He accepted the paper, stood, and assisted Charity to her feet. Starting off, he gripped his side. “Jove,” he said, as her anxious eyes flew to his face, “the ground’s harder than I’d thought. Never mind”—he flourished the paper—“on to Carlisle! Now how do you suppose that slowtop thought I could read his directions in the dark?” He unfolded the sheet, glancing at it idly.
Holding up her habit, Charity walked along a few steps, realized he was not beside her and turned back.
He was staring down at the directions, the paper shaking in his hand, his face white as a sheet, and his expression one of stark horror.
Frightened, she cried, “Oh! Whatever is it?” and ran back to him.
He whipped the paper behind him and retreated a step, his eyes very wide as he stared at her. “My God…!” he gasped. “Oh, my God!”
“What? What?”
“Of all the damnable things!” He withdrew another step, still staring at her as though she had suddenly changed into a griffin. “I thought it took us too long to get to Dumfries! But that stupid crofter said if I didn’t know the country ’twould likely seem a three day’s journey rather than one, so I never suspected—”
Wringing her hands, terrified by his distraught manner, she demanded, “What are you talking about? I do not understand. Why should it be so bad if we are a little out of our way? We’ve still time, have we not?”
“A lifetime!” he groaned, throwing up one clenched fist to his forehead. And then, recovering a little, he took a deep breath, drew himself up, and his face still very pale, his mouth twitching, said hoarsely, “Madam … I—I scarce know how to tell you.” He bit his lip and went on as steadily as he could manage, “That damnable smithy last night was—was not in Dumfries! It was—” Words failed him, but he squared his shoulders, gripped his hands tighter, and ploughed on. “It was in—Gretna Green.”
“Oh, was it?” Charity said. “How I should like to have seen the marriage chapels. It was so dark when we got there, that I saw very little … of…” Her words trailed off, a dread suspicion striking her. How desperately he watched her, and a little pulse was beating and beating beside his mouth.
“Most of the marriages performed in Gretna Green,” Redmond croaked, “are not performed in churches, ma’am, but over the … the anvil of a … smithy.”
A faint, squawking shriek escaped Charity. Her attempt to speak was foiled because her throat seemed to have closed entirely.
“We,” Redmond confirmed in anguish, “are … married!”
“No!” She snatched the paper from his palsied hand, spread it, and read her doom. “It cannot be!” she wailed. “We took no vows! We made no promises!”
“We—I told them we were in a—a hurry, and—and to expedite matters.”
“Oh! Oh! How could you? I do not want to be married to you, Mr. Redmond!”
“By God! Do you think that I—” He bit back the rest of that unchivalrous rejoinder and ground his teeth in a passion of rageful frustration.
“You must have known,” she accused, her eyes flashing with panic, “when those beastly men all giggled and behaved in such a way. Oh, how could you have been so lost you thought we were in Dumfries, when all the time—”
“I have never been in Scotland before,” he defended irately. “I thought they were laughing because y—we looked so tired and rumpled. And besides, you were no more aware than was I!”
“I was too tired to know where I was,” she whimpered, close to tears. “You are a man. I thought you knew what you were doing!”
Furious with her and more furious with himself, he snarled, “Do you seriously think I’d have signed that blasted ledger of his, had I suspected?”
“Oh. Oh! And you made me sign it!”
“For Lord’s sake, ma’am, never accuse me of forcing you into wedlock!”
“Well, you did! I relied on you and—and you said for the sake of satisfying that dirty man … Oh!” Her voice shredded. “What a disgrace! Whatever am I to tell my family? I shall never be able to hold up my head again!”
Redmond regarded her smoulderingly. “Dash it all, there’s nothing to cry about. We’ll—make it right somehow.”
She had turned away to dab a tiny handkerchief at her nose, but now she whirled on him like a tigress. “How? Tell me that! You signed that miserable book and so did I! Oh … I am married.… Married…!”
Smarting, he said, “There are worse fates, you know! Matter of fact, I know one or two ladies who might not swoon at the thought of wedding me.”
“Horrid … braggart…” she sobbed.
