Chapter 4

In the distance, Belle heard the baying of hunting hounds. In front of her, Sir Horley was being spectacularly sick into a ditch. Even if it was not the worst elopement ever, it was definitely her worst adventure. Up to and including shooting Valentine. That, after all, had come with the compensation of shooting Valentine.

“So,” said Sir Horley, his voice raw from retching. “I might just lie here and die.”

Belle, who had been holding his hair back with one hand, patted him gently upon the shoulder with the other. “I don’t think you should lie here and die.”

“My stomach wants me to. And so does my head. I’m not inclined to disoblige them.”

“You will disoblige me most drastically.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Sir Horley, I will be torn apart by dogs like Jezebel.”

He paused to effortfully vomit up a few strings of yellow-green bile. Belle tried to look at the stars instead. How bright and pretty they were. How very much the opposite of strings of bile.

“No no,” Sir Horley gasped out. “They’ll be distracted with eating me or something.”

Belle sighed. “I do not know how to deliver this truth kindly, but no canine in its right mind would voluntarily choose to consume you at the moment.”

“How dare you.” It was a weak protest. “I am positively succulent.”

“You are drunk and smelly and look as though you have been dead for several weeks already.”

“Oh, I’ve been dead for longer than that, my dear.”

“And I’m very moved by your emotional pain. But I would really love it if we could focus on not being in a ditch right now.”

Sir Horley gave a sort of miserable spasm. “I’m not sure I can go much further. Sincerely.”

“The inn is ten minutes away.”

“You said that ten minutes ago.”

“Yes, but I hoped detouring through that river would throw the dogs off our scent.”

“Fine. Fine.” He pushed himself to his hands and knees, and then to his knees, and finally to his feet. His complexion had passed through green and was now somewhere on the wrong side of grey. “But what do you think is going to happen when we arrive? It’s an inn, not Golan or Kedesh.”

“Well, it will probably make it more difficult for your aunt to horsewhip you,” Belle pointed out. “Also Bonny and Valentine are there.”

Sir Horley blinked a sudden sheen of moisture from his eyes. “They ... they are? They came to save me?”

This was the last straw. “No,” Belle vociferated in a way that was not shrieking but might have been mildly shriek-adjacent. “ I came to save you. Me. On my own. Because the truth is I care about you, I care about you very deeply, and I wish to God that just once in my life that could be enough for someone.”

“It was very good of you,” said Sir Horley, in a blandly pacifying way that would have made her push him back into the ditch had she not been afraid that she would be unable to get him out of it if she did. “But that doesn’t explain why Bonny and Valentine are here?”

Swallowing something that was half gah and half grr , Belle moderated her tone. “For your wedding, of course. Your fiancée invited us.”

Sir Horley threw up on her boots.

“She wrote us a very nice letter,” Belle went on, assuming the boots were a lost cause, “explaining that she had prayed and reflected, and come to the conclusion that we had kidnapped you out of a misplaced sense of kindness. So she forgave us.”

“How magnanimous.” It was hard to sneer when you were wiping your mouth on your sleeve, but Sir Horley did his best.

“Actually, it was magnanimous, because she also apologised for being such a churlish abductee. She was concerned about you, Sir Horley, and wanted to repair the rift between us.”

“I can go back and marry her, if you wish?”

“For God’s sake.” Belle would have stamped her foot, but it seemed inadvisable just then. “I’m simply saying I do not hold her in abhorrence. That does not mean I think she is a suitable wife for you.”

“And you are?”

“You said yourself: you’ve had less appealing offers. And if you’re quite finished disgorging your innards, I’d like us to proceed to the inn.”

“Ah yes.” Sir Horley rolled his eyes, then seemed to regret it, pushing the heel of his hand against his brow as he swayed. “The famous ten-minutes-away inn. Do you even know what we are to do when we get there?”

This was another issue with lone adventuring. Previously Peggy had handled the tedious business of where and when and what. “Well.” Belle thought about it for a moment. “You shall have a bath. I shall get changed. And after that we can take Valentine’s carriage to Gretna Green.”

“Then”—Sir Horley, too, took a moment to gaze at the night sky, his expression speckled silver and unreadable—“she who hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail.”

“I direct you,” responded Belle tartly, “to never trust a friar, always examine a presumed corpse before taking irreversible action, and come with me to this fucking pub.”

