“It would be most unfortunate if that opinion was bandied about,” he said, in his full Duke of Ashbourn voice. Authority personified. “I trust you and your wife will have a care for the reputation of the young lady involved, and will refrain from spreading rumors—or indeed, from allowing these slanderous lies to be spoken in your pub.”
“I, I, I,” Mr. Peabody stammered, blanching up to his bushy brown eyebrows. “Why, certainly, of course, I would never wish to besmirch, that is…”
Nathaniel let go of Bess to take Mr. Peabody firmly by the elbow and march him over to Mr. Danforth. Pulling the injured guard away from his audience, Nathaniel loomed over the two shorter men and spoke very seriously and quietly to them while they seemed to shrink smaller and smaller with every word.
She suddenly remembered the way Nathaniel had faced down a reprobate duke and his gaggle of wealthy, privileged followers to protect Lucy’s reputation.
Poor Mr. Peabody and Mr. Danforth didn’t stand a chance.
But Bess was less concerned with Lucy’s reputation, especially given that no one here seemed to know her name, than she was with her whereabouts.
“They could be anywhere by now,” she realized aloud, sick with worry. “He could do anything to her.”
As if sensing her despair from across the courtyard, Nathaniel lifted his head and found Bess’s gaze. He left the quivering innkeeper and guard with a final word of warning and strode back to Bess’s side just as she staggered and put a hand out to catch herself against the side of the curricle.
Nathaniel was there to catch her hand and bear her up. She knew there was no time and she shouldn’t indulge herself, but she could not seem to resist the urge to lean into his broad chest. She hung there a moment, mind blank, and breathed in the green, herbal scent of him.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, hating how much she needed him—and how abjectly grateful she was for his presence.
“We’re going to go to Five Mile House and tell her mother what has happened. Because she deserves to know.”
Bess’s heart cracked in two. “Oh, God. How will I ever face Henrietta and Gemma?”
Nathaniel tucked a hand round the back of her neck and gently tilted her face to his. She ought to be accustomed to the overwhelming sensation of being the sole focus of Nathaniel’s attention, but she was stunned anew by the naked intensity of his stare.
“You don’t have to. I will take full responsibility. Lucy was under my protection, in my house. I am the head of the family. I am to blame.”
“Henrietta entrusted her daughter to me,” Bess argued. “I should be the one to tell her what’s happened.”
She could see he wanted to refuse, by the tightening of his jaw. But instead, he said, “We will face her together. You won’t be alone.”
For some reason, a sob choked the back of her throat for the first time since they discovered Lucy gone. Only now, Bess’s overriding emotion was relief.
To not be alone in this. To have someone to lean on. It was a gift she, who had always been the one others leaned on, would never take for granted.
“All right,” she breathed, overcome. “I know I can face her. I can face anything, if we are together.”
Something flared, deep in his diamond-bright eyes, but all he said was, “The horses are ready. We should depart.”
Dusk fell around them like a cool, sheltering blanket as they returned to the Bath Road and pointed the curricle in the direction of Little Kissington. With several hours still to go, Bess meant to keep a watchful eye out for a large black stallion carrying a villain and a young woman, but she knew very well they would be long gone by now.
The steady drumbeat of the horses’ hooves ate up the miles. Bess’s legs were stiff and sore from holding the same position for hours while bracing against the natural sway of the curricle. Relief and exhaustion combined to compel her to slump against Nathaniel’s side, which helped a bit.
But her bottom was still bruised by the hard seat under its thin cushion. Her shoulders ached as though she’d kneaded the dough for ten cottage loaves in a row. The wind buffeted her as they raced along. Bess felt herself falling into a sort of meditative trance—not sleeping, but not truly awake, either.
Nathaniel must have been even more exhausted, but he didn’t indicate it by so much as a sigh. He only drove onward in silence, unwavering and inexorable, skillfully controlling the fits and starts of the horses as they began to flag.
A bit after Froxfield, they reached the turning that would take them north to Little Kissington. Five Mile House was not directly set upon the Great Bath Road, and therefore had not benefited as much as other coaching inns from the improvement of the roads and the increase in coaching traffic.
But Lucy’s sister Gemma and Bess’s childhood friend Hal had contrived to turn the short detour up to Five Mile House into a popular jaunt undertaken by many of the wealthy, titled, fashionable people who traveled from London to enjoy the convivially relaxed social scene at Bath.
Bess wondered if Gemma and Hal would be there too, or if they’d be up at the big house, as everyone local referred to Hal’s family seat, Kissington Manor. Blissfully unaware that Gemma’s sister was lost somewhere in the North Wessex Downs.
With a wanted felon.
God in Heaven. No, as much as Bess longed to see them, she dreaded having to tell them all what she had done. She was quite glad, actually, that she likely wouldn’t have to face Gemma and Hal until the morning.
The curricle clattered over the stone bridge spanning Westcote Brook, and suddenly the achingly familiar rooftops and gently smoking chimneys of Little Kissington came into view. Nathaniel slowed the curricle.