He glared at her. Then, glancing northwards, he said stiffly, “Madam, you’ve my humblest apologies. I’ll own I’ve made mice feet of the business. But might your preoccupation with yourself perhaps be set aside until we reach Brighton?”
He was right of course. Charity dashed her tears away and tried to control her quivering lips as her husband tossed her into the saddle.
His brow black as thunder, Redmond mounted with considerably less grace than usual.
The newly married pair came swiftly to a canter and rode all the way to Carlisle in grim silence.
* * *
The round little ostler standing with hands clasped behind him rocked gently back and forth, his bright dark eyes turning appraisingly from the Corinthian gent to the quiet, fair-haired young woman who watched them from the coffee room, and back to the Corinthian. His round bald head shone in the light of the morning sun, and his permanently arched bushy eyebrows seemed to ask a silent question, “Are they—or aren’t they? … Are they—or aren’t they…?”
Scowling at him, Mitchell demanded an irked, “Why the devil not? There’s a road through there I know, for some friends rode this way only last year. I believe they said they passed through Keswick and went down through Windermere.”
“Ar,” the ostler agreed, his eyes rounder than ever. “And very beautifool it be too, sir. But did these friends of yourn have a lady along of ’em, might I ask that?”
“Oh,” said Mitchell glumly.
The ostler’s hands parted and he lifted one. “Straight up, and straight down, sir,” he said with corresponding gestures. “Not so diffeecult for gents at this time of year. But the ladies, Gord bless ’em…” He shook his head, clasped his hands as before and added blandly, “Less’n your, er, the lady ain’t going along, sir?”
“The lady will be accompanying me. I suppose—a coach, or a curricle?”
The ostler regarded him pityingly.
“Well, blast it all,” fumed Redmond, “which way do we go? Dammit, man, I’ve to be in, er, in London by Wednesday!”
The ostler stopped rocking and stared at him. “If so be you had wings, sir,” he said with a faintly incredulous smirk. “Or if so be the, er, lady wasn’t to accompany you.”
“I already told you, she is to accompany me.” Redmond thought a bitter, “More’s the pity!” “Must we take ship, then?”
“Could,” said the ostler, recommencing his rocking. “Could be becalmed, ’course. Or could be stuck in the fog, which would likely have you lying off Blackpool come Wednesday.…” He grinned at this jolly jest, but his amusement faded before Redmond’s glare. “Or,” he added hastily, “you could ride to the far west, follow along the coast, and then take the Morecambe Bay sands to Lancaster. From there you could make for Preston and Liverpool.”
Redmond thanked him, arranged for fresh horses, and stamped out of the yard grumbling about the lack of decent roads in England.
Watching that tall straight figure, the ostler’s bright eyes were thoughtful. His entire person seemed to ponder the question, “Are they—or aren’t they? Are they—or aren’t they?”
* * *
“Is he never going to rest again?” thought Charity, and wondered for how much longer she could keep upright in the saddle. She ached all over, she was parched with thirst, and her stomach cramped with hunger. She knew that her curls were tangled, and she’d given up push
ing flyaway wisps from her dusty face. Her husband had not spoken for an eternity and looked ready to do bloody murder. “Still in shock, poor fellow,” she thought cynically. “Only fancy, he has married a poor little dab of a girl, instead of one of his famous beauties.” But despite this venture into bitterness, her initial rage and resentment had faded somewhat. Initially, she had considered only her own predicament, but his must be as miserable. And although it was very well to blame him for their unorthodox wedding, he had likely been as tired as she in that wretched smithy, and perhaps more concerned for her weariness than he had betrayed. Certainly, she could not blame him now for riding as hard as they’d done since leaving Carlisle.…
She was slumping again. She straightened up wearily. The weak sun was beginning to dip over the grey waters of the sea. It must be midafternoon, she judged. Only midafternoon? So many endless hours since they’d left Carlisle. The beauties of the coastline had impressed her at first, with the broad stretches of golden sand, the lush green of its meadows, the soaring might of the mountains that rose to the east. But for this past hour and more she had scarcely noticed her surroundings, her full concentration bent upon keeping up, on not causing Redmond one more moment of delay by begging him to stop and find her some water. And still, on and on they went, the pound of hooves, the sway and jolt of this interminable ride sapping her strength.