The fucking pub, which rejoiced under the sign of the Cheese and Anchor, was not another ten minutes away. Nor another ten after that, though when Sir Horley complained, Belle pointed out that he ought to be flattered she’d come all this way on foot for him. Of course, she’d taken fewer detours on her original route and, admittedly, she’d got lost quite a bit less. On the other hand, their pursuers had yet to catch up with them, which Belle decided was due to her cunning evasions and not at all the logistical complexities of arranging an impromptu cross-country nephew hunt in the early hours of the morning.

With the rose moon almost full above them—swirled the colour of Belle’s favourite lip salve against the deep Prussian blue of the sky—it was a beautiful night. Had they not been sweaty and breathless, had Sir Horley not been vomiting so abundantly, and had their feelings been more of the sort that traditionally underpinned elopements, it would have been romantic. To be honest, there was a part of Belle that still wanted it to be romantic. She had, after all, spent her adolescence dreaming of such undertakings—of desperate flights and moon-drenched chases, of gothic spectacle and grand passion. Of anything, in fact, that suggested life could be more like the books she read, and less like whatever had been left after the sudden death of her parents.

They’d helped, the stories. The ones they found and the ones they made up. So had Valentine, back when he was a tender boy who listened and picked flowers, instead of a man who had to unlearn his own power. But it had also been the first time she’d truly understood herself as distinct from her twin. Until that point, they’d shared everything. Grief had turned out to be something they couldn’t. It had made Bonny even more in love with life. Louder, brighter, warmer. She, it had simply made smaller. Afraid of things she had not known to fear before. And feared still.

A world so full of the promise of loss.

In the end, it was a glaze of light upon the horizon that led them across the fields and back to the Cheese and Anchor. To Belle’s surprise, the sleepy inn she had departed was now in uproar, with men carrying lanterns running hither and thither, and a half-dressed Bonny standing in the stable yard, waving his arms at a still dressing-gowned duke.

“—must be at least the fourth time you’ve lost my sister,” Bonny was yelling.

“I think,” Valentine returned, with the hauteur that came all too easily to him, “your sister is perfectly capable of losing herself.”

Bonny stamped his foot and tossed his hair. Not, in Belle’s opinion, a set of gestures that ought to be combined, because it made one look like a petulant bovine. “That’s neither here nor there. This can’t keep happening, Valentine.” He drooped. “I can’t keep ... I can’t keep worrying about her.”

“Well,” said Valentine, “you don’t have to.”

Bonny undrooped violently. “Val-EN-tine. How can you say that? She’s my twin, my Belladonna. Of course I have to.”

“No, I just—”

“I know you’re an only child, but try to have a little understanding, maybe?”

“Bonny, I—”

“She could be anywhere right now. Trying to run away to the Americas again. Or just lost and alone and frightened in the dark.”

“Bonny, please .”

“Don’t ‘Bonny, please ’ me.” Bonny stamped his foot again—though with so much emphasis he accidentally stubbed his toe against the cobblestones and was forced to hop around for a moment or two, muttering ow and fuck to himself. “I really thought you’d changed,” he finished, dolefully. “But you’re still the same man who would have left Belle to get eaten by wolves two years ago.”

“I am not that man.” Valentine finally managed to get a word in edgeways. “I was never that man. He was simply someone I thought I had no other choice but to be. Belle has never, in all our acquaintance, been in any danger of being eaten by wolves. And the only reason I’m telling you that you don’t have to worry about her is because she’s behind you.”

Bonny spun round so fast he knocked a passing stable boy into the water trough.

Belle waved in what she hoped was a reassuring fashion.

“Belle,” Bonny managed at last, contriving to sound both relieved and betrayed.

She risked the wariest of smiles. “Bonny.”

“We promised,” he said. “No more adventures.”

“This is the last one. I promise that.”

“But you promised before .”

It was at this juncture that Sir Horley fainted into a puddle, putting an end to the conversation. Whether Valentine believed he had changed or not—he was certainly just as fond of baths and just as resistant to getting out of bed as he had ever been—he was, at least, considerably better in a crisis. Hurrying forward, he dragged the somewhat delirious Sir Horley upright and bore him into the inn, Bonny and Belle trailing after him like twin shadows.

“Oh God.” An extremely harried-looking man in a nightshirt greeted them at the door. “What now?”

“You may call off the search,” Valentine said. “The young lady has been found.”

