Anne Barbour (29 page)

“No, thanks, Cat. I simply can’t hold my eyes open for another moment.”

“Of course, dearest. Up you go, then, and I’ll see you later this afternoon, if you have roused by then,” She paused, suddenly alert. “Tally, what is it?”

Tally sighed. Trust Cat to know when something was amiss with her.

“Nothing. I’m just tired, I’ll be...” But at the sight of her friend’s loving concern, the tears at long last spilled over. Cat rose precipitously from the table.

“Tally! Oh, my dear girl!”

Cat threw her arms around Tally and led her from the dining room, while Tally, utterly undone, sobbed despairingly.

Upstairs, Tally sat down on her bed, gratefully accepting the lawn handkerchief proffered by Cat.

“I’m so sorry,” she hiccupped. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me—I’ve never turned into such a watering pot.”

“Well,” replied Cat briskly, “You’ve never worn yourself to a thread chasing about the country with spies—at gun point, for Heaven’s sake. That sort of thing tends to make a person edgy. Now,” she commanded, “tell Mother what’s bothering you. You’ll feel much better when you do.”

Blowing her nose fiercely, Tally related the tale of Clea’s perfidy, at the end of which, Cat was suitably outraged.

“So, you see ...” Tally found it necessary to apply Cat’s handkerchief to her eyes once more. “Clea’s friend—probably that wretched Laleham creature who dyes her hair—must have received the note by now, and the story is no doubt spreading about London right now, like some sort of foul miasma. By tomorrow, I’ll be an outcast, and—oh, Cat, I wouldn’t mind so much for myself—I can always seek haven at Summerhill—but it means I must leave Jonathan!”

Cat’s only response was a blank stare.

“Don’t you see?” Tally continued. “He cannot be expected to marry a social pariah! I would ruin his life! I cannot even remain his friend!”

Cat drew a long breath.

Tally, this is fatigue talking, for you are refining on this too much. Richard and I count ourselves very much your friends, and we certainly don’t intend to repudiate you. Nor, I am sure, will Jonathan.”

“No, but....”

“What you are going to do right now, Tally Burnside, is have a bath and lie down on this bed and get some sleep. No one will disturb you until you ring your bell, and later, when you are refreshed, we will talk more.”

While Tally’s maid filled the tub, Cat helped her friend remove the ragged remnants of Tatiana’s gauzes, and a little while later, tucked her in beneath a thick feather quilt. She moved to close the curtains in the room, and, turning at the door for one last glance, she observed with satisfaction that Tally’s eyes were closed, and her breathing had already deepened.

When Tally opened her eyes again, dusk was giving way to darkness. She tensed for an instant, believing herself to be still in the confines of the dark carriage with her captors, but as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she recognized her surroundings and relaxed.

She lay motionless for some time, thinking. Cat was mistaken; a long rest had done nothing to restore her spirits. She imagined the gossip that must be taking place in a hundred drawing rooms and boudoirs right this minute. Had the talk reached Jonathan?

In a swift motion, she threw aside the coverlet and stood for a moment in her underclothes, poised for action. Jonathan had said he would return this evening, and she was determined to spare both of them the painful scene she knew must come. She must be gone by the time he arrived.

The coach on which her faithful footman had purchased her ticket was due to leave at nine o’clock. It lacked almost two hours to that now.

The inn lay some two miles from the Thurston home. She could easily walk that distance in the necessary time, for she would carry only a small bag, containing the essentials for an overnight trip. She would send for the remainder of her things later. However, her walk would take her through some of London’s seediest neighborhoods, and her travels through the metropolis at night had taught her the danger in such a passage for an elegantly gowned female of gentle birth. And that was to say nothing of the unwanted attentions she would receive when stopping at the various coaching accommodations along the way.

She snapped her fingers — of course! She raced to the wardrobe in her dressing room and flung open its doors. Surely, Lettie would not yet have thrown away.... Yes, here it was!

Some two hours later, a small, shabbily dressed old woman clambered breathlessly aboard the stage preparing to depart momentarily from the Swan With Two Necks. Her cracked straw bonnet sat askew on a head of greasy gray curls, and her skirts appeared to have been ingrained with the grime of centuries.

