Miranda faltered, then regained her footing and caught up with him.
“Of course,” she muttered. Why she had supposed it would be a quaint Scottish vicar who would preside over her wedding, she couldn’t say.
The blacksmith!Her father was a reasonable and lenient man, but this might push him a step too far.
FROM THE CONFINES OF Philip’s well-sprung traveling coach, Miranda stared out the window at the passing landscape. There was little to break up the monotony outside the carriage, and within, there was only tense silence as they went up and down the occasional small hill. She let her thoughts drift to what awaited her at the end of their journey.
Since they’d started so early, Philip was confident they would reach their destination in time to perform the desired feat late the following day. And as it turned out, they didn’t have to marry at the blacksmith’s. There was also a perfectly satisfactory King’s Head Inn nearby, where a man did nothing but weddings all day long. They’d discovered this interesting tidbit when stopping at a reputable coaching inn about two hours into their journey and a kind barmaid asked if they were headed to Gretna Green.
“We are over twenty hours away,” Miranda pointed out. “How on earth did she know?”
“It must be the desperate expression you are wearing and my own dashing good looks. She imagines you to be a wealthy heiress and I, a fortune-seeking cur, manipulating you into marriage.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. It was the only barely good-humored thing he’d said since leaving her aunt and uncle’s home. For her part, she’d left a note on her bed addressed to Helen to explain how Lord Mercer thought this the best course of action to recover her reputation. She ought to be grateful, but she did, in fact, feel manipulated.
On the way, they would have to stay at an inn, and Miranda considered how that alone sealed her fate. Even if she wanted to change her mind, she would not be able to afterward, despite having separate rooms.
At least, she assumed they would each have a room. It would be egregious not to wait to share a bed until they were lawfully wedded after managing to avoid fornicating for what felt like an eternity.
As expected, after a long day of travelling with many stops, sometimes to let the horses rest but thrice to change them out altogether at great expense, they arrived at a large well-lit coaching inn where other north-and-south bound travelers were taking their ease. The public room was crowded, but Philip secured them a single room under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas.
Miranda followed the owner’s daughter up the stairs to her utter ruin.
And then they were alone.
“We were lucky to get this room, my lambkin. I couldn’t face going back out on the road at this hour, could you?” Philip asked.
“Lambkin?”she repeated, standing stiffly in the center of the modest chamber.
“I was trying out a fond nickname for my soon-to-be wife. You don’t like it?”
“Not particularly.” Just hearing her given name from his lips would demonstrate a level of fondness she hoped would presently be surpassed by his love. In case she had neglected to in the past, she now gave him permission.
“You may call me Miranda, if you wish.”
He grinned in that sensual way which made her toes curl and her body start to throb instantly.
“Miranda,” he tried it out. “Now it feels like we are as close as family.”
She didn’t point out that they had previously been closer, unclothed and pressed together. When they were wedded, theywouldbe family, although he would have all the freedom in their marriage to do as he pleased. She knew this and tamped down the fear that he would make a fool of her.
“We are fortunate no one knows who you are,” she said.
“A good reason not to emblazon a family coat of arms on one’s carriage,” he remarked.
She couldn’t tell whether he was joking, and decided he wasn’t. A rake probably needed to maintain anonymity if he was dallying with another man’s wife. And if he was stealing away with a woman not yet twenty-one without her father’s permission, all the better.
“When your book spreads across our fair kingdom as it most certainly will, then I imagine we shall both be infamous from Land’s End to John O’Groats, just like Lady Caroline Lamb,” Philip said. “My friend sent word back that your book is extraordinarily sought after, although as yet unavailable, neither for love nor money. Thus, we can expect by the time we head back to London, we will find ourselves known even on the outskirts of Town.”
Miranda hoped he was wrong and her mortification wouldn’t spread past the boundaries of London and its outskirts, perhaps as far as Twickenham to the west, Greenwich to the east, Croydon to the south, and Wood Green to the north.
“Undeniably, I shall forever be known as the hell-born blood who ruined Lord Perrin’s daughter and lost his family’s fortune, who then followed up by running off with a magistrate’s youngest lass. All the more fool me, as they say. The wolf betrayed by the lamb.”
He was never going to forgive her, she knew.
“Don’t look so morose,” Philip added. “I am in a tweague to be sure, but can you blame me? I’ll let it go for now. My stomach is grumbling, and my coachman is probably already having a good meal. We should do the same.”
“Down there?” She considered the lively crowd, thinking everyone would know her to be an unwedded female running for the border, just as the barmaid had done earlier in the day.
