Mad for Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 2 (13 page)

All she could do was gape at him. “What? Us?”

“Us,” he repeated firmly.

“But why on earth would I do that when I’m not in love with you? Eloping is for errant lovers!”

“Who knows that but us?” Glancing around, he seized her arm in a most unlover-like fashion and started to walk again. “Oh, for a private room, but they’re in great demand tonight. I couldn’t get one for any price.” Nodding to a young woman and her chaperone, who Aurelia only vaguely remembered, he walked on briskly.

“I’m not a soldier,” she reminded him with dignity.

“I know,” he said, but he relented and slowed his pace. “I need you to get us in and out of the damned maze. I also need to keep you safe.”

An incredulous laugh rocked her. “From my mother?”

“Exactly. From your mother. She’ll stop at nothing. You’re as expendable as anyone else.”

Alarm shot through her. “You aren’t serious, are you?”

“Yes, I am.” His firm mouth straightened, and lines of strain appeared at the corners. “But think of it in this way—I believe you. I believe Stretton was abducted and hidden in the maze.” He paused and smiled at her as a couple passed them close enough to overhear what they were saying. “He will need you. I will need him to recover as soon as he can. I have no experience with his condition. Do you?”

“What condition?”

The corridor was almost deserted now. The performance must have started. Outside their box, he turned and spoke to her directly. “What has he told you? What has your mother told you?”

Gazing into his eyes, Aurelia knew he wasn’t telling her everything. That he was deliberately holding back. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll come with you.” She’d never taken such a risk before in all her life. If he made good, she’d have to do it.

“I want to go to Scotland and rescue him. We need him, badly, and your mother must know that.” Speaking quietly and rapidly, his sincere expression convinced her that in this, at least, he was telling the truth. As far as it went, that was. “You need him. If you’re wrong, and he’s not there, we will marry because you’ll be ruined. However, you have my word I won’t lay one finger on you while we’re travelling. Unfortunately, society will not believe that.”

“My mother can…” Her head swam with unasked questions, a lack of understanding. “Why would she abduct him?”

“Ask me tomorrow. Are you coming or not?”

“Yes.”

There, it was out. She was going. He wouldn’t say any more except, “Be ready tomorrow at ten. No, make it nine. Pack as little as you can. Can you get out of the house without anyone noticing?”

She almost laughed. “Are you joking? With three maids sleeping in the kitchen and the hall boy on duty all night? The only way I’ll get out of the house will be with my mother’s acceptance.”

“Come to Ranelagh tomorrow night.”

“I’ll be there. My mother will be thrilled, you’re right. She’s been trying to push me at you forever.” The dowager was terribly keen to get her daughter married off to Lyndhurst. A suspicion crossed her mind. “Is this a trap? Do you want me to marry you and this is a way of carrying me off? Because I won’t.”

“You will if we don’t find Stretton,” he said grimly. “Otherwise, you can go to the devil. Oh, we’ll make something of it, but I will not be ostracized from society and I won’t see it happening to you.”

“If we find Blaize?”

“Then you marry him.”

It sounded so simple.

Not as simple when she stood outside a side-entrance at Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens, portmanteau in hand. She’d told the butler who stood in the hall with his nose in the air that it contained the hat she was returning to the shop. She wore a highly impractical gown, which she aimed to replace as soon as possible with something bought at the first way-station. Actually, she had one practical gown on underneath. Heated to the point of bursting, she’d thought it a good idea at the time. Unable to carry anything else, she’d worn two pockets and stuffed them as much as she dared, so at least she had a clean shift and stockings.

A coach stood in the line of fancy town-carriages, its horses snorting and stamping. Fresh and ready to travel. The lamps hanging outside the vehicle were lit, the ones inside also.

Aurelia didn’t move until she saw a familiar figure alighting from the coach. Then she started toward him. “Subtle, aren’t we?” she said as she accepted his hand to climb up. Of necessity, travelling carriages were higher off the ground than most town carriages, the roads not being as smooth. And this was a sturdy, if comfortable coach, as she discovered when she settled on one of the leather-clad seats.

He sat opposite her. Wearing garments much more suited for travelling, a sensible bottle-green coat and cloak, he favoured her with a slight smile. “Good evening, my darling bride. I’ve taken the liberty of providing necessaries like tooth powder, brushes and nightwear for you. I see you came prepared.”

