Chapter 12

Sir Horley awoke with a splitting headache and without Belle. The former he did not think he deserved, and the latter felt as inevitable as the tides. He wasn’t sure why he was even surprised. Belle had been running, in one way or another, as long as he’d known her. Why would she have stayed for him when no-one else had? Why would he even want her to, beyond preferring not to ruin her reputation beyond rescue? Why was he always such an irredeemable fool? He remembered, with a quiver of self-disgust, sinking into Belle’s embrace. How it had taken every particle of pride he possessed not to beg for more. Come closer. Hold me tighter. Let me feel your breath and your heartbeat and all the devastating warmth of you.

The thought drifted across his mind that someday someone might make him a promise they considered worth keeping. But that was quickly followed by the recollection that Belle hadn’t actually promised him anything beyond staying put while he divested himself of trifle. And this she had done. Afterwards she had offered ... well, he still wasn’t quite sure what she’d offered. Something she’d evidently regretted—found him unworthy of—come morning. And how could he blame her for that when she’d been nothing but generous, and he’d been ... himself? Resistant and mistrustful, brutalising her in the name of honesty, so hopelessly enmeshed in the fear of having someone else turn from him or let him down that he’d hardly noticed he was the one drawing back and pushing away. The one thinking only of himself.

Her departure, then, should not have hurt in return. It wasn’t as though he had truly trusted her or given her any reason to stay. From a certain perspective, he might even have found the situation reassuring. Those who he invited into his bed tended to vanish like stars before the dawn. Why would it be any different for Arabella Tarleton? Although from another, he had perhaps come to a pretty pass that it was no longer even necessary to fuck him in order to fuck him over.

Because—and here was the rub—he did feel fucked over. More fucked over than he had any right to. More fucked over than any departing liaison had left him for a very long time. Because those men had, at least, had the decency to use him, and be used, and be done. They had not held him stalwart in the dark, then left him to the cold.

Rolling onto his stomach, he pressed his face into the pillow and found that it still smelled faintly of Belle—sweet and taunting, a whisper of safety that had turned out to be illusion after all. Rolling back, he discovered there was a man with a knife sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Jesus Christ.” He sat up as abruptly as could be expected under the circumstances.

The man with a knife smiled in a manner Sir Horley disinclined to find genial. “Good morning, sunshine.”

“What the—my travelling companion, where’s Belle? What have you done with her?”

“The young miss?”

“Yes. By God, if you’ve hurt her—”

“Why would I want to hurt a nice lady like that?”

“Why would you want to breach my bedroom with a blade?”

“Oh.” The man, who was not displeasing in a dark-haired, dark-eyed, blatantly feral kind of way, took a moment to think about it. “Well. The thing is, sunshine. We like the nice young lady, and we don’t like—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Sir Horley, not at all sorry, “but who is we in this context? We , the royal we? We , you and your knife?”

The man stared at him. “ We as in me and the missus. The knife’s from the kitchen.”

This was at least mildly reassuring. Sir Horley suspected that men who had personal relationships with kitchenware were likely to be more difficult to deal with than men who did not. Although, in an ideal world, he would not have had to deal with any men and their kitchenware, irrespective of their level of intimacy.

“She’s called Betsy,” offered the man.

“The missus?”

“The knife.”

“How about,” suggested Sir Horley, since this line of enquiry was getting him precisely nowhere and there was still an armed stranger in his bed, “we return to the issue of what you and the missus and your sharp friend over there don’t like?”

The man seemed only too happy to oblige. “Right. Yeah. Basically, it’s your sort. We don’t like your sort.”

“My sort?” Sir Horley had received such comments before, though not usually when he was accompanied by a woman.

“Yeah,” said the man again. A dull light flared in the depths of his eyes. “Hoity-toity rich fucker aristos what think just because they’ve got a prick, they can push anyone around and nobody’ll stop ’em.”

Between the knife and the headache, it was difficult to think. But this was clearly a moment for thinking. For swift and useful thinking. “And, ah, that’s how you perceive me?”