“We must rest the horses now, Madame Mulot.”
Charity was startled to find them halted and Redmond standing at her stirrup. She slid into his arms and tottered where he led her, to sink gratefully against a tree. For a moment she just sagged there, eyes closed, enjoying the blissful freedom from effort. When she looked up, he was glaring at her ferociously, but he said nothing, bending to thrust a flask into her uncertain hand. He had left her in the coffee room at Carlisle for a short time, and when he’d come back she had seen him stuffing some purchases into his saddlebags, but had not suspected he had bought strong spirits. “What is it?” she asked, eyeing the flask dubiously.
“Oil of belladonna,” he said grittily. “I positively yearn to be a widower!”
She gave him a withering glance and raised the flask. To her dismay, her hand shook and she could not stop it. Redmond muttered something under his breath and stamped off, leading the horses towards a river that joined the sea a short distance ahead. He went down a gradual slope and disappeared from sight under a narrow, rock bridge.
Charity took a swallow from the flask, spluttered and choked, her eyes watering. She supposed he must have given her some very strong wine, for it burnt down her throat. She was horrified upon looking up to see an open landau passing by, the two middle-aged couples seated inside viewing her with patent horror. Scarlet, she thrust the flask behind her, but the two quizzing glasses that were levelled at her positively shone censure, and she heard one of the ladies say a shocked, “Poor creature! A victim of Demon Rum at her age!”
The carriage slowed. For a terrible moment she fancied she was about to be saved—then, to her intense relief, they abandoned her and drove on. Shattered, she took another sip of the Demon Rum, and within a minute or two she felt warmer and restored to a surprising degree. She stoppered the flask, settled back against the tree and closed her eyes for a moment.
She awoke to a heavenly smell, and blinking, saw a sandwich hovering an inch from her nose. A king among sandwiches, with two great slabs of freshly baked bread enclosing thick slices of Cheddar cheese bright with mustard. “Oh,” she gasped, accepting this incomparable gift joyfully. She sank her teeth into it, chewed, and uttered a faint moan of pleasure.
Redmond tossed a bulky parcel to the turf between them and sat down rather stiffly. He ignored her indistinct thanks as he unfolded another sandwich and grunted, “Why could you not have said you were so tired and hungry? I often forget to eat, but I’m not a monster.”
“I have slowed you too much already,” she said, restraining her appetite so as to look at him over a protruding wedge of cheese. She thought she saw approval come into his eyes and said hopefully, “I am going on much better than yesterday, do you not think?”
“You are a positive Amazon,” he sneered, but his eyes fell before her level stare and he bit rather savagely into his own little feast.
After a moment, she asked, “Where did you get this?”
“Village. Half a mile inland.”
“Good heavens! You left me here? All alone?”
“I checked the road in both directions and saw only one landau that looked much too respectable to cause me concern. Besides, you were snoring like—”
“I do not snore!”
His eyes glinted at her. He said nothing, but that one dark brow lifted provocatively. However, she wondered, did he do that? She turned away and struggled single-mindedly to master the trick.
“Ma’am?” Redmond was peering at her. He looked frightened and, perversely, likeable. “Not having a seizure, are you?” he asked uneasily.
She gave a chuckle, a reckless indulgence because it enabled a piece of cheese to go down the wrong way. Her chuckle turned into a whoop and then a frenzied choking. A strong hand whacked between her shoulder blades, dislodging the obstruction. Gasping, she reached out blindly, but with no result. Opening watery eyes, she found herself alone again. “Confound the wretch,” she gasped, and wheezing, wiped at involuntary tears.
Redmond reappeared. He was moving very fast as he climbed the rise from under the bridge, holding a beaver hat that dripped water, and obviously concentrating upon holding it as level as possible.
It seemed a shame, thought Charity, to let such selfless dedication be wasted.… She arranged herself as gracefully as possible against the tree and closed her eyes.