The innkeeper, for it had taken Belle a moment to recognise him, given his state of distress and undress, stared at Sir Horley. “That’s the—well, I suppose it’s none of my business.”

“Not him. This is a friend. Who will need a bath and bed.”

“At this time in the morning?” protested the innkeeper.

“You’re already up”—Valentine, at his tallest and most ducal, gazed down at him—“are you not?”

“He won’t need the bed,” Belle put in quickly, as if this was the most effort-intensive part of the request. “We should be on the road as soon as possible.”

“On the road?” asked Valentine at the same time the innkeeper said, “Who are you?”

“I’m the young lady who has been found,” Belle explained. And then to Valentine, “Yes, we’re being chased by Sir Horley’s aunt. We’re eloping.”

“You’re what now?” asked Valentine at the same time the innkeeper said, “Why are you in breeches?”

“They’re more practical,” Belle explained. “Eloping.”

The innkeeper visibly reeled. “Eloping? In breeches? In my inn? You’re going to be the ruin of me.”

“Nobody will be ruining anyone.” Once again Valentine had taken refuge in an impenetrable loftiness. “I am a duke.”

Something must have caused the innkeeper to lose his mind, for he promptly seized Valentine by the sleeve of his dressing gown—an act usually sacrosanct to Bonny—and pulled him towards the taproom. “You may be a duke, but do you know who that is?”

Valentine did not know who that was. Nor from the manner of his demurral did he care to.

“That,” whispered the innkeeper, undeterred, “is none other than Mr. Bogstwaddle. Mr. Roland Bogstwaddle.”

“My commiserations to you both.”

“ The Mr. Roland Bogstwaddle. Of Mr. Bogstwaddle’s Advice for Persons Making Trips Including Easy-to-Reference Summations of the Quality of Hostelries Utilising a System of Stars (Patent Pending) .”

Valentine sighed. “And?”

Manhandling his ducal visitor back out of the taproom, the innkeeper released him and produced, from somewhere about his person, a crumpled pamphlet. “This is the last edition. The new one promises to be even more comprehensive.”

“Comprehensive of what?” asked Valentine.

“Oh.” Sir Horley came briefly awake, which at least reassured Belle that he hadn’t died as he had several times now threatened to. “This Bogstwaddle travels about interviewing the people at the places he stays. Then he publishes the results and—”

“And I shall be ruined,” re-iterated the innkeeper, who had perhaps missed his calling on the stage. “Instead of a lovely paragraph where Mrs. Withers of Walthamstow explains how ‘there was only a small vermin infestation’ and she ‘felt right at home (four stars),’ I shall be blighted with ‘was woken by a loud elopement (one star)’ or ‘witnessed the thighs of a woman at three in the morning (one star).’”

“Sorry,” said Valentine. “What was that about a small vermin infestation?”

The innkeeper cast himself to his knees. “My reputation. My livelihood. My hopes. My dreams. My sense of self-respect.”

“For heaven’s sake.” Valentine put a hand to his brow. It was a gesture he indulged occasionally at home and often when confronted by the world at large. “The situation cannot be nearly as dreadful as you claim.” Opening Mr. Bogstwaddle’s Advice for Persons Making Trips Including Easy-to-Reference Summations of the Quality of Hostelries Utilising a System of Stars (Patent Pending) , he began flipping through it. “On second thoughts, many of these do seem unreasonable.”

“You see?” cried the innkeeper, now fully prostrate, and close to tears.

“‘Jamaica Inn,’” read Valentine, “‘is a quaint hostelry, conveniently located between Bodmin and Launceston, deep in the heart of Cornwall. Although the hoped-for sea views did not materialise, the lonely vista of the moors has a majesty of its own, likely appealing to travellers seeking respite from the tumult of the modern world. While visiting, I solicited comment from one Mr. A. Timms of Shrewsbury, who said, Sign needs fixing. One star. ’”

The innkeeper gave a soft howl. And even Belle—who had many other things to concern her at the present moment—winced in sympathy. She was rather glad her own life was not subject to review, for she could not imagine the reactions were likely to be favourable.

“I bet I’d get five stars,” said Bonny cheerfully.

“You’re not an inn,” retorted Belle.

He grinned. “But if I was an inn, I would be capacious and welcoming, and everyone would love me.”