“You said it yourself, sunshine. Last night in the taproom, bold as brass, proud as you like over abducting that poor little lady.”

“One would really think,” Sir Horley murmured, mostly to himself, “I would have learned the value of keeping my mouth shut by now.”

The man shrugged. “Reckon you really thought you was going to get away with it.”

“Except you’ve nobly taken it upon yourself to prevent me?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘noble.’” The man ducked his head in a parody of modesty. “But I wouldn’t not say ‘noble.’ See, the missus and I talked it over last night. ‘What an arsehole,’ I said to her. And she said to me, she said, ‘I’ve known some mighty fine arseholes in my time—you’re giving that posh bastard far too much credit.’”

“For the record,” Sir Horley put in mildly, “my parentage has never been in question. They had no use for me, but I was assuredly their issue.”

The man—the innkeeper, in fact, he now realised—spun the knife between his fingers with disconcerting expertise. “Is that why you go about abducting women? Mummy and Daddy didn’t love you enough?”

“What? No. Also, I wasn’t abducting anyone.”

“Then why,” asked the innkeeper, not unreasonably, “did you tell everyone you was?”

It was a question Sir Horley had been asking himself since it had happened. And the only answer he could find was “I thought it was a good idea at the time?”

“To abduct someone? What is wrong with you, mate?”

“How long have you got?”

“Not that long, actually. Got an inn to run.”

“Then why not put the knife down, explain what’s happened to my fiancée, and we can all go about our lives as usual?”

“Well, I am explaining, aren’t I?”

“Are you?”

“Yes”—the innkeeper nodded with conviction—“it’s like I said to the missus last night. ‘We can’t be doing with this,’ I said to her. And she said to me, ‘Benjamin,’ she said, ‘you’re right, we can’t be doing with this.’ So her and me, we hatched a plan, didn’t we?”

“And”—Sir Horley eyed Betsy—“this is the plan?”

“Naw. The plan was to knock you out with nitrous in order to help the young lady on her way.”

Sir Horley sighed. No wonder it felt as though someone had been playing tennis with his skull. “And Belle has suffered no ill effects? You’ve let her go?”

“We weren’t the ones trying to hold her against her will, was we?”

He sighed again. “No, that’s a fair point. But she wasn’t frightened or distressed in any way?”

“She was a bit startled when we first came in. We didn’t want to wake you, see, so the missus had to put a hand over her mouth while I took care of you. Once she understood what was happening, though, she was very obliging.”

“I’m sure she was.”

“We can see why you’d want to abduct her if that wasn’t a fucked-in-the-head thing to do.” Benjamin shook his own head sadly. “Haven’t you ever heard of consent, mate?”

“Clearly,” said Sir Horley, “I have fallen short of the standards I set for myself. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways and holding me to account. I acknowledge the hurt I have caused and I am grateful for this opportunity to grow. Now will you please put the fucking knife down?”

Benjamin did not put the fucking knife down. “I could do that,” he conceded. “But the fact of the matter is, you’re presenting something of a wossname for the missus and me.”

“A wossname? What manner of wossname?”

“A quandary. That kind of wossname.” He shrugged. “Way of the world being what it is, I don’t suppose a high-in-the-instep fancy-pantsy noblefucker like you is likely to take kindly to being knocked out and held up while the woman he’s trying to abduct does a runner.”

“You should know,” said Sir Horley quickly, “I’m exceptionally kind.”

Benjamin narrowed his eyes.

Dread had temporarily—perhaps very temporarily—gained ascendancy from within the tumult of Sir Horley’s emotions. He swallowed. “And forgiving.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And forgetful.” This did not seem to be helping. As if from a great distance, Sir Horley contemplated the possibility of a death neither fast, blown apart upon a battlefield, nor slow, measured out in mouthfuls, just sudden and inarguable, at the hands of a stranger. Afraid to take it for himself, he had been half looking for destruction. Now it had found him, he would have rather remained unfound. “Look,” he tried instead. “It’s really not a good idea to murder me with a knife.”

A spark of curiosity lit Benjamin’s features. “What should I murder you with, then?”

