Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

D aniel woke to thoughts of Mrs. Allen. Their conversation on the balcony the night before stayed with him. While he could not judge the circumstances that led her late husband to a remote estate, her regret over wasting their days together resonated. Their ability to find absolution and unity in their differences, he admired. Their marriage must have been one of the happiest.

On slippered feet, Daniel passed through the apartment and into the room that served as both sitting and dining room. On the table lay a plate of bread, cheese, and cured meat, the edges of which were curled and dry. A half-empty mug of ale beside it. Tobias must have wakened early and left in a rush.

Tobias seemed agitated of late. When Daniel questioned him, his friend responded in harassed tones, as if being pulled from a deep thought. He was a gambler, as Daniel had learned shortly after they’d embarked on this journey together, but when questioned about his losses, Tobias made jokes. Perhaps Tobias had left town in a hurry to avoid paying his debts.

He sat down to fresh eggs, and the valet entered with the post.

“Thank you, Jeremy. Will you bring the carriage to the front of the house? It’s a fine morning.”

Jeremy bowed, and Daniel opened a letter from his mother. His father had had an accident, and Daniel should return home as soon as may be. The details were not explained. Indeed, the handwriting was not the looping scrawl he was used to seeing from his mother but illegible and a very short missive. Were it any different, he would assume his father was playing another trick on him.

Daniel pushed his plate away, an image of his father, pale and suffering, rising before him. He groaned and closed his eyes against it. Though he did not trust his father, he did love him. He was the sort of person who would give away his shoes. When Daniel was a child, his father took him on adventures, fishing, hunting, teaching him all he knew about science and anything else that caught his fancy.

After the investment that had left the family penniless, his father spent more rather than tell the family they were paupers. When debt collectors had come to possess Almery and threatened debtors’ prison, Daniel’s mother sold her jewelry, and Daniel left for Smith’s bank. Notwithstanding that deception and all of its consequences, Daniel hated the discord between them. If Father was seriously ill, Daniel wanted to restore their relationship before it was too late.

A door opened and closed, bringing him back to the present. It had taken very little time to ready the horses. “Jeremy, a change of plans. Please pack my trunk. I must return home immediately.”

The valet entered the room, a shade paler than when he’d left. “Sir, the horses are gone. The carriage too.”

“Gone?”

Tobias . Had he taken the horses to pay his debts? A decent bit of coin he’d get for them. Daniel groaned. How was it possible that everyone he associated with betrayed him?

“I can do nothing about that now. My father is ill. Go to the posting house and get the best pair available. I’ll pack myself. Be quick about it. I’ll need to bid farewell to Mrs. Allen and Miss Thorpe.”

Mrs. Allen and Miss Thorpe.

There would be no resolution to the dispute with his father without Miss Thorpe. If his father passed into the next world before Daniel returned, the entire estate would go to his brother-in-law. He opened his trunks and began shoving his belongings inside, tucking the jacket he’d worn the evening before into a corner. Miss Thorpe had rested her hand against the arm of his coat, and though no feeling accompanied the memory, he believed their union inevitable. He must trust that all would be well at home and the marriage with Miss Thorpe would go as planned. Very likely his parents had it all arranged.

“Ready, sir?” Jeremy asked. Together they carried Daniel’s things down the stairs and out the front door. While the trunks were strapped to the back of the borrowed carriage, Daniel told the housekeeper he was leaving. She would inform the landlord. The rooms were paid for another three weeks, so there would be no dispute.

The door clicked closed. He would never return to Bath and would not see Mrs. Allen again, unless she came to his wedding. Heavy sorrow twisted the already unsettled sickness in his gut. The rolling bounce of the carriage did nothing to soothe his nerves, but he soon arrived at Mrs. Eliot’s townhome.

Inside the salon, heavy curtains covered huge windows, lending the room a funereal ambience and reminding him of his mother’s somber letter. If, heaven forbid, his father’s injury resulted in death, Daniel would live out his life in battle against remorse. For ten years he nursed a grudge against his father, planning to make amends as soon as his father apologized. That would never happen. Daniel would have to soften his own heart and tongue.

Mary rushed into the room, her face drawn and pale. She took his hands in hers, squeezing them as if they could save her. “Do you know where they went?” Her voice was unsteady.

“Who went?”

“Louisa and Savage.”

“I don’t understand.”

She dropped his hands and slumped into a nearby chair. “They left, eloped.”

Savage and Miss Thorpe? He sat down and put his hands over his face. But how was Mrs. Allen? Daniel more than half expected to find her melted into a puddle of tears, but when he met her eye, she was statuesque. “He took my horses, but I did not know he took Miss Thorpe as well.” Worse and worse. Tobias Savage was a greater scoundrel than Daniel had ever suspected.

