The Bashful Bride

by Vanessa Riley

  If only they’d pull over again. He could nap, she’d draw and not have to fret about him. “I won’t think less of you if we stopped for a rest.”

  Bex yawned loud and long. “Don’t ask. I’m fine. Just a little tired, but we are almost there. So close.”

  His hand jerked as the ride became uneven. The high slope of this section of the path seemed hard for the horses and for stubborn Bex.

  She tugged on his coat sleeve. “I think you should stop on the side of the road. You’re very unsteady and the horses, they don’t look so good, either.”

  “We’re not at our best. Don’t fret, my dearest Ester. I’ll rest soon, with my wife at my side.”

  The phaeton swayed again as Bex looked over at her. He latched a finger on to hers. “We’ve a few more miles of travel. Once we are married, I’ll sleep for days before we head back to London. I’ll make it up to you. Will you trust me to make amends later?”

  “Bex, you give good speeches about freedom, but I’m not free if you won’t listen. My voice and concerns should matter to you.”

  Maybe it was her bluntness, but he swerved a little and the horses left the road. Their hooves kicked up choking dust.

  “Sorry.” He blinked a little then straightened his posture. “How do you and your friends make do? Every time I see Mrs. Fitzwilliam-Cecil, she is smiling.”

  “She’s in love with her husband. They don’t always agree, but they listen to each other.”

  “I mean, how do they make do? How do they navigate society?”

  “My friend is very smart. She knows the best days to shop, when merchants will be more amenable to us. She makes arrangements or utilizes her footman or butler to accomplish tasks. We all make do.”

  “It’s not right. Should never have to be this way. Men are equal. We bleed and die the same.” His voice rose, roaring like thunder. “We both drown if we’re bound in chains.” His palm flew to his face like it perspired.

  “Bex, what is wrong? Are you feeling more ill?”

  “Do you think of marrying me as a loss?” He sounded more in control, his tone had lowered. “Are you losing things by being with me? Tell me, Ester.”

  The way his lips moved as he said her name felt like a kiss. As sweet as a marriage to Bex would be, Ester would lose some of her freedoms. She couldn’t say that and bruise his ego, but she’d never lie, so she nodded. “A woman exchanges her father’s house for her husband’s. Seems, at best, a draw, unless she marries poorly. With my parents surely fuming, no dowry will be paid. Yes, marriage is a loss.”

  “I never thought of it like that. The female perspective seems depressing. Ester, you keep telling me to slow down, to wait. It seems that the closer we get to Gretna, the more out of favor the idea of us marrying is to you.” He scooped up her palm and held on to it and the reins. “Do you still want to wed?”

  “Bex, I’m scared. This feels wrong. I left my parents to fret because I was angry. I disappeared without a word. It must be awful for them. They don’t know if I am alive. I’ve caused my mother so much pain by running away. Then I look at you, and I feel the pressure of your hand on mine, and everything is good again. I think there’s a chance we could be happy. Maybe all these mixed-up feelings happen when you elope.”

  His lips became pensive, thinning to a line. “Ester, what if something was in my past. Something that could prevent us having a future, or a good future. Would you want to know?”

  “What are you saying, Bex? “

  His lips pressed to a line, and then he opened his mouth. “Ester—”

  The phaeton veered sharply to the left.

  Knock, bump.

  Everything was out of control. Ester held to the seat, which jerked and threw her as if it would vault her into a tree.

  “The horse. It looks lame. Hold on.” Bex reached forward and started undoing some of the harness strapping.

  The screech of branches hitting the sides smothered the noise of the hooves.

  Pine and oak limbs swatted at them, and she ducked. The scent of kicked-up mud and fresh-cut pine branches filled the air.

  Bex tugged on the reins, but the world kept moving. The gig hit a bump, and soon everything went high into the air.

  “Got it. Go horses.”

  With one hand, Bex pushed at her back. “Jump, Ester.”

  The horses released but the gig kept going. The bumps rattled everything. Her sketchbook flew up and went over the side.

  “Please, Ester, jump.”

  She looked at his face, heard the pleading in his voice, and did what he said. She leaped away from the phaeton. Rolling in dirt, kicking up moss, she finally stopped spinning.

