Dilemma in Yellow Silk (11 page)

“We can’t go to London!”

He regarded her seriously, his eyes grave. “I always meant to take you there.”

“Why?”

“London holds people who can help us.”

Not you but us. “Who?”

“My family, the Emperors.” He took both her hands in his. “How brave are you, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I’ve never been tested this way.”

“Trust me. I won’t leave you, and I won’t allow anyone to hurt you.” The sparkle returned. “And we have an adventure ahead of us, do we not?”

A bell clanged and a man yelled, at the top of his voice. “The coach to London is departing in five minutes!”

The headlong rush almost swept them away. Outside in the cobbled yard the scene appeared completely without organization. Viola had never been this close to a stage coach before. If she’d been alone, the scene would have overwhelmed her.

As it was, she stayed close to Marcus and followed him into the body of the coach. Above them, heels drummed as the top passengers climbed up and settled themselves on the roof. Behind, thumps heralded the loading of luggage into the boot. This was not the first stage of the journey. That meant the coach contained pieces of clothing, discarded cloaks, and paraphernalia like personal
bourdaloues
, fans, and gloves. The interior passengers had left them behind in their headlong rush to find food. One of the bourdaloues, a pretty blue-and-white china example, had been used and its contents not dumped over the side of the coach, as was usual. Viola wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of urine.

For the first time in her adult life, Viola had only what she stood up in. “I don’t even have a comb!” she murmured as someone pushed past her to take her place next to Marcus.

“Yes, you do. I bought a few things to weight the bag. My old coat is there, and your discarded gown.”

“It’s ruined. I can never rescue it.”

“Then we’ll replace it with something else,” he said calmly.

How could he remain so stoic in the face of…this? He touched her hand. “I will take care of you. If we do not get to London this way, if you find the passage intolerable, we will stop and find someone to help us. I have an extensive circle of acquaintances, after all.”

Some of the highest in the land. Viola would die rather than present herself to the exalted people Marcus must know in this state. Her hair was barely fastened, as she’d lost most of her hairpins in the struggle though the bushes. She had no fan or any of the accessories she was used to, not even a handkerchief.

With a deafening blast from the yard of tin, warning anyone ahead they were about to move, the coach set off. The six horses pulling the equipage were fresh and snorted as they swept through the inn yard, as precariously as the vehicle had sailed in. A few people stared as they passed, but with coaches arriving and leaving throughout the course of the day, most would be used to it.

Viola was not. The whole experience left her trembling with shock.

The harbor came into sight out of the left-hand window. It bristled with masts and rigging from the big ships. Gathered at one end, like a collection of children were the smaller vessels that plied the fishing trade. Seagulls shrieked and dipped, searching for the discards, as fishwives cleaned the catch and discarded the inevitable detritus. Sea air blew in through the open windows, making Viola clutch her hat for fear she would lose it.

She tried to concentrate on the outside scenery rather than the thoughts and fears whirling around in her head. Someone had tried to kill her, or Marcus. They wanted to capture her. She clutched his arm. “The papers!”

“I have them safe,” was his calm reply, “But more importantly, I have you safe.”

“Did you say we were brother and sister?” It would be acceptable for a brother to escort his sister with no maid or companion.

“Husband and wife,” he replied tersely. “I told you, I do not want to let you out of my sight.”

Yet more shocks reverberated through her. Could she take any more? “I don’t have a ring,” were her first bewildered words.

“That is easily remedied. Besides, not every wife wears a ring.”

That was true enough, but in her confusion, Viola had seized upon the first excuse she could think of. Now she felt idiotic. Marcus clasped her hand tighter. “Sleep. That’s the best cure.”

Despite the relatively early hour of the day, to her surprise she found she could do as he said.

Marcus and Viola were lucky to find a room available on the first overnight stop. Two would have been impossible and more than his limited budget could bear. Marcus had considered taking a gig to the estate of a friend who lived not thirty miles away. But once they had embarked on this reckless journey, he reconsidered.

