An Untitled Lady (40 page)

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From a quarter-mile away, Nash could see the purpose in her stride. As he drew closer, he could see the set in her shoulders.

His Maddie.

He knew when she heard the wagon; she stepped out of the track and turned around. Dusty and rumpled, color in her cheeks, a spray of curls wildly escaping from the back of her bonnet. Only in the carriage of her spine and the purse of her full lips did she appear the young miss he’d met along this path just last spring. Now he knew better.

“Lost your carriage, ma’am?”

She tilted her head, a hand shading her eyes from the steep-angled sun. He must have said the same thing to her then; was she remembering? Or was she simply trying to determine how to best set him in his place? If so, she was succeeding. With every silent second that ticked by, his stomach clenched tighter, his throat grew more parched.

She really had turned her back on him. He’d been a fool to think mere words on paper could argue his case. Actions spoke a thousand times louder, actions that convicted him.

She shrugged delicately. There were new freckles across her nose. “I seem always to be in need of your rescue.”

In two seconds, he had set the reins, leapt out of the cart, and taken her hand. “If only that were so.” He breathed her in, sun and honey and ginger. Her hand warmed his. Her breaths were slow, with that pause between that scared him so when she was sleeping. All he wanted to say crowded his throat. He couldn’t push the words out. Any words. She looked at him with those too-round, too-wise eyes, but her mouth did not judge.

She let him lead her to the wagon and up to sitting on its bench. He hoisted himself up beside her. She slid a hand’s length away. He took her hand, no gloves today. She looked hard into his eyes as if she could reach his soul through them. He let her look her fill.

She blinked, her gaze flicking away to the bed of the wagon. “Empty?”

He cleared his throat. “Thought I’d pick up a wardrobe, maybe two. Could always use extra storage. That is, until we remove to somewhere larger.”

He winced. We. Too fast.

She turned, pulling her hand free and dropping it into her lap. He hied the team and the wagon jerked into motion.

“Your settlement is generous.”

Settlement? She must mean Deacon’s money. Business again. Why did everyone think him a merchant first? Because that’s what he pretended to be. To admit how he felt about things—about her—would be to invite heartbreak. Not to admit it, he had discovered, would guarantee it. He swallowed hard.

“All I need is you. The rest is merely commerce.” He glanced at her, and back to the horses. Steady on gait. Was her lower lip trembling? He chanced another look. Now she was frowning. No, worrying her lip. She was thinking. Could be a good sign.

Her gaze caught his, and they both looked away, startled and sheepish. Her hands clasped and unclasped. A sigh rumbled her lungs. She held his letter, crushed in the palm of her far hand. He fought to keep his wrists easy, the horses in rhythm. Let her think it out. Let her drink him in. Let her let herself change her mind.

Let her say yes.

As the wagon turned into the long drive up to the castle, its weight shifting on its axles, she slid closer to him. Before she could resettle herself, he put his hand around her, resting it on the seat. A small push, and their hips met. She held herself stiff, but she didn’t move away.

The rocking of the wagon settled her deeper into him with each step. He took shallow breaths, so she wouldn’t wake to their growing intimacy.

With her beside him, even by feint, the castle did not loom as foreboding as usual. He wished he could give it to her. A wardrobe or two was poor consolation. But she might think of it as interest on the future.

“We won the Netherlands contract. It might treble my profit next year, and keep two hundred men working—and women—through the winter.”

She sighed and said nothing. He could have punched himself. Commerce, again. As he scrambled for something artistic to say, she cleared her throat. He leaned closer.

“You saw Kitty?”

Her thoughts were not of him at all. Of course not. She’d just buried her sister, and left her ramshackle father. “Too late. I could do nothing for her but close her eyes. I’m sorry.”

“You left your coat.” She jostled her skirts, digging in a pocket. Her shoulder pushed into his chest, and then away. She held rounded buttons in her hand. “It was ruined, but I saved these.”

“You knew they were mine?”

“Only today. I thank you.” She tried to hand them to him, but he pushed her hand away with his forearm.

“I did it for you. I thought it was you.” The vision raced back to the front of his mind, the strength of it clenching his hands. The horses stuttered a step before he righted the reins. “I couldn’t help it, Maddie, the joy I felt when I saw it wasn’t you. I’ll go to hell for it, sure.” He shook the vision from his thoughts. Maddie watched him, that oddly direct stare. She must hate him now. He scrambled for words. “Losing your sister, and so soon after you’d met her, I don’t know, it must be-”

She put a hand on his knee, startling him into silence. She lifted it off. He watched it fall to her own knee. The horses slowed. She sighed deeper into him. “I’m so tired of running away.”