The coach jolted into action, throwing Aurelia to one side. “I could hardly go to Ranelagh wearing a riding habit, could I?”

“I have one of those for you too. I know many ladies prefer to travel in riding gear, even if horses make them ill.”

Unable to bear her clothes a minute longer, Aurelia began to work at the pearl-headed pins holding her bodice to the stomacher at the front. “Exactly.” At least she’d managed to don a small hoop, claiming it was the latest fashion. Sitting in a travelling carriage all the way to Scotland in one of the outlandish wide hoops favoured by the exceptionally fashionable didn’t bear considering. So she hadn’t.

“What are you doing?” he said frigidly. “When I imagined my wedding night, I never thought it would take place in a coach with a woman so keen to get undressed she can’t even look at me.”

“Stop being so foolish and hold these.” When he held out his hand, she plunked a bunch of pins into it. “Take care of them. I might need them.” Having loosened her gown, she freed her pretty brocade stomacher and unceremoniously threw it aside. Turning, she presented her back to him. “Pull.”

At least he knew what to do with a gown. He tugged it off her shoulders and down her arms. Then she could shake it off. “See?” Turning, she presented him with her dark-blue day gown. “I couldn’t travel in cherry-red stripes, could I?”

He blinked. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“I didn’t know if you’d have the sense to bring something for me, so I brought my own.” She could remove her fancy petticoat now. This she turned inside out to keep it clean and folded carefully. Now she could move more freely. She laid the garment aside and reached for the gown. Twenty yards, someone had told her, but she couldn’t see that. More like ten. It felt like thirty when she folded it, and in the end she gave up and bundled it into as small a parcel as she could manage, which was not very small at all.

“Are we travelling through the night?”

“No. It’s a new moon and overcast. I don’t want to risk it. We’ll get over Hampstead Heath and then stop at the first inn.”

She stared at him in alarm. “Won’t Mama send someone after us?”

“Not after she reads my note.”

“What?” Bouncing upright, she glared. “You left her a note?”

“I take it you did not?”

“No.” She had thought of it, but didn’t know what to say. Fond of order and not a little circumstance to important family actions, her mother would most likely drag them back, even if she knew it was Lyndhurst she was running away with and not Blaize.

“I informed her that I had the honour to escort you to your home on the occasion of your great-aunt falling gravely ill.” When she stifled a laugh, he gave her a stern stare worthy of the strictest governess. “How heartless to find your great-aunt Frederica’s illness so amusing!”

“I have no great-aunt of that name, sir.”

“I’m sure your mother will let it be known that you have a plethora of them.”

For the first time in days, she smiled properly. He did have a sense of humour, after all. “Isn’t a group of great-aunts properly known as a bevy?”

“I bow to your superior knowledge.” Reaching to one side, he picked up a blanket, shook it out and leaned forward to tuck it around her. “It will get chilly in the next few hours. The weather’s on the turn. We must hope that it won’t rain too much and clog the roads. May is such a changeable month, is it not?”

Leaning back, he calmly told her of his preparations for the journey. “We’re joining two other coaches for the journey across the Heath. Travelling in a well-appointed, well-lit coach after dark alone is like shouting, ‘Come and get me!’ to every highwayman north of London. Do you have them in Scotland?” he concluded with a dry smile.

“They’re everywhere, aren’t they?” The romantic stories of dashing highwaymen had never convinced Aurelia. She’d seen one, when she’d been in Edinburgh on a hanging-day, and he didn’t look dashing or romantic to her. Dirty and sulky, with a week’s beard growth and grimy face and hands was more like it. He was underfed too.

“All over the place,” he agreed, straight-faced.

This time they shared the grin. God help her, she was beginning to like him. Before, he’d appeared as a dashing soldier, then a haughty, handsome aristocrat. But now he was revealing himself as a man, with no trappings. Perhaps the journey might not be as fraught as she had imagined.

To her relief, they crossed the expanse of Hampstead Heath without incident. Two coaches stood waiting at the end of a row of houses, and when they arrived they started into action. No words exchanged, as if this was a normal occurrence, they crossed the heath as fast as they dared, which, since night had fallen completely by now, was very fast, and then drove to the first inn. Which they found full. The second was ten miles further on, but Lyndhurst decided to press on, a decision Aurelia was glad of. They reached the Coach and Horses at one in the morning, and she was hardly conscious of Lyndhurst explaining that his sister’s maid had fallen ill.