He moaned an agonized, “Oh, my dear God!” And water was dabbed gently at her face. She’d not meant to recover rapidly, but the water was so icy cold it made her jump. She gave an artistic sigh, fluttered her lashes, and opened her eyes. “Am I … dead…?” she murmured faintly.
“No! No! Oh, Lord! Forgive me, ma’am. I never dreamt I had—”
The frantic utterance faded away. She was afraid she’d not been able to keep her lips quite as firm as they should have been, and peered up at him. He was staring at her throat.
“Poor girl’s got spiders all over her,” he muttered.
With a shriek, she sat up.
“You little wretch!” snarled Mitchell. “I but now bought this hat!”
“Where are the spiders?” she shrilled.
His eyes narrowed. “Down your bosom.”
Gasping with horror, she pulled out her bodice and peered inside.
“How very gauche,” he drawled at his most cynical. “Is everything, ah, intact, ma’am?”
“Why—you vulgar brute!” She pressed one hand chastely to her bodice. “There was nothing there at all, was there?”
Incalculably suggestive, his eyes roved her bosom. “Not much, I’ll own.”
“Vicious rake!” she hissed.
He said with a reluctant grin, “Serves you right. Of all the Cheltenham tragedies! First, that ghastly seizure, and then—”
“I was not having a seizure! If you must know, I was trying if I could not—” She stopped.
“Could not—what? Frighten the spiders away?”
Glaring at him, she said, “Make one eyebrow go up, the way yours does.”
He burst into a laugh, then clutched at his side, wincing. “My cousin was used to do the same thing by the hour,” he said breathlessly. “My father told him one day he would be struck like that.…” A wistful nostalgia came into his eyes. “He never could do it. Very few people can, you know.”
“How extremely fortunate,” she said with regal disdain.
He chuckled, threw up one hand to acknowledge the hit, and bowed slightly.
Charity struggled to restrain an answering smile. “Have you hurt your side, Mr. Redmond?”
“I’ve a few bruises, I do believe. Mrs. Redmond.”
She gave a
gasp and jerked her face away. Astonishment eased her misery as a warm strong hand closed over her trembling fingers.
His deep voice very contrite, he said, “Ma’am, pray believe I am truly sorry. It was all my fault—no use denying it. I swear, when we’re done with this unholy mess I shall purchase you a Bill of Divorcement.”
Her face turned from him, she quavered, “It is … kind in you, sir. But, I would be just as surely ruined. It is one thing for a gentleman to be divorced. But a lady merely becomes … notorious.”
There was a brief silence. Then he said, “In that event, I guarantee to find some unexceptionable gentleman to husband you. Someone of impeccable birth and background, who is gentle, kind and”—a pause—“gallant. Unless … perhaps there is already such a gentleman who admires you?”
She thought wistfully, “I wish there were…” and shook her head.
His grip on her hand tightened. “Then I shall shop for one,” he declared bracingly. “I’ve a host of friends sadly in need of good wives. Hey! What about Leith’s bosom bow, Devenish? Now, you could not find a more handsome fellow and he seems likeable enough, though a trifle hot at hand. Do you think—”
“He already offered,” she replied, turning to throw him a rather shy smile. “I refused.”
He muttered a distinctly surprised, “Did you, by God!”
Bristling, she said, “Yes. And he has also announced his intention to find me a husband!”
“Ah, then I must succeed before him. Let me have your requirements, ma’am, so I can be making lists.”
“Requirements? Oh, well, firstly, a sense of humour.”
“Good idea,” he nodded. “Requirement one,” he held one finger, “humour. Next, ma’am? Looks?”
“Oh no. Nor would I expect him to be, er, aux anges about—about me. I would like to be married to a gentleman who did not find me altogether repellent, but—”
“The devil! Why should any man find you repellent?”
He looked quite fierce. Charity’s lingering resentment vanished at once. She said meekly, “Well, for one thing, I am not pretty.”
“You have countenance,” he declared. And, his eyes narrowing, added, “And good bones. You’ll likely keep your looks long after some plump and pretty widgeon is a fat matron with a dumpling for a face.”
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