Chapter 9
Walker shifted in the seat to wrap Marguerite’s cloak more snugly around her.
Though the glass side windows were shut tight, the air inside the carriage was cool. Then he drew her closer against him, amazed that she could sleep so soundly in spite of the swaying and constant rumbling. So she had done both nights, the long journey clearly exhausting her.
Thankfully they were only one stop more to Gretna Green and would reach the village before dawn, well ahead of the mid-morning arrival he had anticipated. That boon would give them time to change clothes and sit down for a decent breakfast at an inn before they wed…and maybe even a few hours to be alone before they must set out again for London.
Walker glanced down at her face, illuminated in the lantern light, her lashes sooty against her cheeks so fair.
Like an innocent babe she slept.
Like an angel in his arms.
Their pace had been so fierce, they’d had little time to talk or much of anything else at each stop to change horses. He’d paid double at the coaching houses for the task to be done within ten minutes, Lindsay’s parting words to him forefront in his mind every time he’d helped Marguerite into the carriage.
“You must return as soon as you can, Walker. I won’t tell a falsehood to my husband if he arrives home to find you still gone. There will be time enough…well, for you and Marguerite to be together when everything is sorted out. Please promise me you won’t delay!”
Lindsay had blushed so prettily with embarrassment at what she’d implied, and Walker had squeezed her hand to reassure her. Yet now, with Marguerite’s lush body molded against his, he cursed under his breath that there wouldn’t be more time to become intimately acquainted as husband and wife.
“So be it,” he said with resignation, the crack of the whip drawing his gaze outside into the moonlit night.
That had been another blessing to speed their way, a brilliant full moon to light the road for the driver that had taken over from the last one. The pair of brass lanterns flanking the driver’s box might have sufficed, but Walker felt grateful all the same for any help the Lord might grant them.
He wasn’t a church-going man, but he sent a prayer heavenward that the second half of their journey go as smoothly as this one…fresh horses at every stop, capable drivers, cloudless skies, and bright moonlight. Certainly not any sort of night for highwaymen to be lurking by the roadside to cause mayhem or worse, but he nonetheless had a pair of pistols at the ready and thrust into his belt. Another set of loaded pistols lay hidden in a compartment beneath the opposite seat.
Marguerite had seen that he was armed but she’d not questioned him about the weapons, his bride-to-be as perceptive as she was beautiful. He shifted again so the silver-embossed butt of the one wasn’t pressing too much against her. Still she slept peacefully, but perhaps it was the very rocking of the carriage that kept her so lost in slumber.
Walker’s gaze fell to her lips, parted slightly and so sweetly curved.
He longed to give her a kiss as he had indulged himself only briefly at every stop, but he feared he might wake her. She needed to rest after so many hours spent in the carriage without a single complaint.
Instead, at those rare times when the horses had been slowed to a trot for a brief respite, and he and Marguerite hadn’t been forced to raise their voices to be heard, she had spoken of her home in Porthleven. Her sisters. The simplicity of life there. Her love of drawing. He had told her a bit about Boston, the wharves bustling again now that the war with England was past, the textile mill he’d built with his partners, and the school he’d attended as a boy…but not much else.
A good part of his life had been so bitter, so painful, that the harsh memories seemed to drown out what had come before or after, and Marguerite had accepted his reticence and not pressed him. She had seemed content simply to nestle in his embrace, which had soothed his dark thoughts more than he could ever say.
Walker drew in a deep breath and leaned back against the tufted silk wall, his attention once more focused out the side window.
He’d managed to doze during the day, but even with so clear an evening he didn’t dare to doze off now, his wariness reminding him of long nights aboard theVengeancekeeping watch for any English frigates that might be hunting for them. Or for those hapless merchantmentheyhad hunted, he and Jared and other members of the crew taking turns each evening at searching the roiling sea for their next quarry.
Thinking suddenly of his father, Walker propped his elbow upon the padded windowsill and rubbed his temple.
How could he have known that some of those ships theVengeancehad attacked and burned belonged to the Duke of Summerlin, his own flesh and blood? A decent man, a generous man, and a man who believed he was looking out for Walker’s own good…even to forbidding him to wed a woman that wasn’t nobly born.
That thought made Walker tighten his arm possessively around Marguerite. She stirred against him, sighing softly, though she did not wake.
It grated upon him that he must keep their marriage from his father, but what else was to be done? He did not want to disappoint or grieve the man given he had so little time left. Walker didn’t want to subject Marguerite to any distress that his father, however well-intentioned, might inflict upon her, either. She’d suffered enough already at the hands of theton.
And then there was Jared’s infuriating disapproval of him. Damn it all, other than how well this journey had gone thus far, the situation he and Marguerite found themselves in was nothing but unpleasant and fraught with difficulty—