In the presence of these people—chattering and gossiping, sleeping and staring silently from the windows—they went unremarked. In an open carriage or even a closed one, they were more vulnerable. If he could afford outriders and their weapons, Marcus might have considered the move. However he had no proof of who he was any more, so he could not travel on tick. He had not been carrying his card case. In any case, who would be fool enough to grant him credit on the strength of a visiting card?

The coach jolted over the uneven road, its suspension slack, if it had any at all. He gave one lingering thought to his phaeton and then forced his mind to move on. Such a sweetly balanced vehicle. He must buy another, because that one had gone. Their attackers would steal it or smash it. He’d never get another quite so fine.

Instead, he had the woman next to him. In her sleep Viola had slumped to one side, forcing him to curve his arm around her shoulders to hold her steady. He’d seen people numb with shock, and after what had happened to her and what she’d learned, he was not surprised she had slid into slumber. With any luck, she would accept her fate when she awoke.

Not that he had any intention of telling her everything. She knew too much already. Instead of feeding the information to her slowly, he’d given it to her in one big gulp. Unlike his father, Marcus believed she should know. She had a right, and she would need full knowledge to prepare her for what lay ahead.

Another jolt made him tighten his hold, but after a little moan of complaint, she settled back down. They were passing through a village, thatched cottages lining the main street. If it was like the villages he’d ventured into, behind those doors lay hovels. The family living there shared one room with the most precious of their livestock and a hole in the ceiling to act as a chimney. An inn at the end of the street gave them some respite from their daily labors. But at least they did not have people who wanted to kill them.

The attack at the Scarborough house had worried him deeply. The two shots were indiscriminate, aiming at whomever they could hit. The woman in his arms was precious to more people than he was. She was a valuable commodity. Married to one of the Duke of Northwich’s sons, she’d give the Dankworth family a legitimate claim to the throne. They were dangerous enough without giving them extra ammunition.

The duke had escaped the bloodbath after Culloden, threatened with attainder but not brought to trial. Nothing had been proved against him, mainly because of his wealth and importance to the country. Lesser men had been swept up in the conflagration, but not Northwich. Where he was, plotting followed close behind, and sometimes even led. He would have taken care to send men to capture her and probably render him incapable of following her, but not dead. Death brought complications.

But the Pretender—that was different. Charles Edward Stuart was seriously challenged by the new developments. If anyone ever found the original certificate of marriage between the Old Pretender and Maria Rubio, the children would displace him in the succession. Except, of course, the Hanoverians had already displaced him. But they never gave up, the Jacobites. They’d be dead in the ground before they surrendered their claims to the throne.

He held her snugly, this royal child, the woman he had plans for. If she would accept them, he thought with a wry smile. Nothing was certain where Viola was concerned. She would fight anything she considered wrong, or interfered with what she wanted, or hurt those she loved.

He’d like to be one of the people she loved.

He glanced at his slumbering princess. A thread of a pulse throbbed in the delicate skin of her wrist. An urge took him to kiss her there, but he could not. Must not. He would guard her, a poor palace guard indeed, but he would do his best.

Marcus had found more than someone to protect. He would have this, this one thing for himself. He would have her. Together once more, after so many years watching each other from a distance—he would not let her go again. Friend or more, he would protect her and care for her and ensure she got everything she wanted or needed. Even if it meant returning to Haxby and living her life as the daughter of the estate manager. That had made her happy for the last twenty-six years. Right from the impulsive kiss in the music room, when his long-dormant desire for her had reignited, he had begun to dream.

She felt right snuggled next to him, heating his body more than she should in this confined space. Not just desirable, but right. Marcus had never considered himself an inarticulate person, but he found describing her and his feelings towards her difficult. So difficult he did not know how to begin. So it was probably as well she woke up when the coach hit a rut.

