He couldn’t wait to take his leave. He was also thankful his patients didn’t require much from him. The Widow Smethers’s ankle was very bruised, but the swelling had abated somewhat and he decidedit was not broken, merely sprained. Kate Balfour’s baby was simmering along nicely. All was good.
That didn’t mean that, try as he might, he was able to ease his mind about marriage. The idea dogged him.
Finally, at the end of his day, he knew he couldn’t go home to a solitary supper prepared by his man, Royce. Instead, he headed to The Garland. He hadn’t been there in some time.
Last spring, as a way to drum up support for his first lecture, he’d started recruiting new members. A fair number of the village lads had joined. They gathered at The Garland almost every night. The matrons and others complained about the drinking, but men needed a place to enjoy their own company without the intrusion of women, and tonight Ned certainly needed that. He was growing increasingly horrified over the enormity of what he’d agreed to do.
Worse, the word had begun spreading through the parish. Clarissa had wasted no time in telling everyone the date. When he walked into The Garland, the lads there jeered him in the way men do.
“We will be needing a new chairman,” cried one of the Dawson lads. “You are leaving the Society, Doctor. Once married, a man is no longer one of us.”
“We are disappointed,” claimed his brother. “Makes me want to drink.”
The group laughed at that quip.
And then, a voice that Ned recognized and was surprised was with the company said, “I didn’tthink you would be fool enough to walk into the parson’s trap.”
The Duke of Winderton, confident with the arrogance of youth, leaned against the bar. He was all of one and twenty, dark haired, square jawed, and with the beginning of a bit of paunch around his belly. That hadn’t been there when he’d left Maidenshop for the world a few months ago.
Then again, Ned knew he had always been a man whose mother had spoiled him to the point he didn’t listen to good sense. Balfour was Winderton’s uncle and had served as his guardian, a task that he’d not enjoyed.
Ned removed his hat, hanging it on a peg on the wall with the others. “Your Grace, you’ve returned from London.”
“I’ve had enough of it.”
That seemed an odd thing to say. When the duke left Maidenshop it had been with some ill will. He’d declared the village could no longer contain him. Apparently, London couldn’t, either.
“I just saw your uncle. He didn’t mention you had returned.”
“He isn’t my guardian anymore. I’ve reached my majority, so I no longer have a keeper.”
Privately, Ned thought Winderton should still have one—to teach him humility if nothing else.
“You look as if you need a drink,” the duke said.
All reservations about Winderton vanished. “I do.”
In short order a tankard of ale was pressed intoNed’s hand and he forgot about the duke. Winderton was not his worry. He had troubles enough of his own, and the ale tasted good.
Besides the duke and the Dawson brothers, the others included Shielding the lawyer, Michaels, whom Ned never grasped what it was exactly he did, Squire Leonard, Jonathon Fitzsimmons, Nathanial Crisp, and a host of others that Ned didn’t really know. The young, new members had brought them in.
Were they drinking too much as the matrons complained? Probably. But tonight Ned felt it justified. Damn the matrons. Damn their manipulating ways that had made him feel he must step forward and see to Miss Taylor’s future.
He’d done the gentlemanly thing by offering marriage, and now he had to go through with it. He felt as if he’d put a noose around his neck... and it was tightening.
Ned reached for another drink.
Chapter Three
Gemma hadn’t realized there was a four-mile walk from the Newmarket Road Posting Inn to Maidenshop, a challenging task after a night of travel.
When she’d traveled in the past, it had been by private chaise. Of course, that had been when she’d expected her husband to pick up her expenses.
Four miles was a long way to tramp after the journey she had just taken.
She had assumed that since her post traveled at night there would not be that many passengers. She had been wrong. The coach had been packed and she’d found herself sitting on a narrow bench on top of the vehicle, her valise in her lap and her bonnet in danger of being blown off her head.
The driver had to have been drinking. Their way down the road could be described as erratic and fast. He only stopped to change horses and drop off the heavy mailbags. At each coachinghouse, passengers scrambled off the coach for food or a moment of privacy. They were warned that if they weren’t back on the stage when the driver was ready, they’d be left behind.