“I am sure”—Valentine was rapidly turning the pages of Mr. Bogstwaddle’s Advice for Persons Making Trips Including Easy-to-Reference Summations of the Quality of Hostelries Utilising a System of Stars (Patent Pending) —“I have merely stumbled upon an unfortunate selection of entries.” He cleared his throat. “‘The Tabard Inn, Southwark. Respected coaching inn established circa 1300, etc., etc. Here I solicited comment from one Mrs. L. Blott of Lower Swell, who said, Party of twenty-nine travellers kept me up all night telling lewd stories. One star .’”

Sir Horley stirred again. “You’d think that would be worth five stars, not one.”

“Wouldn’t you?” agreed the innkeeper, fervently.

“You do recall”—as it happened, Belle wasn’t sure anyone did recall—“we are eloping as a matter of urgency?”

But Valentine was still lost amidst Mr. Bogstwaddle’s Advice for Persons Making Trips Including Easy-to-Reference Summations of the Quality of Hostelries Utilising a System of Stars (Patent Pending) : “‘The Boar’s Head Tavern, located in Eastcheap, is a fine Tudor building with a lively clientele and a capacity for hosting large parties. While visiting, I solicited comment from one Mr. P. Cholmondeley of Hunstanton, who said, A patron spat in my face and called me a horse. One star. ’” He paused; brow furrowed. “This is most peculiar. I have never been to the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap, nor do I have any knowledge of this Mr. P. Cholmondeley of Hunstanton, but I suddenly find myself quite convinced that his opinions regarding the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap are correct.”

“It’s because they’re written down.” The innkeeper made a gesture of eloquent despair. “Everything becomes more convincing once it’s written down.”

“Surely,” murmured Valentine, flicking back and forth, “ someone must have had a good experience somewhere in England.”

“Oh.” Bonny bounced, as he was wont to do when struck by an idea. “Try that place we stayed at when, you know, you were trying to force Belle to marry you. The Wayward Goat, wasn’t it?”

“That was a dreadful tavern. I am sure it has been soundly excoriated as it des ...” Valentine’s voice faded away. Then, he went on coldly, “‘The Wayward Goat is a charmingly rustic hostelry located in Surrey en route to Dover. While visiting, I solicited comment from one Mr. V. Wellhungly of Greater Gropebuttock, who said, Excellent service from the ostler. Four stars .’” Flinging aside Mr. Bogstwaddle’s Advice for Persons Making Trips Including Easy-to-Reference Summations of the Quality of Hostelries Utilising a System of Stars (Patent Pending) , he ground it beneath his slipper, which lacked for both dramatic and physical impact. But he kept grinding regardless. “This publication is nonsense. I hate it.”

“I hate it too,” cried the innkeeper, clearly hoping he had secured an ally. “But you have witnessed now its unholy power.”

Valentine scowled. “Indeed I have.”

“And can understand,” persisted the innkeeper, “why I cannot have these kind of”—at a loss for words to encompass Belle, Bonny, Valentine, and Sir Horley, he flapped a frantic hand instead—“ happenings in my inn just at present. Or, ideally, ever.”

“So,” Sir Horley slurred, “no bath, then?”

“It’s fine,” put in Belle. “That bath was by way of a ... luxury. The most important thing is that we leave and swiftly.”

The innkeeper was nodding enthusiastically. “ Leaving and swiftly sounds good to me.”

“I’m still really confused.” This was Bonny, plaintiveness not so much creeping as bursting into his tone. “Why are you eloping with Sir Horley? He’s getting married in the morning, and also he, and also you ... and I think he has tuberculosis.”

“Tuberculosis,” shrieked the innkeeper, before clapping a hand over his mouth with a frantic glance towards the taproom, where Mr. Bogstwaddle was still scribbling away, his manner somehow inherently condemnatory.

Belle sighed. “It’s not tuberculosis. It’s just being extremely drunk.”

“On the contrary”—Sir Horley lolled against Valentine’s shoulder—“this is the beginnings of sobriety.”

Valentine, meanwhile, had set his jaw in a way that betokened misfortune for someone. “There will be a bath; I insist upon it. Bonny, take Sir Horley.”

Perhaps predictably, Bonny was in no way prepared to take Sir Horley. But Belle stepped forward hastily, and, between them, they just about managed to catch him. She found herself wondering what was the average frequency with which wives-to-be dropped their potential husbands on the floor before the wedding. And whether his falling out of a window counted.