  But Bex.

  His carriage flipped up in the air then flopped over. It rolled and rolled then righted itself with its roof smashed in.

  “Bex!” She ran to wreckage. “Please be well. Please be well.”

  She climbed up next to him, pushed leaves and branches from his still form. He was wedged into the floor beside the seating. His body wasn’t crushed like the phaeton’s roof, but he wasn’t moving. Waving a finger under his nose, she felt a breath, a slow, hot one. He was unconscious, but alive.

  There was a lump and bruising on his forehead, but she saw no bleeding, no open wounds. He needed a physician.

  Blood pumping, ringing in her ears, Ester smoothed his dark brown hair. “I had doubts, but I’m sure you holding my hand will give me the courage to say those vows. You hear me. You have to live. You have to be all right.”

  The road was a good forty paces away. The lame horse was kneeling. She couldn’t do anything with that one, but the other was munching grass. It could still pull, if she could hitch it to the phaeton. “You can depend on me, Bex. I’m depending on you to recover and make me an honest woman.”

  She kissed his forehead then climbed down.

  Her sketchbook lay halfway between the gig and the horse. She scooped it up, thankful that Bex had made her jump. If she hadn’t, she might be too injured to help. He saved her, and now she’d do the same for him.

  Shaking, she approached the standing horse.

  It neighed at her and stretched its mouth wide. Ester hoped that the noise and the teeth were its way to show consent.

  “Horse, if you’re spooked, then we have that in common.” She grabbed the rein ring. “Come on boy…or girl…or horse.” Trembling, she brushed at its gray mane. “We have to get Bex to safety. It’s just you and me. We have to do it.”

  Leading the horse back to the cart, she felt better that it followed, but her heart ached, and her head, too. A hundred questions invaded at once. Could a single horse pull the smashed phaeton back up the hill? If they made it to the road, would they find help at the coaching inn?

  Only one way to find out. Ester had to get Bex to the inn and then beg.

  One sniffled breath filled her lungs with the sweaty-lather scent of horse. Gagging, she tossed her sketchbook onto the seat and she tugged the beast in place and threaded the rein hooks as best as she recalled, from observing Theodosia with her gig.

  Ester should’ve paid better attention. So much she’d taken for granted.

  With a prayer in her heart, she yanked on the horse’s bridle.

  The animal neighed.

  She looked at the damaged phaeton. Bex still hadn’t shifted or turned.

  “Please, horse. He needs us.”

  Her eyes began to water, but the building tears turned to hope when the horse took a step. With a little more coaxing, the horse took another one, then trailed behind her.

  Relief swept through her, but there was still much to do. The gig had to be freed from the bushes. “Come on, horse. Bex’s counting on us.”

  The wheels screeched, and the noise clawed through her, but the carriage moved.

  Forty agonizing steps with the horse neighing every inch of the way rattled a shaken Ester, but the phaeton finally pulled onto the road. A big sigh left her lips, her heart skipping a beat or two. “Bex, we made i
t this far. You’re going to be saved. Please know I’m here. I haven’t left you.”

  He still hadn’t moved or said anything. She missed the sound of his voice, even if it was teasing her. “Bex, you said it was only a mile or two to the last inn before Scotland. I’ll get you help there.”

  The wind picked up, and it cooled her brow. Stumbling over a rock, she kept her balance. Her slippers would be so worn, but maybe that would be a good thing. Not looking like Ester Croome, a runaway bride from a wealthy family, but a poor Blackamoor servant would get them more help. That was the role she’d play next.

  She took her shawl from her shoulders and wrapped it like a turban about her head. “Ester Croome, the exotic servant to the great actor.” The innkeeper would like this role. It was far more plausible than a bashful Blackamoor bride to the great actor Arthur Bex.

  “Horse, when we get to the inn, I don’t like falsehoods, but I’ll have to play the part of Mr. Bex’s maid. Then they’ll help him.” She looked back at her fiancé. Her throat clogged. He still hadn’t moved.

  “Bex, know you are worth this price. Don’t be mad at my choices when you awaken.”

