to the unknown Johnny Blue-coat and lose no sleep over something which, in Tewkes’s opinion, was a stroke of good luck. Jack intended to make a push to discover the true owner of the cache, but that would have to wait upon the business with Grimshaw being satisfactorily concluded.
He had said nothing of it to his father, who would, he was sure, take the same view as Tewkes, that anything acquired on a battlefield was a fair prize and meant to be used. His father, who had never cared a straw for his younger son, was, now that he was the heir, insisting on him marrying and continuing the line. Jack had had little time and even less inclination to marry while he was a serving soldier; following the colours was not something he would subject any wife to and leaving her at home seemed to defeat the object of the exercise. He had seen too many marriages fail because of long separations to take the risk. He was home now and, while he owned he ought to be thinking about marriage, to do so simply to produce an heir went against the grain. He would not stand in line, fawning over eager débutantes, just to please his profligate father. He grinned as the old coach jolted over a particularly bad rut; arriving in town in this dilapidated conveyance would certainly not endear him to the fortune hunters. He smiled to himself; if he were to allow the gossipers to think his pockets were to let, he might gain the breathing space he needed.
He lifted his head to find Lydia surveying him with wide violet eyes and a tiny twitch to the corners of her mouth which might have been the beginnings of a smile. In his experience young ladies usually fell into a swoon or burst into floods of tears when confronted with a mishap of this magnitude; that she could smile made him feel a deal more comfortable. ‘We are slowing down,’ she said. ‘You will soon be rid of us.’
Chastised, he said, ‘I apologise, Miss Wenthorpe, I am afraid I am poor company. Please forgive me.’
‘Oh, it is I who need forgiving for the intrusion.’ They were pulling up in the yard of an inn and the driver was shouting to one of the ostlers who had run out to meet them. ‘If we can find my brother, I am sure he will add his thanks to mine.’
But Tom was nowhere to be seen. On enquiring after him, she was told that he had been there but as there were no spare horses or carriages of any sort he had gone to a farm along the road in the hope of borrowing a cart.
‘A cart?’ She could hardly believe it and she knew that the Marquis, who stood immediately behind her, was laughing at the picture thus created in his mind of her and her maid sitting atop their luggage on a farm cart! ‘Whatever was he thinking of?’
‘Better than walking,’ the innkeeper said, with a shrug. ‘And he could bring on your luggage, not to mention the broken wheel to be repaired.’
‘Eminently sensible,’ commented the Marquis. ‘But we did not meet him on the road, so where is he?’
‘The horse he rode was lame and he had to walk to the farm — all of two miles further on, it be — and if the farmer were not at home or the cart loaded and needing to be unloaded it would take time. Ten to one he’s still there.’
‘Could you not have lent him a horse?’ Lydia asked.
‘Ma’am, we have no spares, as I told the young gentleman.’
‘I thought I saw two looking over their stalls in the stables when we came into the yard.’
‘They are bespoke for his lordship.’
‘Oh.’ She turned to the Marquis. ‘You have taken the last two horses. How are we to go on?’
If this was a hint to relinquish the animals to her, he did not take the bait. ‘I’ll lay odds your carriage wheel will not be ready by tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And by the day after your own horses will have been rested.’
‘One of them is lame; you heard the landlord say so. What about the ones you brought today?’
‘They go back to Longham,’ he snapped. ‘I do not leave prime cattle like that for any Tom, Dick or Harry to spoil.’
‘But we must go on — my aunt is expecting us tomorrow evening at the latest; she will be very worried if we do not arrive.’
He did not see that it need be any concern of his but he could no more abandon her now than he could when he’d first come upon the overturned coach, especially as her brother, if he truly was her brother, seemed to have left her to manage on her own. Confound the pair of them! ‘I will deem it a privilege to convey you and your brother on tomorrow,’ he said, then, turning to the innkeeper, ‘Have you a room for Miss Wenthorpe?’
It seemed the Marquis had also bespoken the only spare room but he gave it up with every appearance of cheerfulness, saying he would do very well on a settle in the parlour. By the time Tom arrived, it was quite dark and Lydia was being entertained by her rescuer to an excellent supper of fish in oyster sauce, boiled beef and apple flummery.
Tom was cold and wet and dismal and not inclined to be gracious when he discovered that Lydia had arrived in the village in comparative comfort, had washed and changed, and was sitting unchaperoned in the dining-room with a man to whom she had not been introduced. It really would not do, and he told her so in no uncertain terms when, at last, they left the dining-room to retire for the night and he was able to speak to her alone.
‘What would you have had me do?’ she retorted. ‘Sit under the broken carriage and freeze to death while you took your time bringing a farm cart? His lordship has been kindness itself…’ Kindness was not really the right word, she decided; he had been vastly entertaining, sarcastic and charming by turns, while remaining unfailingly polite. He had been solicitous for her comfort and sent the inn servants scurrying to please her, and then sat without speaking for several minutes watching her eat, as if he had never seen a woman with a hearty appetite before. Her concentration on her plate had not been so much hunger as a reluctance to raise her head and find those searching eyes on her.
‘You need not have dined with him,’ Tom said, unconvinced. ‘It is hardly the thing. He is a stranger.’
‘But he gave up his room for me, and a very fine room it is too; I could not be so ungrateful as to refuse his company, and we were not alone — the dining-room was full.’
‘We should have gone on to Watford where our rooms were booked.’
‘How?’
He had no answer and gave her none, but turned to grumbling that he had been obliged to dine on left-overs and was to sleep with Watkins and Scrivens above the stables and if he did not catch his death of a chill then he would be more than surprised. She made light of his catalogue of complaints, saying he would feel more the thing after a good night’s sleep and, taking her leave, went up to her bedchamber where Betty was waiting to help her undress.
It was a squeeze for them all to pack into the Marquis’s chaise the next morning, even though they left Watkins and Scrivens behind to see to the repairs of the coach and follow on when these had been completed and the horses rested. Tom, still sulking a little, sat beside his lordship facing Lydia and Betty and it seemed to Lydia that the Marquis was having even greater difficulty with his long legs. By the time they stopped for nuncheon they were all glad to get out and stretch their cramped limbs. The inn was the one where she and Tom would have stayed the previous night but for the accident, and their fresh horses were waiting for them; but now, of course, they had no carriage to harness them to. Tom was all for riding one of them but he would not leave Lydia alone in the carriage with the Marquis, especially as they were approaching London and might set the tongues wagging with unfavourable gossip about her before she had even