“From Louisa’s letter, I assume they are on their way to Scotland. To Gretna Green.” With a deep, unsteady breath, she continued. “Unless he is a greater villain. In which case, they could be anywhere.”

It was hard to look at her. The vivacity he admired in her was gone, and her eyes appeared bigger, her face more child-like. He longed to take her in his arms and assure her all would be well, but it was not his place, and he could make no such promise. He should have told Mrs. Allen about the conversations he’d overheard between Miss Thorpe and Savage weeks ago. If only he had intervened. The scoundrel! How dare he compromise Miss Thorpe. She would be ruined or saddled to a miscreant. And to what end? What was he really planning? Why run away?

“I will go after them. I was on my way home as it is, and the road to Scotland is the same as the road to Chesterfield.” From Bath, the journey to Scotland would take weeks. What was Savage thinking? Was Miss Thorpe so foolish?

“Do you really think they can be found?” A glint of hope sparked in her eye, tempting Daniel to be untruthful.

“I do not know.” If Daniel was anything, he was honest and would not give her false hope. “I can do my best. Mr. Savage is an injudicious whip. He is sure to tire out the animals and be forced to stop.”

Mrs. Eliot filled the doorway. “Mary, you must go with him. I ordered the maid to pack your trunk.” In a gentler tone she said, “It is the best way to hush the scandal. If you are both gone, I can spread the news that you and Louisa left together. No one will be the wiser. If you hurry, you may find her tomorrow or even today. It is early still.”

“Find her today,” Mrs. Allen repeated and looked out the window, seeming to talk to herself. “Yes. I see the wisdom. Then I will take her home and let my brother do what he will with her.” She rubbed her forehead.

“I did not imagine Louisa was foolish enough to put herself in the power of that scoundrel,” Mrs. Eliot said. “You know what he wants, I suppose. Her dowry. He lost his sister’s in endless reveling and has been desperate to earn it back since she became engaged a few months ago.”

“What?” Mary and Daniel spoke together.

“Oh, yes. I thought everyone knew.” Mrs. Eliot paled. “Good heavens. Louisa may not know if the two of you do not. Talk of Savage’s escapades is all over town. I don’t know how I failed to mention it.”

Mary pressed a handkerchief over her face and whimpered. “I wish I’d never taken her on this foolish adventure.”

Daniel’s chest tightened. He’d brought a serpent with him to Bath.

“Mary,” Agnes said, “all might not be lost. Go! Get that imprudent girl and marry her off to whomever her father chose.”

Me. I am the person of whom they speak. Could he marry her after this?

“You are right.” She stood. “I will be ready in quarter of an hour.” She left the room, muttering over Louisa’s stupidity and her own inept efforts to help her niece.

Mrs. Allen was to accompany him. Her presence might slow him down, yet there was pleasure in the thought of spending time with her.

Savage. That blackguard! A thief and a reprobate. The man ought to be whipped. Daniel’s father had told him of Miss Thorpe’s dowry. Not a fortnight earlier, when Savage wondered what Louisa would bring to a marriage, Daniel told him and thought nothing of it. Though generous, the dowry was not enough to sustain a lifetime of Savage’s laziness or his gambling habit. If news spread of Savage’s financial desperation, his chances of marriage to a lady of fortune would vanish. He must have hoped he could win back his losses at the gaming table, and when he could not, preyed on Miss Thorpe. If he ruined her, her family could not deny their union. They would appear at Mr. Thorpe’s door, begging for his blessing and Louisa’s money.

True to her word, Mrs. Allen’s trunk was packed in fifteen minutes, and in another five, Daniel handed her into the carriage. Mrs. Eliot rushed down the steps and stuck her head into the carriage door. “If I discover something, where shall I send word?”

Daniel gave her the direction of his castle. She nodded and took Mrs. Allen’s hands. “My dear friend, trust that I will do everything in my power to help. Should you need anything at all, write.”

The carriage pulled away. “Where is your maid?” he asked.

“That is one consolation. Nellie is with Louisa, so they have a chaperone. She is a good sort who will look after Louisa.” Mrs. Allen pulled at her sleeves, then clasped her locket. Would wrapping his arm around her shoulders soothe her? He brushed the thought aside.

In any case, the carriage was too small for a maid, but Jeremy’s presence was enough to keep it proper. Daniel arranged himself next to Mrs. Allen. The length of her body next to his unraveled and soothed the coils that were building in his stomach. Anger calmed to a simmer. In the close space of the carriage, he inhaled her rosewater scent and surreptitiously peeked at her. Her fidgeting stilled, her hands rested on her lap and her forehead on the window. He wanted to console her but didn’t know how. They rode in silence until all signs of civilization lay behind them.