“I’ll manage by myself,” she said, “if the bags can be brought up.”

She fell on the clean white night rail in the portmanteau delivered to her room, and after scrabbling for a washcloth, toothbrush and comb, made herself comfortable and tumbled into bed. True, the mattress was a little lumpy, but she could have slept on a cobbled street. Worrying herself into a tangle of nerves had also exhausted her, and now they were doing something at last, that part of her could let go. She slept better than she had for a week.

A soft knock on the bedroom door woke her. Although it was barely six in the morning, the sun was up and they could be on their way. A few hours’ sleep was enough to fill the reservoir she’d built up in the last week, but after scrambling into the modest riding habit Lyndhurst had provided for her, she stuffed the few things she’d unpacked into the portmanteau and went down for breakfast. Barely half an hour later, they were in the coach and she’d fallen into a fitful slumber.

The Great North Road was supposed to be one of the best kept roads in the country, but in Aurelia’s humble opinion, that didn’t mean much. Once away from prying eyes, they pressed on.

As far as the coachman and footman accompanying them were concerned, Lyndhurst and she were brother and sister. She learned that Lyndhurst had hired them along with the coach instead of using his own. Better to be discreet.

“But what if we need force to rescue Blaize?” she asked.

His mouth had settled into a grim line. “It will be my pleasure to provide it.”

How he would overcome the guards her mother had undoubtedly set on the maze, she didn’t know. Even if he was an ex-soldier. But she consoled herself with recalling that Lyndhurst had an establishment in Scotland, and he could pick up extra help there, if he considered they needed it. His estate was barely thirty miles from theirs. It wouldn’t be difficult to make a small detour. Except she didn’t want to make any detour at all.

Journeys taken for whatever reason settled into a monotonous tedium after a time. Mile after mile of road, some smooth but mostly rutted, interspersed with sprinklings of villages and the occasional town, could wear a person down. When they paused at a town, Aurelia preferred to take a short walk rather than to eat. Lyndhurst, who had, in the event of their masquerade, asked her to call him Marcus, had a basket of provisions ready for her on her return. She supposed it was foolhardy to take a walk without a maid, but that part of the trip she found enjoyable. The freedom of movement without someone constantly with her was somewhat exciting, even if she didn’t go far and never out of sight. Marcus did insist on sending the footman with her, though, but he followed at a discreet distance. As alone as she could be in a populated area, she paused to stare into shop windows and at the people.

But such heady excitement couldn’t balance out the sheer monotony of sitting in one place conversing. On the second day, when she’d woken from her early morning nap, Aurelia found Marcus dealing a hand of solitaire and insisted on playing with him. She found him a tolerable piquet player and a magnificent marjolet player, a game Aurelia had been unfamiliar with, but Marcus told her he’d picked up on his travels abroad.

At the end of the second day she found herself owing him twenty thousand pounds, but since they’d agreed to commute all debts to allow the winner to select the bedroom they’d prefer and the supper they would eat, that didn’t bother her too much. Except her competitive nature insisted that she win back what she’d lost. By the end of the fourth day, she’d reduced her losses to five thousand.

At some point in the afternoon they’d fallen asleep. By now used to their masquerade, she could almost imagine having Marcus as a brother. He’d make a very good brother, she concluded, not as good as the one she had, to be sure, but good enough.

Then he jolted her by saying, “What has Stretton told you about himself?”

“Enough,” she said stiffly. “I know his age, that his parents are deceased and what the rest of society knows.” Also what he looked like half-naked, though she guessed that wasn’t what Marcus meant.

“I see.” Gathering up the cards, Marcus shuffled them, riffling them through his hands as he spoke, the gentle whisper of the cards a reflection of the rain softly pattering on the roof of their coach. The promised bad weather had arrived, but as yet it wasn’t too bad. Aurelia’s thoughts went to Blaize, trapped in that maze with no shelter against the weather. She prayed it wasn’t raining where he was. They were a mere fifty miles away now. They were within a breath of the border. Ten miles, by her reckoning.