Her fellow-passengers, who included a plump farm wife with two toddlers on her lap, and a bespectacled clerk whose disapproving expression seemed permanently curved in the lines on his face, drew aside in dismay after receiving a whiff of the woman’s gamy odor.

The coach is already full,” complained the clerk to the coachman. “If you do not remove this person, I shall report you to the authorities.”

“Belt up,” bellowed that worthy cheerfully and slammed the door of the vehicle.

“I paid fer me ticket, right ’n proper,” croaked the old lady, “so you c’n get yerself stuffed, cully.”

The next moment, the coach lumbered through the gateway of the coaching inn into the narrow confines of Lad Lane, and it was not long before the chimney pots of London had been left behind.

Tally peered at the fields flashing by the window. She was determined to shed no more tears, but she was forced to blink them back more than once as she considered all that she had left behind.

Oh, Jonathan! The words seem to echo in her mind like organ chords in a great cathedral. She had been happy before at Summerhill; surely she could be so again, even given the wretched state of affairs between her and Henry—and Henry’s disagreeable wife. At least she had her own money now, and the means of earning more. In a year or two, if things didn’t work out at Summerhill, she could move out and set up her own establishment in a location of her own choosing. A sparse cottage on a windswept moor, perhaps, or in craggy isolation on a mountaintop in Wales.

A tantalizing odor reached her nostrils, and she turned to discover that the farm wife had unwrapped a large meat pie, which she was apportioning to her children. Tally’s stomach produced an audible complaint to verify the fact she had eaten nothing for a very long time.

Startled, the farm wife swung about, her hands still full of pie. Observing the expression on Tally’s face, she broke off a piece of the aromatic pastry and handed it reluctantly to her, being careful not to touch her as she did so.

Beyond pride, Tally reached greedily, but before she had a chance to bring the morsel to her lips, a sudden shout and a clatter of horses’ hooves brought the coach to a shuddering standstill.

“Mercy!” screamed the farm wife.

“Highwaymen!” screeched the clerk.

The next moment the coach door had been wrenched open and a dark head and a pair of muscular shoulders were thrust through the aperture. Gray eyes anxiously scanned the interior of the coach before coming to rest on the small, filthy form cringing in the corner. Anxiety turned to laughter, and the gentleman addressed the frightened passengers.

“I am so terribly sorry to have disturbed you all, but I have been searching everywhere for this lady. She’s my grandmother, you see. She has these spells” — he tapped the side of his head significantly. “Forgets who she is and dresses in rags.”

In one, swift motion, he gathered the little old woman into his arms and prepared to lift her from the coach.

“No!” she screamed. “Jonathan, no!” She turned for succor to her fellow travelers. “Help me—he—he’s kidnapping me!”

Jonathan merely clicked his tongue.

“Terribly sad,” he said mournfully, and his audience nodded, spellbound. Tally continued her vociferous struggles, but since she had forgotten to maintain her street accent, and since neither the coachman nor his passengers were about to gainsay the doings of such an obvious swell, her pleadings went unheeded.

The coach, minus one insignificant passenger, rattled off into the darkness, and Tally found herself alone under the stars with the Viscount Chelmsford.

He carried her a few yards away to where his curricle waited and set her gently on her feet.

“Now then, Lady Talitha, as I recall saying earlier, we have something of importance to discuss.”

Tally was determined not to cry again, nor to be swayed by anything Jonathan might have to say. The fact that her bones had turned to molten fire when he lifted her in his arms and pressed her against his chest did not make her decision any easier, and she was finding it difficult to think with the clean, masculine scent of him filling her senses.

“Jonathan, please let me go. I expect you are wondering at my odd behavior, but...”

“I ceased sometime ago to wonder at your odd behavior, my independent little love. Why didn’t you tell me about Clea’s last little burst of venom?”

“How—did Cat tell you?” she asked indignantly. “How dare she blather about things that I told her in confidence. Just wait till I get my hands on her!”

“You’ll have that opportunity very soon, love, for I am taking you back there momentarily—as soon as we get a few things settled. What made you think that I would be willing to let you escape from my life just because you might become the target of a parcel of gossip-mongering cloth heads whose opinion doesn’t mean a damn to me?”

