How thedevilhad he got himself into this coil? He wondered what his fellow Survivors would say when he recounted this adventure—ormisadventure—to them next spring.
They would not stop teasing him for a decade.
Traveling was one of the most difficult activities for Ben, a fact that underscored the irony of what he had decided to do with his life until something more meaningful suggested itself. Except that he knew his body well enough to understand how much he could demand of it. Normally he would travel in short stages, taking twice as long to get where he was going than anyone else would. And if he was traveling purely for pleasure, as he would soon be doing, he would take frequent days off.
This was different, however. Although he did not expect any pursuit, he still felt it wise to put as much distance between them and Bramble Hall as they could in the first day or two. One never knew when one would come up against someone who would know and recognize Mrs. McKay. Besides, it would be very much to his advantage to get this journey over with as soon as possible. He was not made of stone, after all.
By the end of the first day, he did not know quite how to sit still or how to keep a smile or at least a look of alert interest on his face as they conversed. And he did not know how he was going to descend from the carriage that final time. He did it, however, and even managed to stand at the reception desk of the inn his coachman had chosen long enough to pay for two bedchambers, one for himself, Major Sir Benedict Harper, and one for Mrs. McKay, the recent widow of his military friend. He also reserved accommodation for the two servants as well as kennel room for the dog.
He supposed the explanation had not been necessary, since it could not matter to the landlord what the relationship was between the two people staying at his inn. Ben escorted a black-veiled Samantha to her room, made arrangements to join her later in the private dining room he had reserved, and collapsed on the bed in his own room before throwing one arm over his eyes.
He had long experience at enduring pain. He rarely took any medicine to dull it, and he rarely allowed it to slow him down or confine him to his bed. It was a fact of his life and always would be. All he could do to control it was avoid the sort of activities—like long days seated in a carriage—that would intensify it.
Quinn came within five minutes and silently pulled off his boots and set to work massaging stiff muscles and working out clenched knots until he could relax more.
“Does she know about this?” he asked.
“Good Lord, no,” Ben said. “Why should she?”
They had talked determinedly through much of the day. And actually it had not been too difficult after a while. He had noticed that with her before. She was easy to talk to. She would always answer his questions and then ask her own in return. She neither monopolized the conversation nor expected him to do all the talking. They had exchanged memories of childhood. She remembered dancing barefoot in the grass with her mother and splashing and swimming in a stream with some other children from the village. He remembered swimming in the lake at Kenelston and climbing trees with the gamekeeper’s two boys and engaging in sword fights with them, using the wooden toy weapons their father had carved for them all—Ben included.
They had even sat in companionable silence some of the time, watching the scenery go by on their respective sides of the carriage, alone with their own thoughts.
“You might suggest slowing the journey down,” Quinn said. “Anyone would think from your speed that she was an underage maiden heiress and you a penniless nobody abducting her to Gretna Green.”
“And so muddleheaded that I am taking her in quite the wrong direction?”
“You will be crippled before you get to the wilds of beyond,” Quinn said, jerking his head in a direction that Ben guessed was meant to indicate the southwest coast of Wales.
“I think not,” Ben said. “Give me half an hour, Quinn, and then come back to help me dress for dinner.”
His valet grunted and withdrew. He had been a groom in the Duke of Stanbrook’s stables at Penderris when Ben first encountered him. In those early days of all-consuming agony, only that particular groom was able to move him and turn him for the necessary washes and changes and treatments without his quite passing out from the pain. His Grace had pretended to grumble when Ben appropriated the groom to be his nurse and then his valet.
An hour later Ben descended to the private dining room, feeling considerably restored.
His first thought after opening the door was that he must have the wrong room. She was standing beside the table, which had been set for their meal, and she was wearing a high-waisted, short-sleeved evening dress of pale blue muslin. Her near-black hair was piled on her head in an intricately tied knot.
He stared at her, transfixed and aghast.
“What the devil?” he said, and he took an incautiously hasty step forward and shut the door firmly behind him.
She raised her eyebrows. “I left all my blacks at Bramble Hall, except what I wore today,” she told him. “I will not wear those again. They were ordered from Leyland and sent to Bramble Hall without any consultation with me or any fitting with a proper modiste. They are ugly and impersonal and ill-fitting, and they in no way reflect the genuine sorrow I felt at the premature death of my husband. They are the mere ostentatious trappings of grief, designed to impress the world. I will not put on a meaningless show any longer. That part of my life is over, and the next part of my life has begun.”
He took one step closer. “Have you forgotten,” he said, “that we are traveling as a major and therecent widowof his military friend? Who has seen you dressed like that?”
“Like what?” she asked. “You make me sound as if I am dressed like a harlot.”
“Like a young lady,” he said between his teeth, “traveling with a gentleman who is not her husband. Who has seen you?”
Her cheeks had flushed. “The landlord showed me where the dining parlor was,” she said. “There were a few other people. I did not take much notice.”
“You can be sure thelandlordtook notice,” he said. “Good Lord, and you do not even have a maid with you.”
“If you wish to go away, Sir Benedict—” she began.
“Stop talking nonsense,” he snapped at her. “From now on, starting tomorrow, we are going to have to be husband and wife. That is the only solution.”
“How ridiculous,” she said.