Viola squeezed her eyes tighter and then opened them wide. Tilting her head, she winced and then met his gaze. She tried to jerk away, but he held her firmly.

“Ease yourself back to consciousness,” he murmured. He kissed her forehead, as much to demonstrate their masquerade as to ease his longing to touch or kiss her. In public, he would dare no more, nor would he put her in an invidious position. But he was posing as her husband. They were not exactly in the presence of the cream of society, who detested demonstrations of affection conducted in public. Bad manners and distinctly distasteful, they would have said.

“Why are you smiling?” She sounded petulant, but then, she had good reason to be. None of what had happened that day had been her fault, or even expected.

“We are safe, resting, and on our way to London. You said you wanted to see it. And so you shall.”

“But I thought we were—” She bit her lip, obviously recalling where they were, and completed her sentence. “I thought we were visiting your relatives in Derbyshire.”

“We’re going to London,” he said firmly. “It makes no sense to stop. We were fortunate to catch the coach when we did.”

That gave them the advantage on any pursuers. He’d signed the tickets as Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar. He knew nobody by that name, so nobody would connect the neatly although shabbily dressed Dunbars with the illustrious Earl of Malton and his…friend.

“What time is it?”

“Barely noon,” he said. “We have a way to go yet.”

* * * *

Because of the good weather and healthy passengers, the coach made good time. Healthy passengers were important. They needed to scramble out, eat scalding hot food, and back on again by the time the ostlers had turned the coach and put fresh horses to the traces. Viola became adept at gulping hot coffee without burning her mouth. At the first stage where they paused, she forewent the meal. After begging a shilling from Marcus, she crossed the street to buy a novel from a bookshop there. Putting up with Marcus’s good-natured teasing, she promised to lend it to him when they had done. “But it’s the first part of a three-part story. The publisher says at the end the next installment will follow shortly, although I have no idea when that will be. He does not say. I was fortunate to find it reduced. Perhaps that is because the second and third parts were not forthcoming.”

“It’s unusual for a publisher to take the first part of a book without the others being ready,” he said.

The read concerned a young woman whose conscience pushed her into far too many insane adventures, nearly losing her virtue in almost every chapter. Viola read on, absorbed, the jolting of the badly sprung vehicle hardly troubling her at all. At one point, the man of the cloth sitting opposite to them leaned his head out of the window and heaved. Clearly not everyone travelled well.

She continued with her book and had nearly completed it when they reached their destination for the night. Talk with Marcus had necessarily been short and stilted. They could hardly discuss their situation with the four other passengers, who were, in any case, more interested in their own situations than anyone else’s.

A woman held a basket on her lap, which turned out to contain a cockerel—a breeder, she said, for her reluctant hens. “For with their current cock, they will not lay at all, and I need those eggs. Very good eggs they are too, just not enough of ’em.” She was not travelling farther than a day with them, so either they could spread out more the next day, or they would have a new passenger. The boy in the corner was on his way to school in London and had someone meeting him at their destination. The lady sitting opposite, the one who was ostentatiously reading a book of sermons, was a governess on her way to a new position.

Viola learned about them all, through their chatter, and remained silent, reading her book. Marcus spent most of his time watching the scenery pass by, as if he expected trouble at every turn.

They passed through a number of pretty hamlets, and the day being fine, they appeared at their best. Even a larger town or two, but Viola had no idea where they were until dusk was falling and they reached their destination for the night.

The lady with the cockerel left with a large man, presumably her husband. The others trooped into the inn.

Viola tried to recall where they had been, but found herself getting drowsy once more. How she could, after falling asleep earlier in the day, she didn’t know. When Marcus spoke to the landlord, she opened her eyes wide once more. “Yes, one room is sufficient,” he said.

“Aye, well we’re full with another coach that lost a wheel, but you’re lucky. I have one room left,” the landlord said. He didn’t appear the least suspicious.