The harness jangled, and he pulled the team off the track. With the wheels stopped, he could hear an orchestra of cicadas in the shade of the wood.

“Folk commit grave errors every day, Maddie. Somehow, they go on. Could we?” He cupped her hands in his.

She held her breath so long. So many expressions, her face clouded, cleared, clouded again. He feared the worst. His chest began to cave in, his ears to swell the quiet evening into a dull roar. Then her face cleared, settling on a look of unguarded hope.

“I could be a better wife.”

He exhaled, relief streaming from his veins.

“You couldn’t.” She stiffened, and tried to pull her hands free. “You’re already perfect.”

She snorted. He’d never before thought it such a welcoming sign.

“I could be a better husband. What say you to that?”

“I see what you mean.” Her lips wobbled into a smile. He started to lift his hand to run it down the soft rounding of her cheek, but she turned to look over her shoulder. The roaring he’d heard was real—Deacon’s carriage and four, returning from town. The driver slowed his team as the coach drew near. Deacon rolled down the window and leaned out.

“Am I late to the party?”

“Might we stay to dinner? And perhaps borrow a wardrobe or two?”

“Have at it. Take some curtains, too, we have plenty enough. Hurry on in, though. Wrestling with Malbanks has given me a prodigious appetite.”

He unlatched the door and smiled past Nash at Maddie. “Wish to ride in comfort the rest of the way?”

Nash’s hands clamped down on hers. He should let go, help her into the carriage next to the lord she was supposed to marry. The one with that lady-killer smile.

But she didn’t tug away. She just sat there, still with that crooked smile on her too wide, too beautiful face.

“Thank you kindly, but I’m well enough here.”

“Sure?”

She dropped her gaze to his, smile wobbling again. “I can stay?”

“Do you want to?”

“Forever.”

“Let’s do.”

He heard the door latch, and the coach move on. Still, that crooked smile turned to him. Only him.

He grinned. She wasn’t going anywhere without him.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Peterloo Massacre, as it became known, shocked people across England, according to accounts at the time. While the government quickly praised the actions of the magistrates’ committee, public sentiment was not so sanguine. People from around the country donated funds to help the injured, and bought commemorative items—plates, jugs, handkerchiefs, medals—that carried what became the iconic image of Peterloo: cavalrymen with swords drawn slashing at bare-armed civilians.

Some formerly anti-reform newspapers turned toward reform, including the influential Times of London, whose reporter was among those arrested on the speaker’s stand that day. But political reform did not come until 1832, more than a decade later. The immediate effect of the summer of protests was more government crackdown, including the Six Acts, which allowed houses to be searched without a warrant and declared that “every meeting for radical reform is an overt act of treasonable conspiracy.”

Orator Hunt and Sam Bamford, along with eight others, were charged with sedition for their parts in the meeting on 16 August; both were found guilty and went to jail, Hunt for four years, Bamford for one.

In this story, I have taken liberties with some of the history, particularly with the members of the magistrates’ committee. I did not base my likenesses of Nash Quinn or any of the others on the people who did serve on that panel, partly because no one on the committee actually lived in Manchester. I also took major artistic license with the bathing rooms in Manchester; while they did sit on the grounds of the Manchester Hospital, in style they were more Spartan than Roman.

The injuries the marchers and yeomanry sustained at Peterloo are taken from eyewitness accounts. For a listing of books, websites, and other references I used, and for more about this story, please see
nickypenttila.com
.

An
audiobook version
of this story is at
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ALSO BY NICKY PENTTILA

“Combine Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels with Jane Austen, add a touch of Dickens and a modern sex scene, then you’ll have the flavor of Nicky Penttila’s
A Note of Scandal
.”

When desperate composer Lady Olivia Delancey tricks principled newspaper publisher Will Marsh into printing a false story, and then falls for him, how can she prove that she’s worth a second chance? Regency romantic fiction set in London and Plymouth, England, 1815.

Available as ebook, print, and audiobook at
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Reviews on
Goodreads

“Enchanting and gripping from the very first page. Beautifully written, the reader is engulfed with the plight of the returned soldiers and their futures but also with the struggle that women face when they are continuously considered 'less' than men.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicky Penttila writes stories with adventure and love, and often with ideas and history as well. She enjoys coming up with stories that are set in faraway cities and countries, because then she *must* travel there, you know, for research. She lives in Maryland with her reading-mad husband and amazing rescue cat. She’s chattiest on Twitter,
@NickyPenttila
, and may also be found at
nickypenttila.com
.