, why apologise, why be the first to admit defeat? Oh, why couldn’t he have ridden on into the night, out of her life?

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘MISS SADLER, Miss Sadler, do wake up.’

  Helen opened her eyes to see Dorothy sitting on the bed half-dressed. ‘Oh, dear, have I overslept?’

  ‘A coach has come in the yard and I heard someone shout it was the Independent for Manchester. That’s the one we want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I believe so.’ Helen scrambled out of bed and hurried to wash and dress. ‘We must make haste if we are to have breakfast before we leave.’