“This is my fault.” Her voice broke and shattered his heart. He ached to remove her pain, to see her free of worry once again. His fingers twitched to take her hand in his, but he kept them laced together in his lap. They were friends, but not that sort.

“You are merely her guardian and cannot be responsible for her behavior.”

“I am. I assure you. She’d never have done this if I had not put the idea in her head.”

“You suggested this to her?”

Of course, she hadn’t. She was a gentlewoman who would never say such a thing. “Not overtly. But yes. That is precisely what I did.” Her voice diminished to a rough whisper.

Daniel tried to imagine a scenario in which such a suggestion would have been made. Perhaps, there was an argument and Mrs. Allen told her niece to go ahead and run off with a rogue. Now was not the time to ask for elucidation. “You did not arrange with Mr. Savage to carry off your niece. You did not persuade your maid to pack her bags and accompany her on an infamous journey. Whatever you said to her could not have convinced her to take such a step. And it is at least as much my doing. I began to suspect he was a villain some time ago. I even warned him against flirting with her. But I did not foresee that he would make such a move.”

“Flirted with her? I didn’t notice. You see how negligent I was?”

He had no words to comfort her, so he patted her arm, a shadow of what he would like to do. How would he restrain himself for the entirety of the journey?

Silence followed, and Mrs. Allen watched out the window of the carriage, fingering a letter she’d been holding since they alighted the carriage.

She held it up and waved it. “Louisa’s farewell letter. She thanks me for inspiring her with the bravery to make the elopement.”

Daniel wanted to smack Miss Thorpe. “She is a young lady who made a poor decision of her own accord. You did nothing wrong, Mrs. Allen.”

“You may as well call me Mary. The need for formality vanished as soon as we embarked on this errand.”

“Daniel.” He took her hand and squeezed. In an effort to express assurance, he opened his mouth. Everything will be all right. I will make sure of it. And I am sorry for my part in this. The sentiment did not materialize, and anyhow, the words were not necessary. The clasp of their hands spoke what he could not utter.

She slid her hand away, pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, and began twisting it. “It will rain.”

Black clouds gathered, turning what had been a fair morning into an ominous afternoon. The weather could cut the day’s travel short. He ground his teeth, thinking of all the ways Savage had taken advantage of him. He’d taken his horses, used information about Miss Thorpe to convince her to elope. He was disrespectful and did not pay his portion of rooms they shared. Daniel hadn’t minded before, but he did now.

Though anxious to reach his father, Daniel had no choice but to do everything he could to find Savage, even if it meant postponing his arrival home. He was the idiot who had brought the cheat to Bath, introduced Miss Thorpe to Mr. Savage, and on more than one occasion had been pleased to leave Miss Thorpe in the company of the rotter.

Should he have mentioned their fathers’ intention for them to wed to Louisa? Would that have prevented her from running away or simply made the scandal even more salacious? And now that she was gone, who would take her place? How would he convince his father to give him Almery if there was no prospective wife?

With more time, he might try Mrs. Allen, a multi-faceted woman whose experience gave her a bloom beyond any girl enjoying her first dances. But she was not interested in a man such as himself. After what she told him the previous evening about her ideal marriage, it no longer puzzled him that she did not marry a second time. And Daniel could not offer her a union as loving as her previous had been.

From their conversations about poetry and novels, he had learned she was a romantic. She deserved to be adored in a way in which Daniel’s jaded self was not capable. The previous evening, she described a love so full and without resentment that he found himself craving it, while knowing he could never have it. People let him down. Betrayal patterned his life, and he could not trick himself into believing he would ever find someone who gave him the courage to share his heart, though her speech ignited a yearning for that very thing. What would it be like to be prized by such a woman?

Love did not benefit marriage. His mother’s infatuation with his father never wavered, regardless of the hardships he put her through. Daniel pitied her. His father took advantage of her love, even while loving her in return. If they did what was best for the other person rather than what a love-stricken fool might do, the whole family would be better off. Like his mother’s purchase of that reflecting telescope to which extravagance his father responded by sending his wife to the dressmaker. She’d needed the dresses, but not as much as the family required protection from the damp.

Mary’s leg pressed against his. He willed his heart to stop its erratic beating. She huddled in the corner of the carriage. He crossed his arms over his chest, suppressing the desire to open his arms to her, to comfort and soothe her. He wanted to get home to his father and be reinstated as heir. He wanted the castle. Did he want Mrs. Allen, too?

Against every impulse, he did not embrace Mary Allen, but committed to stay with her until all the wrongs Savage had inflicted were righted as far as possible.