“You shouldn’t murder me at all.”

“I think it’s probably for the best, sunshine. The young miss wasn’t a fan of the notion. But I can’t have this—have you—coming back on any of us.”

It said sorry things about Sir Horley’s state of mind that he was actually quite encouraged that Belle had not intentionally left him to die. “Surely you can’t believe my abrupt disappearance won’t come with consequences of its own.”

Benjamin shrugged. “Not really, ’cos you’ll have disappeared.”

“You can’t disappear a body.”

“Oh, you can. Wouldn’t want you to go to waste or nothing.”

“Go to ... go to waste?” asked Sir Horley, in spite of feeling very strongly this was not a good thing to ask.

Betsy glinted. Benjamin nodded. “In these hard times. Lean times, you could say, for an honest innkeeper and his missus.”

It had definitely not been a good thing to ask. “I very much doubt that putting me on the menu, if that’s what you’re implying, will improve business.”

“I don’t know. Lots of hungry travellers passing through.”

“There must be something better to serve them.”

“Well”—Benjamin had that contemplative look again—“it’s a misuse of a horse, and a kitty’s too small for more than a pie or two.”

“And something like, I don’t know, cow is too boring for you?”

“Have you seen the price of meat these days?”

“I’m a gentleman,” Sir Horley admitted. “I’m not aware of the price of anything.”

“See, that’s being part of the problem. This way you’ll be part of the solution.”

“But I’ll be too dead to appreciate it.”

By way of answer, Benjamin only shrugged.

This was going ... Sir Horley cast about for a suitable phrase ... absolutely fucking catastrophically. He stole another glance at Betsy, wondering if he could somehow take her companion by surprise. While he was not inexperienced when it came to combat, an important facet of staying alive—in war and in general—involved not rushing unarmed at someone with a knife. “It can be quite difficult,” he said finally, “stabbing someone. Lots of bones to get in the way.”

Another shrug from Benjamin. “Lots of squishy bits, too, though.”

“Isn’t this your best room?” Sir Horley tried a different tack. “I’m going to bleed everywhere. Especially if you hit an artery.”

“Ehhhh. A bit of blood here and there adds character. Ask anyone.”

“I can see you’ve thought this through.” Casting around for a way to prove himself at least as worthy as a horse, Sir Horley discovered he could not. It had not always been easy to live in the world on his own account. Persuading someone else of the matter felt impossible. So he put aside questions of personal merit, along with the moral, economic, and legal implications of anthropophagism, snatched up a pillow, and threw it directly into the innkeeper’s face.

Betsy made short work of it, filling the room with feathers and cotton ribbons. But Sir Horley, having paused only to grab his boots, was already at the door. Thankfully, Benjamin had not thought to lock it—which spoke either well or badly of him, depending on whether you wished to categorise a lack of homicidal forethought as evidence of being a decent person or an inadequate murderer. It was not, however, something Sir Horley had time to assess. Mostly he was just relieved.

Boots under his arm, he raced down the stairs. A hasty glance behind confirmed that the innkeeper had decided chasing a patron through his establishment while wielding a knife was probably bad for business. Even so, Sir Horley thought it best to depart at speed, which he did, positively flying past the taproom and out through the front door. An unexpected sense of exhilaration carried him some way along the road before reality, and the need to put his boots on, caught up with him.

Sitting down on a nearby tree stump, he considered his situation. While it was somewhat better than it had been a few minutes ago, given he was no longer in danger of becoming part of tomorrow’s carvery, it was still far from good. He was ... he had no idea where he was, with neither money, nor a coat, nor anything—not even a signet ring—he could sell or barter. Himself, he supposed, but he was not Bonny, dispensing sunshine and strawberries, and it was hard to imagine any takers. And Belle, of course, could have been anywhere by now. The Americas. The moon. Whatever home was waiting for her in Warwickshire.

