Page 14 of The Lady Who Said No to the Duke

What if Hal had been another of the ‘idiots’ who had fallen for Penny? He would be in good company if he were, and if he had been considered ineligible by her parents and snubbed, then that would be a very good reason for wishing to avoid them.

And no, that was not something she could ask about. If he wanted to tell her about himself, he would so. She must not pry, she resolved firmly. Hal was her friend, nothing more, and a temporary friend at that.

* * *

Lady Holme’s travelling carriage was, more accurately, a chariot, a vehicle for two to sit in comfort, looking forwards as one did in a post chaise, but with a coachman on the box driving the team and therefore no postilions.

The view was not as good as in a post chaise, but the interior was considerably more luxurious, and Jennie the maid was rendered speechless by the shock of discovering that she was sitting on plush crimson upholstery.

The doors were painted with Lady Holme’s coat of arms, contained within a lozenge shape to signify her widowed status.

Hal’s carriage, Thea noted, had plain doors and looked like a vehicle that had covered a great many miles in the course of a long life. Drage, their butler, would turn his nose up if that arrived outside the house on Chesterfield Street.

But the horses were good, she noted with interest, and the coachman and groom looked as though they knew their business. Perhaps Hal liked to spend his money on his horses and neglected other refinements such as his clothes or a smart carriage.

Then it was time for final hugs and kisses and thanks from her, and last-minute advice on the journey from Godmama.

Thea turned to find Hal waiting. ‘I will be just behind all the way,’ he told her. ‘I will not stay at the same inns, but find accommodation nearby and I will send a note to say where you can find me. But should our paths cross, it would be discreet if we pretend not to know each other.’

‘Yes, I understand. One never knows whom one will encounter on a main coaching route. But we will have a chance to say goodbye properly before we arrive in London, I hope,’ Thea said.

‘I doubt it,’ Hal said. ‘Better if we say our farewells now, Lady Thea. It has been a great pleasure.’

She could read nothing in his smile, but then why should she? They had met as house guests, become friendly, shared a rather shocking scrape and taken a long country ride.

Had shared a moment of awareness beside a lake, been intimately entangled, chaperoned only by a spider… Had become friends.

Now they were parting, she for the Season, he for whatever minor landowners did on their estates at this time of year.

‘Goodbye, Mr Forrest.’ She held out her hand, her gloves still in the other.

Hal took it, turned it and raised it to his lips, pressed a kiss into her palm, closed her fingers over it and released her.

It was over in a moment and Thea found herself, somehow, outside, standing beside the open carriage door.

The groom handed her in, closed the door, said something to the coachman and the carriage began to move.

Thea dropped the window glass and leaned out to wave to Godmama, then raised it again and stared rather blankly at the back of the coachman in front of her.

‘You dropped your gloves, my lady.’

Thea blinked and realised that the maid was beside her. ‘Thank you.’ She pulled the thin kid over her fingers, over her hands, sealing in that kiss. What had that meant? Gentlemen did not kiss hands like that, not any more…

‘Are you a good traveller, Jennie?’ she asked as they turned out of the gates between the flanking lodges.

‘I don’t know, my lady. I’ve never been in anything except Pa’s cart,’ the maid said brightly. ‘I expect I am, though. I mean, this is lovely, isn’t it? Ever so smooth—it sways just like those rocking cradles.’

‘Very smooth,’ Thea agreed when the two of them were thrown together as the wheels hit a deep pothole.

‘Ooh, my lady!’ Jennie said with a giggle.

At least she was cheerful and bright, unlike Maunday, Thea thought. She set herself to enjoy the journey seen through the maid’s wide eyes and not to allow her mind to spin, filled with ridiculous speculation.

* * *

The first night was spent at Stilton after a journey of seven hours, including a leisurely stop for luncheon and the regular change of horses.

Thea had taken pains not to look around for Hal’s carriage as they went, but just as she was alighting outside the Bell in Stilton, she saw it turn into the yard of the Angel opposite across the wide street.

The Bell was the most famous of Stilton’s inns and somewhere travellers would stop to purchase the celebrated cheese from the landlord. Now he came bustling out of his front door, wreathed in smiles to welcome a lady arriving in such an elegant equipage.

He had the perfect suite of rooms for Lady Thea, he assured her, ushering her inside.