“Good evening.” Valentine, meanwhile, was standing before Mr. Bogstwaddle. “I understand you are the author of Mr. Bogstwaddle’s Advice for Persons Making Trips Including Easy-to-Reference Summations of the Quality of Hostelries Utilising a System of Stars (Patent Pending) ?”

Mr. Bogstwaddle looked up with an air of perhaps understandable nervousness. While not ill-favoured exactly, he had a thin face and a longish nose; the sort of features that gave him a permanent impression of being about to point something out. Probably something you wouldn’t like. “I am.”

“Well, I am the Duke of Malvern,” returned Valentine. “And to prove it, here is my signet ri—”

“No no no no.” Passing Sir Horley to Belle as though he were an unwanted parcel, Bonny dashed after Valentine. “We are not doing that again. He’s the Duke of Malvern; I vouch for it, she”—he flailed a hand backwards towards Belle—“vouches for it, the innkeeper vouches for it.”

Mr. Bogstwaddle blinked even more nervously. “Very well.”

“I would like to comment,” explained Valentine, “on the quality of the hostelry for your publication.”

“I ...” The situation seemed to be in danger of overwhelming Mr. Bogstwaddle wholesale. “I’ve never interviewed a duke before.”

“Then you shall tonight. While visiting, you solicited comment from—are you writing this down?”

“‘While visiting, I solicited comment from ...,’” repeated Mr. Bogstwaddle obediently, fumbling with his pen.

“The Duke of Malvern of Malvern House.”

“‘The Duke of Malvern of Malvern House.’”

“Who said, ‘A thoroughly excellent tavern, recommended to all. The innkeeper, in particular, tended to all my needs with a—’”

“Flower,” interrupted Bonny, “that makes it sound like he fucked you.”

The innkeeper stuck his head into the room. “I don’t mind.”

Bonny stamped his foot. “I mind.”

“Is that a service on offer?” asked Mr. Bogstwaddle politely.

“Why not,” said the innkeeper, nodding, at the same time Bonny said, “No, never.” And then, whirling on the duke: “You’re mine, Valentine. I won’t have the world doubt it for a second.”

In the candlelight, Valentine’s aristocratic cheekbones gleamed with a soft blush. Belle could tell he was pleased. That he liked to be so openly possessed , at least by Bonny. Abstractly, she knew this was meant to be romantic. But it just felt skin-crawlingly strange to her. She neither wanted to possess anyone nor be possessed by them.

“So”—Mr. Bogstwaddle glanced between the various parties—“what am I writing?”

“‘A thoroughly excellent tavern, recommended to all,’” repeated Bonny impatiently.

“What about the bit about the innkeeper?” asked the innkeeper, who had abandoned all pretence of absence. “I liked the bit about the innkeeper.”

“‘A thoroughly excellent tavern’”—Bonny tried again—“‘with a thoroughly excellent innkeeper. Five stars.’”

“I’m not sure I’d give it five stars,” said Valentine, looking thoughtful.

“Yes, you would,” said the innkeeper.

“What’s the point of this exercise”—Bonny once more—“if you don’t give the place five stars?”

Valentine gave a fretful huff. “But five stars implies perfection.”

“Not at all.” That was the innkeeper. “It just implies better than four stars.”

“Within your system,” demanded Valentine, turning to Mr. Bogstwaddle, “what does five stars represent?”

Mr. Bogstwaddle seemed to be, at this point, physically unable to stop blinking. “They represent ... stars.”

“But surely there must be some systematic correlation between the number of stars and the quality of the hostelry? That’s what your entire guide purports to be about.”

“Well,” said Mr. Bogstwaddle, “no.”

For a moment, Valentine seemed lost for words. Then his head drooped in some impressive commingling of exasperation and defeat that was familiar to Belle from their own history of interactions. “Fine. Five stars it is.” Turning, he gathered both his dressing gown and his dignity. “I presume that bath is possible now?”

The innkeeper bobbed obligingly and scurried away.

“Bonny?”

“Yes, Your Grace?” Bonny’s look was playful, as though he was enjoying Valentine’s high-handedness. Which Belle knew for a fact he was. It was another of those ever-accumulating points of divergence with her twin.

“Can you take care of Sir Horley?” Valentine asked. “Belle and I need to talk.”