Chapter 20

CHAPTER20

“Donald, please, we do not have to do this.” Susanna had lost track of how much she had pleaded with Donald. By now the sun was high in the sky, and they had made significant progress on their journey. London was long past as were the towns of Hertford and St Albans. Out into the countryside, there was nothing but trees for Susanna to wave at, pleading silently for help.

At her words, Donald lifted his head from where he was bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His unusual looks pinned her to the spot on this occasion. She had always thought him to have a friendly face, but it was now cold with the lines on his cheeks all the more noticeable.

“We must do this,” he said pointedly. “You have to marry, Susanna. You are compromised. Quite frankly, I will raise another man’s child as my own if it means saving you from a fate of being discarded on the street.”

“I am not with child!” Susanna insisted, leaning forward once again, but Donald didn’t seem to have heard her. He looked away and peered out of the window.

“We are making good progress,” he nodded, clearly approving of the distance they had covered. “We may be at Gretna Green sooner than I thought.”

“Donald, please.” Susanna shuffled along the bench on her side of the coach, the better to find Donald’s gaze with her own. “Please tell me why you are doing this.”

“You know why I am doing this.”

“No, I do not.” Susanna shook her head. “If you truly believed me to be compromised by the Duke and carrying his child, then why would you not insist that the Duke be the one to marry me?” The question made a silence descend between them.

For a few minutes as the carriage rocked them back and forth, nothing was uttered. The only sounds were the noises of the carriage wheels, clacking against the occasional cobbled stone, and the horses that snorted, angered to be driven so fast. Susanna watched as Donald fidgeted uncomfortably. He shuffled in his seat, ran his hands through his hair, and then sat straight, his rather cold and pale blue eyes meeting her gaze.

“You must marry me, Susanna.” At his words, she blinked, uncertain she had heard him right for a minute.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You must marry me. That was the way it was always supposed to go,” he insisted, leaning back on the carriage bench so that his posture slumped. “It was perfect, was it not, our friendship?”

Susanna couldn’t answer as she stared at him, confused as to what Donald wanted her to say.

“Neither one of us were held up as pillars of society. I was odd, too strange for my father to condone, and you flouted the rules. We were perfect; we suited.” Slowly, Donald leaned forward.

That odd movement made Susanna lean back, keeping as much distance between them as she could. “You were the one who protected me when my father was cruel. You were the one who showed me that there was more to life, that there was a way to be happy without having to bother with earning someone else’s good opinion.”

“It is just a way to live, Donald.”

“It is the way we live.” He corrected her, gesturing between them with his open palms. “It was good enough for a story, was it not?”

“What was?”

“Us!” He gestured between them. “Met together as children, defended one another, grew up together, our lives at each other’s side.”

“That’s not how it was,” Susanna whispered quietly, but Donald didn’t appear to hear her. “We were friends. Like any childhood friends.”

“You and I were more than that.” Donald shook his head. “I knew the way it had to be. Someday, we would marry; we had to, for you were the only one who would ever look at me without censure or rebuke for the way I was. We were perfect.” He motioned between them another time, leaning so far forward on this occasion that he was in danger of falling off the carriage bench. “You were supposed to look at me, Susanna. You were supposed to notice me.”

I didn’t.

“I noticed the Duke of Belbridge instead,” Susanna whispered, watching as Donald slowly nodded. Far gone was the affable smile he so often wore, and in its place, his jaw was set tight.

He is looking at me like he hates me.

“You weren’t supposed to have your head turned by someone else.” Donald shook his head madly. “That was not the way the story was supposed to go.”

“Story? What story?” Susanna leaned forward, trying her best to appeal to what good sense was still in Donald. “You look at the two of us as if we are some romantic tale written by Shakespeare or some equally grand storyteller? That is not us. There is no such thing as destiny or people that are meant to end up together.”

“We were meant to end up together.” At Donald’s firm words, he jerked his head forward, urging Susanna to sit back on her bench once again. “That was the way it was supposed to happen.”

“You cannot dream up an idea and make it a reality.” Susanna’s scoff only maddened him, for his eyes narrowed.

“It is the reality, or at least, come tomorrow when we reach Gretna Green, it will be.” He nodded as if asserting the fact to himself, more so than to her. “We will be married, the way it should have always been, and I will not have to hear the Duke of Belbridge’s name again.”

