The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne (13 page)

Lady Mercy’s green eyes widened just enough to show a sudden fearful glimmer. Ellie remembered what she’d said about the incident on the horse.

“Perhaps being with James makes you feel safer?”

Again the girl didn’t answer. She yawned heartily instead, rubbing her eyes, shoulders slumped. Apparently no one cared much about her posture either.

Ellie made up a cot at the foot of the bed for Lady Mercy but resigned herself to a wakeful night in the chair by the fire. The child was quick to point out the impropriety of unmarried people sharing the same room all night. Ellie reminded her that James needed a nurse to watch over him. Under those circumstances, she said, the rules could be bent.

“And you will be our chaperone, Lady Mercy,” she added.

“Yes. I shall keep watch! There will be none of
that
going on, while I’m here.”

Indeed, she thought with a sigh, there could not be.

***

James opened his eyes a half inch. He’d lost his memory only for the first few moments after wakening from the blow. Then, once his senses returned full force, he took advantage of the accident. He was going to have a little fun with Miss Vyne, and if she came out of her five nights unscathed, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying on his part. He’d get his thousand pounds’ worth and then some. Stud services indeed!

Very cautiously he slid out of bed, taking a blanket from the many she’d laid over him, and carried it to where she slept in the chair. Lady Mercy snored away contentedly on the cot at the foot of the bed. He laid the blanket over Ellie, tucking it around her, trying not to think too hard about that luscious body he was prevented from enjoying fully tonight. She stirred slightly. Her eyes flickered open but did not quite focus on his face as he leaned over her.

“Sleep, my lady,” he whispered. His lips brushed her twitching eyelids. “You’ll need it before our next encounter.”

“Hmmm.”

He allowed his fingers to drift gently down the side of her cheek, then her graceful neck. As much as her steadily heaving breaths tempted, he couldn’t let his hand stray any farther. Not tonight, alas.

She woke with a start, surprised she’d ever fallen asleep. Her neck was stiff from sleeping in that chair. Lady Mercy, already cloaked and booted, a fur muff hanging around her neck, stood beside her, prodding her steadily with one finger.

“Wake up, Vyne woman. He said to wake you and tell you to go down.”

“What? Who?” She leapt up and wiped drool from her mouth with one hand.

The bed was empty, last night’s supper things all removed, and the room tidied, even the pieces of armor back in their place, guarding the door.

“He still thinks he’s a servant,” the girl added, singsong. “It’s all your fault, because if you hadn’t used your dreadful feminine wiles to seduce him, he would have waited for me. He would never be here with you, a strumpet bereft of virtue, and I would never have screamed.”

How quickly the girl found a culprit to lessen her part in last night’s accident. It reminded Ellie of herself.

She caught the girl’s coat sleeve between thumb and forefinger. “Lady Mercy, you must promise not to speak a word to anyone about what you saw last night.”

“Why should I promise you anything?”

“Because until Mr. Hartley is fit and well,”—
and
able
to
defend
himself,
she thought miserably—“it is best not to mention it.” The last thing he needed, in his current state, was his grandmother finding out through rumor that James had spent the night with Ellie Vyne at the Barley Mow. “For his sake,” she added, knowing where this girl’s loyalties lie.

The truculent child stuck out her lower lip.

Ellie sighed deeply. “I will owe you a favor.”

Finally the girl agreed to do her best. “Although I can’t promise,” she chirped. “I am terrible at keeping secrets.” With that crumb of comfort thrown out, she stuck her freckled nose in the air and flounced away.

***

Somewhere after midnight it must have rained hard again. Fat, rippling puddles dotted the inn yard, and the air was thick with damp. Misty clouds were emitted with every breath as the passengers waited for loading onto the mail coach. Several faces turned her way in envy when James carried her battered trunk on his shoulder and cleared a path through the bedraggled crowd, leading her to a private carriage. It was the same sleek black vessel that almost forced the mail coach off the road yesterday.

Mr. Grieves held the door for her and pointed out the heated brick for her feet, luring her inside with the promise of that luxury.

As she stepped up behind Lady Mercy, she heard James cursing, struggling with her unwieldy trunk. The catch had broken open again. The newly tied rope knots were too loose, and several items fell to the wet cobbles. She wanted to help him, but Mr. Grieves advised her against it.

“Let the valet secure your trunk, Miss Vyne. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“But I know the peculiar way it has to be—”

“Really, Miss Vyne, he will manage.” Mr. Grieves patted her hand and smiled broadly. “He’s stronger than he looks and very keen.” Then he turned his head and bellowed through the window, “Put some wind in your sails, Smallwick, or I’ll be forced to take a horsewhip to your bony backside. You’re keeping Miss Vyne waiting.”

Ellie flinched. “Surely that’s not necessary,” she whispered.

