“Or is it to keep us in our place, Your Grace? Isn’t that the reason men like you want virginal wives with little experience of the world?”
“No, we don’t ‘want’ such a thing,” he replied, his voice tight. “However, there are standards.”
He was probably whipping himself into a lather of offense again. Sarah didn’t care. She was too tired. “Yes, yes, the rules—the ones everyone of power flouts. My Char may be ruined when all is said and done, but let us not forget your brother is playing a role.”
“Mytwin.” A wealth of anger colored that word.
She looked toward him in the dark. He radiated tension. She didn’t answer but waited.
He did not disappoint. “This is a second betrayal,” he said as if unable to stop himself. “The first was over a decade ago when he left. He never said a word to me that he was planning to leave. There wasn’t even a sign. He just went off and all of the responsibilities fell on my shoulders. Sometimes, I hate it. I feel trapped in my own damn life. There are those with expectations all around me and the one person I should be able to trust rips my faith in him open to the core.”
He would never have spoken these words without the darkness, and now she understood: This journey was not so much about stopping an elopement as it was about confronting a traitor.
“And when you see him?” she asked. “What do you intend to do?”
There was a long period of silence and then he said so quietly she could have imagined the words, “I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty
Char did not want to leave the haven of the Widow Fitzwilliam’s house, especially to ride horses. Between her riding the day before and the lovemaking that she and Jack had reveled in, she was discovering muscles she didn’t have before.
Mrs.Fitzwilliam surprised her with a dress. It was deep loden green and far from fashionable, the sort of thing a maid would wear, but as the widow said, “I thought when it came time to stand before the minister, you’d like something a bit more fitting to your sex.”
Char thanked her profusely and wore the dress at the end of each day as they walked around the villages they came upon looking for places to stay for the night. As far as she was concerned, Jack was her husband. They even signed themselves into the registries at two inns as “Mr. and Mrs.Whitridge.”
Jack would ask if anyone fitting the duke’s description had been this way. The answer was always no and they began to relax. Still, they did not dally.
The sores she had earned in the saddle subsided and her body happily adjusted to lovemaking. They had little in the way of money. Jack’s funds were growing limited and he still needed to pay their ship fares to Boston, but she couldn’t remember ever being so content. The old sense of desperation that had led her to pickpocketing had left her. One way or the other, she and Jack would manage. She trusted him.
She also enjoyed listening to his stories of his past adventures. Or hearing him describe Boston. She made him create word pictures of the street where he lived. She quizzed him on how he lived. He talked about his friends including Governor Strong, who had asked him to petition on behalf of peace.
“I dislike disappointing him,” Jack said.
“Youdidn’t. Your brother did. He was the dishonorable one.”
“War will come, Char. There are too many hotheads in Congress. You understand we will be on the opposite side? You are all right with that?”
Char reached for his hand. “I’ve made my choice. And, who knows? Perhaps cooler heads will prevail.”
“Perhaps.” He did not sound optimistic.
At last, they reached the Scottish border.
Char once more changed into her dress, Jack standing guard of the thicket where she’d gone for privacy. She didn’t rebraid her hair but twisted it into a chignon much like Sarah wore. She placed her hat on her head, tilting the wide brim to a jaunty angle.
“I’m becoming quite good at making this dress stylish,” she bragged.
“You could make a sack stylish, my lady,” he answered, and she laughed.
“Are you ready to marry?” he asked. “We are almost there.”
“I’ve been ready,” she informed him wearily, and held out her arms for him to help lift her up into the saddle. She would ride sidesaddle into Gretna, a proper lady.
“Then let us do this,” he said, and started down the road.
Gretna Green was a lovely village of whitewashed cottages and a good-sized smithy. There was also an inn. Jack observed that the smith probably didn’t make as much money from his forge as he did from marrying couples in front of the anvil.
People nodded at them as they rode into the village. There seemed to be no question that Jack and Char were a couple ready to marry and the locals were welcoming.