A fine bedchamber, a room for her maid and a private parlour where she could take her dinner quite undisturbed.

Her men would be accommodated in comfort in rooms above the stables and at what hour would it please her to take her dinner?

Finally able to get a word in edgeways, Thea ordered a meal for eight o’clock and hot water immediately and was pleased to approve the rooms.

‘Very nice, my lady,’ Jennie conceded when the door closed on the landlord. ‘But you are right at the front overlooking the street. I’ll wager it will be noisy in the night with folks coming and going.’

‘That’s the way of it with inns, and the better they are, the busier they are,’ Thea told her. ‘One becomes resigned. So long as the bed is comfortable, one just has to stick one’s head under the pillow.’

They washed then dined together. Jennie was very stiff and nervous at first, but relaxed as she realised that her table manners were perfectly adequate.

The maid was stifling yawns by the time they had finished and she rang for the waiter to clear the table, so Thea locked the door, changed into her nightgown and sent Jennie off to bed as soon as her hair was unpinned.

She was tired and she ached a little, because however luxurious a carriage and careful the coachman, a long day sitting took its toll. But she was not, she realised, sleepy. She was too restless for that.

Thea looked at the bed, which certainly appeared comfortable enough. Jennie had tested the sheets and pronounced them spotless and dry, and a chambermaid had come while they were eating to slide a warming pan between them, but she knew she would only toss and turn.

Her robe was warm and her feet snug in their slippers, so she prowled into the parlour, studying the rather gloomy prints on the wall, poking the fire, twitching the vase of dried grasses into order.

It was not nervousness about facing Mama and Papa.

Or only a little, perhaps. It wasn’t even the rather daunting prospect of having to take the Duke to task over his neglect of her.

It was the abrupt way she had parted from Hal.

But what could they have said that would have made any difference?

He had been a friend for a short while, one who had offered her good advice, one who had his own life to live in a world quite different from the universe she was destined to occupy.

If I agree to marry the Duke , she thought.

She could feel herself sliding inexorably towards agreeing and realised that it was Hal’s common-sense suggestion about actually talking to the man and expressing her feelings that had made this feel so inevitable.

Before, her determination had been feeding off her anger and instinctive rebellion; now she was going to have to be reasonable, to negotiate. That made her resentful, true, but it also made her feel resigned.

Her reflection in the over-mantel mirror stared down at her and she glared back at it.

‘You are an idiot,’ she said softly. ‘I know what is the matter with you: if Hal Forrest had swept you up in his arms, kissed you passionately and announced that he loved you to distraction, you would have run off with him without a moment’s hesitation—and have been sorry afterwards.

You don’t know how you feel about him, let alone how he feels about you, and now you’ll never know. ’

Which was probably a very good thing.

The room, with its smouldering fire, was becoming stuffy, so she slipped behind the curtains, perched on the window seat and opened the casement to let in some fresh air.

The rain had stopped some time ago, she realised, and darkness had fallen. The cobbles gleamed wetly with the reflected light from the two inns and, as she watched, three men stumbled into view below her, reeling and flailing at each other, their voices raised.

They were drunk and brawling and had just been thrown out by the landlord, she realised as they stood in the middle of the street, exchanging insults at the top of their voices.

Opposite, Hal strolled out of the front door of the Angel, a pint tankard in his hand.

He stood watching the men who finally staggered off, apparently firm friends again, then looked across, his gaze lifted, probably to look at the famous inn sign of the Bell that stretched out across the pavement, Thea thought.

In the darkness between curtains and glass he couldn’t see her, of course, but she lifted a hand in greeting nevertheless.

Hal stared and Thea realised that her white sleeves, and perhaps the pale oval of her face, must be visible in the gloom.

He raised his right hand, as though to wave back, then someone opened the door behind him and two men walked out. Hal turned the gesture into one of smoothing down his hair, ruffled by the breeze down the street, and the men walked away, leaving the door into the Angel open.

As Hal turned and walked away, the light from the room behind sent his shadow, elongated into a bar of black, across the road to the walls of the Bell, and then he was inside, the door closed, and the street was deserted once more.

As he had promised, he was watching out for her, had heard the drunks shouting and had come out to make certain it was nothing that could threaten her.

Warmed by the thought, Thea parted the curtains and made her way to bed, suddenly so weary it was an effort to drag off her robe.