“Remember, he thinks he’s a servant, Miss Vyne, and the physician did say we should go along with it until he recovers. We must not challenge his brain with ideas so far unfamiliar to him.”

“But…
Smallwick
?”

The valet gave a sheepish grin. “I thought the name suited him, madam, and he has taken to it without complaint.”

“Mr. Grieves, that is quite evil of you.”

“In life there are few pleasures to be had, madam. One must take them where one can. Needs must.”

A follower of that philosophy herself, she really could not quarrel with it.

He raised his voice to shout through the carriage window, “And one must talk to these fellows in the language they understand, Miss Vyne. Smallwick must learn.”

Another stifled curse preceded her trunk falling to the ground with a bang. Unconcerned by James’s plight, Mr. Grieves filled the next few moments by loudly asking Lady Mercy if she slept well and how she liked her supper.

“Mr. Grieves, I do think we ought to help—”

“No, no, he has it. There. See.”

Ellie gripped the window frame and peered out just in time to see his firm calves leaping up onto the back of the carriage. James was tall, which would make it doubly difficult to hang on to his precarious perch. Her mind traveled ahead to the narrow lanes, overhung with low branches. The poor man could be scratched to pieces. Looking around the relatively warm interior of Mr. Grieves’s carriage, she suggested there was room for “Smallwick” inside, pointing out that rain must make his outside seat slippery. But her new traveling companion refused to entertain the thought.

She glanced out once more and saw a handsome woman waving her bonnet from the entrance of the tavern.

“James! Oh, James! Stop! James!”

Horrified, she shrank back in her seat, away from the window. Ophelia Southwold. What the devil was she doing at the Barley Mow? James, of course, having lost his memory, did not answer to the name.

The carriage jolted forward and splashed through puddles, picking up speed with no caution for anyone else in the yard. Ellie hung onto the leather strap beside her head and looked at Grieves, who was smiling merrily. He took mischievous pleasure in his master’s predicament, and for the first half an hour, every bump they lurched over was accompanied by his snort of laughter and a misty-eyed grin.

Ellie tried not to worry about the unfortunate “Smallwick.” But each thump of the poor man’s knees against the back of the carriage made her teeth grind.

“Smallwick has quite a litany of curses,” she observed finally.

“He does indeed, madam. I shall be obliged to thrash him for that language when we get to Morecroft.”

Again they heard a shower of lurid curses from the man clinging to the outside of the carriage. Ellie was glad Lady Mercy wore her fur-lined bonnet pulled low over her ears to keep them warm. The girl had apparently come well prepared for winter weather. Since she’d confessed to getting rid of her nanny, it was evident she looked after herself to a surprising degree for such a small person. Some grown women of Ellie’s acquaintance were not so capable of looking after themselves.

Needs
must,
thought Ellie, glancing again at the self-contained little girl beside her.

As they sped along, the vessel heaved from side to side, and James’s knees knocked against the back of the carriage like bell clappers.

Mr. Grieves leaned across the small space to reassure her with a whisper. “It will do him good, you know, madam, to see how the other half lives.”

“I suppose so.” If he should remember any of it later.

The carriage bounced over a rut so violently they were almost tossed out of their seats. A loud, ominous crack followed immediately, and the barouche tilted at an angle before bumping to an abrupt, bone-wrenching halt.

“I believe we lost Smallwick,” she muttered. “I heard something heavy fall.”

Mr. Grieves scrambled to the door and leapt out, directly into an ankle-deep trench of rainwater. She heard the shouting but remained in her seat. She daren’t look, fearing her trunk was in the mud and all her articles of intimate clothing strewn about. How typical of James to hire a driver whose main interest was speed, not the comfort of his passengers.

Lady Mercy hung out through the open window and reported on the situation with suitable tragic emphasis. “The wheel broke. Looks like we’re stuck. And it’s raining again. The lane will soon be flooded. We’ll be swept away and most likely drowned. I’m glad I wore my best lace underthings, for I should hate for my corpse to be found in only linen.”

They had to climb out before the carriage could be righted. Having helped Lady Mercy out first, Ellie took her turn and stepped backward, looking down to ensure she missed the puddle. But while her left boot was still suspended in the air, searching for a dry spot, she was seized by two strong arms and lifted bodily from the carriage.

James carried her easily, his expression earnest, his gaze directly ahead.

“It was quite all right,” she said. “I could manage.”

“I must take care of you, madam. It is my job to take care of you.”

“Oh, dear. I must be heavy, Smallwick.”

“Light as a feather, madam,” he grunted.

She could feel how wet and cold he was, even through her own layers. He limped, yet gallantly carried her onward with only a few straining gasps.

Ellie ventured to lighten the mood. “I shouldn’t have eaten all that supper last night. If I’d have known you’d have to carry me today, I would have starved.”