  After walking for an eternity, her tired bones rattled into life when she saw a big limestone building with a few carriages outside. It might not be the inn he talked of, but it would definitely be the place she’d go to ask for assistance.

  Ester stiffened her spine and drew back her shoulders. She would suffer whatever indignities necessary to save Bex. He was worthy. He had to live long enough to know it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  AN INN AND A MISS

  Arthur opened one eye, then the other. Whitewashed walls greeted him, not endless stretches of dirt and gravel roads like the strange dream that repeated in his ringing skull. The haunting notion of losing something, something special and beautiful, churned inside.

  The world seemed fuzzy, and he was lost. He fought to put an arm under his head, but it was wrapped in place. Was he chained, like the shadows that lurked in his head, the memories he’d never forget?

  Pained from flexing his arm, he found it bandaged, not shackled in irons. Perspiration crossed his brow, but the screams of the lost—those stayed in his soul. Fighting to be free, he sat up with a grunt.

  “Sir. You’re awake.” A boy of six or seven, the same age as Arthur when he had first boarded his uncle’s ship, the Zhonda, sat at the end of the bed.

  The little fellow jumped, causing his rumpled blond locks to flutter. “Let me go tell.”

  Tell? Arthur’s pulse raced. “Who are you? And tell who?”

  “I’m Timothy,” the lad said. “My papa, the innkeeper, and my grandpapa Smythe. He doctored you. Your maid told me to tell her when you awaken, too. She promised me a farthing to let her know.”

  Maid?

  That’s when Bex knew he was still dreaming. His cut of the benefit nights at the theater were huge financial boons sometimes, but he was too frugal to hire a servant. He closed his eyes again. “Yes, tell the world, Bexeley is dreaming.”

  The boy came near and waved his tiny fingers over Arthur’s face. “You seem to be awake to me, sir. Maybe you have the ’nesia. The maid said Bex, Arthur Bex.”

  Arthur touched the bump on his head. It was inflamed and tender at his crown. “’Nesia, you say? Amnesia?”

  “Yes. The ’Nesia,” the boy said. The little fellow’s leaping up and down was too loud for a dream. “Think on it, sir. Who are ya?”

  Arthur swiped at his mouth. “This is no dream.”

  “No, it isn’t, sir.”

  But he wished it was a dream, for Arthur had said aloud his birth name. Oliver Arthur Bexeley was the name given to him by loving parents who had died of consumption when he was six. He smoothed his hand over his bandaged arm. “It’s coming back to me now, lad. Yes. That name I said, that was a role I’d performed years ago when I was about your age. My name is Bex, Arthur Bex.”

  The boy grinned up big. “Good, sir. The girl said you were a famous actor. Don’t want you sick no more, or with the ’Nesia. My mama read a novel where the hero had that. She says he shoulda went to Bedlam.”

  “No, I don’t want to go there, right, Es—”

  Ester? Was she well? Did she get hurt in the crash? He thrashed until he sat up. “Where is she? Did she get injured?”

  The boy waved his hands. “Sir, calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself or get more of that ’nesia.”

  How could he? Ester could be hurt because he had pushed too hard. With his good hand, he grabbed the boy’s shirt collar. “Tell me if Miss Croome is well? Where is she?” Head pounding, he settled back down and released the boy. “She can’t be hurt because of me.”

  “Sir, calm down. Your maid is in the servant’s quarters. She didn’t seem no hurt.”

  It took a moment to understand what the boy said, for the blood rushed hard in Arthur’s ears. He fell back, pained in his chest. Ester was not hurt, but they thought Ester, his Ester, was a servant. “See if she’ll come to me. I must see her now.”

  “Papa has her doing duties. He says she’s not very good at much, but she tries hard. I’m sure when she’s done, she can come, but I’ll tell her, her and Papa. Want that farthing.”

  The boy walked to the door and stopped. “She was nice to me. Read me some more of Mama’s novel. She’s not stupid like what Mama says about them. She’s not dark as pitch, either.” With a shrug, the forthright scamp was out the door.

  Arthur should feel better that one young mind had started to be changed about the races, one who had a lifetime to influence others. But Ester was no maid. She didn’t need to pretend to be one.

