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“Well, I do hope the marquis and marchioness have a pleasant journey.”
She pivoted on her heel, trying to figure out some way to hide in an open innyard when she spotted Nicholas walking toward her.
“Good news,” he called out. “The innkeeper remembers a young lady of Lady Margaret’s description riding through yesterday night. Apparently the gentleman with her inquired after a change of horses, but the Gray Dog wasn’t able to accommodate them, so they rode on.”
“Nicholas.” She grasped his hand and practically dragged him across the yard to the stables.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, frowning down at her.
“We have to leave,” she said, panic edging into her voice. “Find the stable boy and tell him we must go now.”
He stopped her, grasping her arms gently to hold her in place. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She cast a glance over her shoulder where the footman she’d spoken to watched them with curiosity. “I just want to press on.”
His eyes narrowed a bit. “Jane, tell me the truth.”
“Do you see that carriage over there?” She watched his eyes flick up to look over her shoulder. “That belongs to the Marquis of Harlewood, whose wife is the particular friend of Lady Rawson.”
All at once, Nicholas was propelling them toward the stable. “Will Lady Harlewood recognize you?”
“Maybe. Probably?” She shook her head. “Almost certainly. Their footman said they were taking luncheon at the inn.”
At the stable door, Nicholas feigned a casual look around. “Well, that footman won’t stop staring at you, which, normally, I wouldn’t blame him for, but right now is a problem.”
Despite the fear pressing down on her chest, she couldn’t help the light flush that spread over her cheeks. Nicholas hadn’t so much as touched her since their kiss, and she’d been beginning to wonder whether she’d dreamed it. Still, there were more pressing matters at hand, like how to get out of an exposed yard without drawing attention when the marquis and marchioness could walk out at any moment.
“What do we do?” she asked.
He gestured to the boy who had taken their horses and then dug into his pocket to pull out a coin.
“What can I do for you, sir?” the boy asked, his eye fixed firmly on the glint of the metal in Nicholas’s hand.
“We need to make a fast departure,” he said. “This stable has a back entrance?”
The boy nodded. “There’s a path through the fields that links up to the main road eventually. It’s not an easy one with all of the rain we’ve had, but it’s there.”
“There’s a half crown for you if you can have our horses ready around back in less than five minutes.”
“I’d only watered them because I wasn’t sure if you’d be staying for long,” said the boy.
“Good. And is there somewhere my wife can sit for a moment where she’ll be undisturbed?”
The boy screwed up his forehead, thinking. “There’s the tack room. It isn’t much, but no one except me goes in there this time of day.”
“That will suit us just fine,” said Nicholas.
Jane’s hands were shaking by the time the boy showed them into the tack room and ran off to prepare the horses. She let Nicholas steer her to a low bench meant for riders to pull on their boots and gently press her down into a seat. Then he dropped to one knee before her.
“Everything is going to be fine,” he said, his hands rubbing up and down her arms.
Except it wasn’t fine. She’d been holding together all of her threads of hopes in the stubborn belief that maybe she could fix this before she lost complete control, but the truth was plain. No matter what she did, Lady Margaret would be discovered and Jane would lose her position. Two lives could be ruined with one moment of recognition.
And then there was the matter of Nicholas and his sisters. If he and Jane were spotted, he would be honor bound as a gentleman to ask her to marry him. A marriage between them—a gentleman with a title and a woman who taught for a wage—would cause a scandal. One that two unmarried ladies with few prospects, like Nicholas’s sisters, could ill afford.
“Until now it’s all seemed so far away,” she tried to explain. “It was as though London was another world. But these people know me. The moment they see me without Lady Margaret, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
His mouth set in a grim line. “And when they realize you’re with me, they’ll jump to all manner of conclusions. I know.”