He was very solemn, his gaze focused on their destination—the drier patch of road. “Would it have made a great difference, madam? One supper?”

“Yes,” she replied crossly.

“What a pity it is then, madam, you had that extra pudding last night.”

She glared at him. “And how do you know I had an extra pudding last night?”

He blinked innocently. “I guessed madam. It seems inevitable. Most women have so little willpower.”

“If I was on my own two good feet, Smallwick, I could admonish you severely for that remark.”

“Then I had better not set you down again, madam.”

“Won’t you get dreadfully tired?”

“Keeping you in my arms, madam? Where you can’t do any harm to me, but I can do anything I please to you?” His lips twitched. “I don’t believe tired is the word for it. Rather something completely opposite. Even now I feel the blood surging with vitality into certain organs.”

Ellie was amused and outraged in equal measure. “Smallwick, whoever was responsible for your training, I cannot help thinking they were a trifle lax.”

“You find me inefficient, madam?”

“No.” She studied the slope of his fine aquiline nose. “But your manner lacks a certain…for want of a better word…decorum.”

The sound of horses approaching at a steady pace made them all turn and look. A grand coach-and-four pulled alongside their stricken vessel. A face looked out.

James did not set her down, despite her whispered urging. He kept her in his arms, holding her firmly to his chest.

“Miss Vyne! Is that you, my dear? Goodness gracious, it has been many years. What has happened here? Are you harmed?”

From her lounging pose in James’s sturdy arms, she replied, “Lord Shale. How pleasant to see you,” trying to sound normal. “It is just a little accident. No one was badly hurt.”

Lord Shale was a portly, affable gentleman, one of her father’s closest friends and a frequent visitor to Lark Hollow when she was young.

“My son, Trenton, is with me—you will remember Trenton.” A thin-faced young man looked out over his shoulder and managed a slight nod in her direction, before immediately retreating to the warmth of the carriage.

Oh yes, she remembered Trenton Shale—a spoiled, sly, whining boy who once ate all the eggs she’d collected at the Easter hunt, stealing them out of her basket when her back was turned. Having eaten them all, he then promptly vomited on her gown, an incident for which he was never punished. He was a wretched, awful child, and although younger than Ellie, she was forced to “entertain” him whenever he came to the house with his father. Somehow her sisters escaped the onerous task. As, just like their father, they avoided anything unpleasant that must be done.

“Please do say you will join us,” Lord Shale continued. “We can see you safely delivered to your destination.”

The rain fell heavily, but there was more still to come, for the clouds above sagged like the hammocks of particularly corpulent sailors. The temperature had dropped rapidly. James was drenched, his hat lost, his hair flat to his brow, but he now plowed onward, sloshing through the deep puddle. When he finally reached dry ground, he set her down at last, his hands lingering only a little longer than necessary. No one noticed but her.

Grieves trotted over and whispered in her ear. “Take him with you, madam. I’ll see to the carriage and fetch Dr. Salt as soon as we get to Morecroft.”

Turning to Lord Shale, she smiled brightly. “If you have room for Smallwick and my young charge, Lady Mercy Danforthe, I should indeed accept your offer, sir.”

Lord Shale’s lidded gaze swept warily over the tall form of the man beside her. “Smallwick?”

She decided it was best to pretend he belonged to her, which, in a way, he did. For five nights. “He has a service to protect my luggage.”

“But my man will see to that, Miss Vyne.”

“No, no, sir. Smallwick is the only one I can trust with anything of mine.”

Lord Shale’s grooms looked at James with sheer envy. He smiled back menacingly, a leashed tiger guarding his property.

“I’m getting wet, and I don’t like it.” Lady Mercy marched to the Shales’ carriage with no further ado and yanked the door open. The offer could not very well be withdrawn now, even if it had been meant only for Ellie.

Grieves helped Smallwick secure her broken trunk and Lady Mercy’s much neater luggage to the Shales’ carriage. Ellie stepped up, holding the door with one hand.

“Move over, Trenton,” Lord Shale exclaimed. “Make room for dear Miss Vyne.”

“Come up, Smallwick,” she called out, “you must sit by me.”

Behind her, the Shales mildly protested, but she was adamant that the servant join them inside where it was dry. James had gone through enough, and she didn’t want him hurt again. “But, madam, I should—”

She raised her voice to a haughty pitch. “Smallwick, I insist. Don’t make me angry. Inside the carriage.”

He licked his lips, eyes wickedly amused. “I wouldn’t want you angry, madam.”

“I’m quite sure you do not.”

James climbed in, bent double to fit through the door, and then squeezed his large frame into the narrow space beside Ellie. “Thank you, madam.”

She was now wedged firmly between James and the spindly body of Trenton Shale. Across the carriage, Lord Shale fought for space with Lady Mercy, who insisted on riding with her box of “necessities” on the seat between them.