  Oh, woman. She had donned another role, just to save Arthur’s sorry hide. She should’ve let him rot before debasing herself. Arthur had to right this now. He sat up all the way this time, but the throbbing to his head made him sink back upon the mattress. Nausea swept over him, and he hoped whatever was in his gut remained there.

  The door opened, and an old man entered the room, but behind his hunched shoulder was Ester.

  Arthur’s pulsed raced at the sight of her. She was not injured, no bandages or slings on her person, but she’d made a turban out of her shawl to cover her head. Did it hide a bandage or some other injury? Maybe she knew it would kill him to know he’d caused her to be hurt.

  “Mr. Bex.” Her eyes looked glossy and bright as he sought her gaze.

  The tap of the old man’s cane became louder as he crossed the floor. “Young fellow, my son who runs this place is busy. My grandboy, Timothy, said ye were awake.”

  “I am, but is Miss Croome well?”

  “Fine, Mr. Bex,” she said, “Brought you tea.”

  “That was quite an accident, young fella. Took the men in the stables quite a while to fix, a day and a half.”

  Arthur swallowed hard, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Ester as she made a slight turn to the window.

  “It will be dark in a few hours, sir.”

  His stomach sickened. “We’ve been here a day and a half?”

  “Yes, sir. Almost two days you’ve—ye been unconscious.” She said. “I paid the grooms with your purse. Been managing your expenses as usual, sir. Mr. Smythe here has been helpful finding me things to do.”

  “Yes, your maid has been doing good, not lying about,” the old man said.

  Ester smiled. “To serve, that’s me purpose.”

  The accent she’d tried to master was off, but perhaps passible for the untrained thespian. His heart sank. She felt she had to do this for him.

  Feather turbans of silk were fashionable headdresses. He’d seen more than a few at the countess’s parties, but none were like Ester’s shawl surrounding her face, as if it were a sin to see her thick locks free or swirled in a braided chignon. To complete her guise, she wore a voluminous cotton apron that swallowed whole her delectable form. Maybe that part was best. With one arm not working right, he wasn’t in the best position to defend her.

 
; He glanced at her, straight posture illuminating the outline of a worthy bosom, the flare of hips that could not be denied. Yet, if anyone touched her, he’d die for her.

  Ester came near the bed and set the tray in her hands down on the table. “Hot tea with lemon is what he likes. Very particular, very eccentric about his requests.”

  This time the masking of her smooth tones sounded better, a cockney variant. The lass wasn’t a bad actress, but she shouldn’t have to do this. “I’m glad, Miss Croome, that you were not injured. I should’ve slowed as you requested. I am very, very sorry.”

  Ester poured a cup of the steaming liquid. “They had no honey. I know that is how you like it, Mr. Bex.”

  The old man clicked his teeth. “You shoulda listened to this one. Her people know about slow.” The man cackled as if he’d said a joke but there was nothing funny about his prejudice.

  Smythe pushed on Arthur’s bad arm by his shoulder. “Just making fun. The maid told us she weren’t a slave, or nothing but in your employ. That you’re one of those abolitionists.”

  Everything hurt when the man stretched Arthur’s wrapped arm. “Ouch.” He tried to hold in the grunt, but the pain was too great.

  The old man tapped his shoulder again, sending a shock down to the bone. “Shouldn’t be in such a rush. Life doesn’t need this jumpin’ about from here and there.” He pattered back to the foot of the bed. “This time it’s a dislocated shoulder and bang to the skull. The next time it could be worse. And I heard how dangerous those rallies for abolition or the right to vote can be.”

  “It’s not that dangerous.” Arthur cleared his throat. “Not that dangerous at all.”

  “Remember Peterloo last year. Lots of good people died. You need to be very careful, young man.”

  Ester’s eye grew wide. “Yes, rallies are dangerous, aren’t they?”

  He had only known Ester for a few days, but that creased brow, the softening of her voice, that was fret and fear, two things he didn’t want her to feel. Rubbing at the scruff of his chin, he tried to capture her gaze. “I wasn’t thinking. I won’t do anything so rash again. We were in a hurry and that exceeded my caution.”