Which meant he was probably going to have to return to his aunt. And yet, having spent the last two days insisting he ought to, he discovered himself abruptly reluctant. Blame it on sobriety, or the morning light, pearly and pristine about him, or having recently escaped a socially minded man with a knife, but maybe ... maybe he did not owe her obedience in this. She had thought little of him all his life, even before she knew what he was, even before he had taken anything from her. Who would it serve, truly, to let her marry him off to a woman of her choosing for the sake of her pride or her God, or in recompense for an old and unchangeable ill?

And, yes, she would disown him, as she had been saying she would for years. But once the deed was done, what more could she hold over him? The thought was even ... freeing. Presumably Damocles, in the aftermath of the sword, had lived happy. Well, unless being the subject of myth, or at least mythologised history, he had not gone on to be turned into a mushroom or fucked by a goat. Neither of which were probably going to happen to Sir Horley. And, in spite of his many protests to the contrary, he could, indeed, sell cabbages or suck cock, or find some other way to live without his aunt’s money. Because it had never truly been about the money. He had wanted from her what he always wanted, what his parents had been unable to give him, what he had spent so many years hopelessly seeking in the bodies of strangers.

Once upon a time, he would have called it love and asked no questions. But the word seemed bigger and smaller than he remembered—differently shaped and less perfectly fitting. No wonder, then, he thought ruefully, that he had been unable to find what he was looking for, if he hadn’t understood what it was. Perhaps that was why he’d always clung to those who did not want him—willing to do almost anything to ensure they didn’t become someone else who wouldn’t stay—when he should have paid more attention to those he’d let go.

Like Belle?

He pondered what he could do to find her again. If Bonny and Valentine would help, assuming they did not blame him for her latest flight, which they likely—and rightfully—would. But what would he say to her now? That he was sorry? That he had spoken too impulsively and too harshly? That he wished she had not left him to wake alone in the company of a gentleman with a knife? Or more pertinently, that some of what she said had more merit than he had been able to immediately acknowledge. That he still did not know how to reconcile a life with her with what he’d always taken for granted he lacked and hoped would make him happy. But that when he said he’d try, he meant it.

In daylight he could even admit a part of him wanted to. The same part that was half-relieved his aunt was done with him, as though letting a door close released you from the burden of holding it open. Had Belle been right that the things he had always told himself would last, be real, prove him loveable were standing in the way of other things, things he could actually have? Or had she just got into his head, as Tarletons were apt to do, like poetry or fairy tales, stirring up a different set of daydreams. A different flavour of impossible nonsense.

Then again, with Miss Carswile he wouldn’t even have had the option. It wouldn’t have occurred to him it was an option.

To be married as friends.

To decide what that meant.

To even allow himself to contemplate such possibilities felt audacious. A too-high bet upon a card that had no right to go your way. It filled him with the intriguing terror of high places or deep water: those moments when insignificance became invincibility, emptiness could be freedom, and hope was as sharp as the teeth of the wind.

This should have been a crisis—and perhaps it would be once the catharsis had dissipated—for the worst had very much come to pass. His first engagement was in shambles, his second little better, especially considering the bride was absent, the closest approximation to friends he possessed he had chosen to push away, and he was prepared to call it quits on his aunt in the unlikely event she had not already called it quits on him. He was alone in the world, quite literally alone, unless you counted the tree stump, and yet he was surprisingly uncrushed. He was hoping that Belle had not got herself into some sort of trouble. Which, being a Tarleton, she surely had.

Wishing he’d managed things better yesterday.

Wondering if she’d be inclined to give him a second chance.

Because that was the strange thing about having lived so long in the shadow of other people’s choices: his own were turning out to be different than he thought they would.

Having shoved his feet firmly into his boots, he rose. With nothing behind him, unless you counted the innkeeper, and no other direction that called to him, he decided to go on. He would find a town eventually. Once there, he might catch word of his former fiancée, that was, his latest former fiancée, since he seemed to be accumulating them. Or, should all else fail, embark upon his cabbage-selling/cock-sucking career.

As it turned out, however, Sir Horley’s future in vegetable vending and pleasure dispensing was not to be. For about thirty minutes later he found Arabella Tarleton sitting by the carriage with a picnic spread out by the roadside.

“What took you so long?” she asked.