“But, Jonathan....”

“Did it ever occur to you that I wish nothing more than to protect you against such calumny? I love you, and you have given me cause to believe you love me. A wedding usually follows such declarations, and believe me, I shall cut up very stiff if you play me false.” He became serious, and he gazed at her for a heart-stopping moment. “Do you love me, Tally?”

“Yes,” she replied simply. “With all my heart, Jonathan, but…”

His mouth came down on hers, and her resolutions flew away on the sweet-scented night breeze. She melted against him and returned his kiss with an abandon that shocked her. Her arms lifted around him, and she wound her fingers in the dark thatch at the base of his neck, pressing him even closer. His hands moved along the curve of her back, and she reveled in the controlled strength she felt in them.

His lips left hers, and she felt momentarily bereft before they began a slow path along her cheek, her throat, and finally to the hollow at the base of her neck. His fingers worked deftly for a few minutes at the collar buttons of Granny Posey’s old bombazine bodice, and Tally gasped aloud as his mouth moved along the curve of her breast.

It took every ounce of strength she possessed, but in one wrenching thrust, she pushed Jonathan away and stood back, panting.

After a single, compulsive gesture toward her, Jonathan remained where he was, only the banked fires visible behind the smoke of his eyes indicating the depths to which he had been stirred.

“You cannot deny that we belong together,” he breathed.

“I can deny nothing,” she replied brokenly, “but I must leave. I cannot bear that you should be the victim of my petty wish to make a career for myself. Clea has had the last laugh, after all, Jonathan. She has destroyed me.”

“Ah, yes, Clea,” said Jonathan, his voice oddly cheerful. “Did I tell you that I heard from her today?”

“What?” gasped Tally. “Surely, even she could not have the effrontery to write to you...” She stopped, puzzled. “But, she could not have had time to....”

“No, of course not. It was a note she wrote just before her flight with Crawshay. I cannot tell you how shocked I was by its contents.”

“What on earth... ?”

“Yes, you see she revealed to me that she has discovered the identity of the illustrator of
Town Bronze.”

Tally stood staring as the implication of his words sank in.

“Jonathan,” she said slowly, unbelievingly, “do you mean to tell me that the ‘friend’ to whom Clea fired off that poisonous little note was you?”

Jonathan nodded. His eyes were alight, but his mouth was twisted into an expression of mock outrage.

“She related with much relish that you, Lady Talitha Burnside, daughter of a belted earl, are the person responsible for those ‘filthy, scurrilous scratchings.’ ” He eyed her wickedly. “And now that I am cognizant of your guilty secret, you are completely in my power.”

He advanced on her purposely, and she retreated until she found herself backed up against the curricle.

“Now, Jonathan,” she quavered, as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Not to worry, my sweet,” he said, and his smile curled into an exaggerated leer. “As long as you agree to a lifelong collaboration with the author of that scandalous piece of trash, your secret is safe with me.”

“You have me at your mercy, sir,” she whispered, just before she found herself swept into another dizzying embrace.

Much later, Tally sat beside Jonathan in the curricle cantering slowly back to London.

“I wonder,” mused Jonathan aloud.

Tally glanced at him quizzically.

“I wonder if we should not consider simply announcing our guilty secret to the world. If we were to face the public together, we would survive pretty much intact, I think — and, somehow, becoming known as ‘one of those writing coves’ doesn’t seem to me the stigma that it was before. In fact, I begin to realize that I have been pretty stupid about the whole thing.” He turned to face Tally squarely. “I know the dust raised would be much worse for a woman, so if you would rather, we’ll keep our nefarious occupation a secret, but—it’s something to think about, isn’t it?”

Tally cocked her head thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s something to think about. But not now.”

She drew closer to Jonathan and laid her head on his shoulder. Her hands stroked his sleeve, and his own loosed the reins for a moment to cover them. Tally sighed contentedly.

“I’m afraid it will be the middle of the night—again, when we arrive at Cat and Richard’s, but I don’t think they’ll mind being roused.”

“If I know your meddlesome friend, Cat, she will be standing at the door waiting for us — again.”