“I love him.” Susanna found the words escaped her mouth quickly. Donald froze.

Susanna half thought he would be sick, for his expression had completely altered to one of nausea and anger.

“I love him, Donald,” she said again. “Does that fit into your idea of the future you think we should have had? Did you factor in marrying a woman whose heart would always belong to someone else?”

“You do not love him. You simply think you do. He has charmed you, that is all, with his position and his wealth –”

“I do not love him for his position. I love him for who he is!” Susanna declared with passion, resting her hands over her heart. It simply made Donald fidget all the more, his mannerisms quite frantic. “Do you still want to marry me, Donald? When you know that is how I feel?”

Silence fell between them. Susanna half hoped for a minute she may have saved herself. It was just possible that the good sense that was lodged somewhere inside of Donald would wake up and realize what a mad idea this all was. Yet, as the silence went on, Susanna soon saw it was a naïve hope to hold onto.

Donald looked out of the window, checking on their progress once again.

“Yes, we are covering a good distance. It won’t be long now.” At his words, she moved across the carriage to the other window, putting as much distance between them as she possibly could.

In the new quiet that developed, Susanna realized something. At no point had Donald said that he had loved her. He simply spoke of the way things should be and how her actions hadn’t fit into the plan he had made for the two of them.

It is an obsession with a plan for his future. He does not do this out of love but out of fixation.

“What is it you really want from me?” Susanna whispered into the air, her voice quite fragile.

“What?” Donald jerked his head in her direction.

“What is it you want from me?” Susanna asked, her voice clearer this time. “Do you want me to play at being your wife? To pretend to be happy when I will not be? Or do you expect me to love you?”

“You will learn to love me.” Donald motioned to her with the flat of his hand. “In time, you will see how right we are for each other. You might be blinded to it now, distracted by what the Duke has told you and how he has charmed you, but that will end soon enough. Given time, you will come round to my way of thinking.”

When he turned his eyes out of the window again, Susanna was disgusted. It was plain that no amount of reasonable talking would connect with Donald. He expected love but clearly didn’t love her in return.

He doesn’t look at me as Anthony does. He doesn’t see the real me as Anthony does.

The truth settled in her heart, that with Anthony she had been more herself than with any other person.

I love Anthony, and I will not marry another man now just because of a penknife hidden in a tailcoat pocket!

Susanna knew she had to wait for the ideal opportunity to try and escape. For all she knew, it could take hours before her note was discovered by Peggy. Then, it could be too late for anyone to come and help her out of this mess. She had to delay reaching Gretna Green for as long as possible.

For a good distance, the carriage was travelling fast, so fast that to think of opening the door beside Susanna was impossible. Had she flung it open and rolled out onto the ground, she could have done herself a great injury. Yet, soon, an opportunity presented itself. The carriage began to slow, turning around a bend.

Susanna felt her hand begin to tremble, caught up in the excitement and the nervousness of the moment. With careful glances, she looked toward Donald, noting that he was so busy looking out of the other window, that he was not aware of how her hand was lifting toward the clasp of the door.

Susanna held her breath, waiting for another minute. As the carriage slowed with the horses coming down to a gentle trot, she took her opportunity. Pulling on the clasp of the door, she flung it open then Susanna leapt out of the door.

“Susanna!” Donald called.

Susanna felt a hand try to grasp at her skirt, but she managed to land on the ground before it could be taken. With the fast movement of the carriage, she was knocked from her feet and rolled away across the muddy earth, covering herself in dirt.

Susanna laid there for a minute, winded, struggling to stand. She was aware of the carriage coming to a sudden halt, and Donald shouting.

Susanna gathered herself as quickly as she could and stood to her feet, her boots slipping in the wet mud beneath her, damp from a night’s worth of rain.

Donald was getting down from the carriage, hurrying, before he set his eyes on her.

“Susanna!” he snapped at her. “Get back in this carriage.”

“No.” Susanna turned and fled, running down the road. It was empty of other traffic with no one else around, and the sticky mud beneath her was impairing her run.

Donald caught up with her too easily. He clasped hold of the back of her gown and jerked her backwards.

“No!” Susanna screamed the word, practically falling into him as a sight appeared before her.

Where the road bended around a bank of trees, a group of men appeared on horses. The constables were visible first with the silver buttons on their uniforms gleaming, and beside them were two faces Susanna knew. One was Anthony’s steward, and the other was Anthony himself.