The Escape by Mary Balogh

10

Samantha took the cup and saucer from him with hands she schooled to be steady. Tramp was seated beside her, at attention, his ears cocked, his eyes intent on hers. He knew there was something wrong, the poor dear.

“Thank you,” she said.

She was dreadfully upset that Lady Gramley had gone away. Although there were other ladies in the neighborhood to whom she supposed she might turn in her distress, none but Lady Gramley felt like a friend. Sometimes friendly acquaintances were simply not enough. Though how she had expected Lady Gramley to help her she did not know.

“Heathmoor is tossing you out without making any provision for you?” Sir Benedict Harper asked, seating himself across from her. “He is literally evicting you?”

“No. He has far too great a sense of family duty to do that,” she said. “I am to go to Leyland Abbey in Kent. He has sent his own coachman and outriders back with the carriage Matilda took, and they have orders to escort me there. I am to leave the day after tomorrow. I do not know if their instructions are to coerce me if I will not go voluntarily or I try to delay, but I would not be at all surprised if they are. My father-in-law made it very clear in the letter he sent me that he sees me as a disgrace to his family and that I must be fetched to a place where he can keep a strict eye upon me and correct my waywardness.”

“And this is because you returned Bea’s visit that one afternoon and agreed to ride with her and with me a few days later?” He was frowning at her as if he did not quite believe his ears.

“They were not small matters to Matilda,” she told him. “They are not small matters to Matilda’s father. Heaven knows what I may get up to if I am left to my own devices here. I may even take it into my head to go about visiting the sick or arranging flowers on the altar at church.”

She took a sip of her tea and discovered gratefully that it was both strong and sweet.

“Perhaps,” he said, “it is not quite what you think. Perhaps your father-in-law’s annoyance with you arises from a genuine concern that you will be lonely here without the companionship of his daughter. Perhaps he thinks you will be happier surrounded by your late husband’s family.”

She took another sip of tea. “I think not,” she said. “But I am sorry to have made such a nuisance of myself. I came here, I suppose, to unburden myself to Lady Gramley, though to what purpose I do not know. I just did not know what else to do. I do not know what else to do.”

“You do not believe you can find any sort of contentment at Leyland?” he asked her. “Even just temporarily, until your year of mourning is at an end?”

“Could you find any sort of contentment in a prison, Sir Benedict?” she asked in return. “Where even smiles are construed as sin, and laughter is unheard of?”

“And it is out of the question to go to your half brother?”

“Yes,” she said.

John would perhaps not literally refuse her admission to the vicarage if she turned up on his doorstep, but he would certainly make it clear that she was unwelcome, that she could not stay there beyond a few nights at the longest.

“Forgive my impertinence,” Sir Benedict said, “but do you not have an independence? Can you not set up on your own somewhere?”

She stared blankly at him. Her father had left her a small legacy, which Matthew had appropriated. He had left her with a small income, enough for her personal needs since she had never been extravagant. But enough with which to set up her own establishment? She did not know and had never wondered. She had relied upon Matthew’s assumption that his father would be happy to leave her at Bramble Hall. Oh, how foolish of her. How foolish! She ought to have been making plans. But what plans?

“I could not stay anywhere close to here,” she said, “where at least I have some friendly acquaintances and some sense of belonging. Rudolph and Patience will be at Bramble Hall within a fortnight. They would make life very difficult for me if I remained here in defiance of my father-in-law’s express wishes. And I could not return to the village where I grew up. I had a few friends there, but on the whole I was not well accepted because my mother was not. As for anywhere else, well, I do not know anywhere.”

She swallowed awkwardly. She was suddenly very frightened. The world seemed a vast and hostile place. Whatever was she going to do?

“Starting a new life is never easy,” he said, “especially when there is no obvious base of operations. You have the rest of today and tomorrow, then, to think of an alternative to Leyland Abbey.”

“I cannot go there.” She set down her cup and saucer and gripped one arm of the sofa. “I will not. Though I may not have a choice if I am right about those servants the earl has sent. They are all large, severe-looking men. However it is, though, I have to leave Bramble Hall. I expected it to be my home for the rest of my life. It is what my husband expected.”

She dipped her head forward in an attempt to cling to consciousness. Tramp whined. She was going to be homeless. And friendless.

“I must count my blessings,” she said, smoothing a hand over the dog’s head as though to reassure herself by comforting him. “I am not penniless, after all. There are thousands upon thousands of people who at this very moment are both homeless and destitute. Oh, the despair of it. How do they go on, Sir Benedict? I must not despair. It would be wicked. I am not destitute. There must be somewhere I can live, some small country house I can afford.”

She frowned in thought for a moment but was distracted when she realized he had got to his feet and come to sit beside her after propping his canes against the far side of the sofa. He took her right hand in both of his while Tramp stretched out at their feet. His hands were blessedly warm.

“I know how it is to feel homeless, even if I do not know how it is actually to be homeless,” he said. “It is a wretchedly bleak and lonely feeling. But, as you say, you are not destitute.”

She turned her head and looked at his finely chiseled features and slightly hollowed cheekbones, a strangely appealing, not-quite-handsome face—though his eyes were very blue. He had kissed her almost a month ago and then withdrawn from her life, though she was convinced he had sent his sister to befriend her and involve her in neighborhood and church activities.

“Do you have any other relatives apart from your half brother?” he asked.

“A few aunts and uncles and cousins,” she said. “None to whom I have ever been close. They all shared my half brother’s outrage over my father’s marrying an actress of doubtful origin who was half his age.”

“And there is no one else?”

There was the illusion of comfort in his grasp.

“There were friends, other wives, during the first year of my marriage,” she said. “But I was not with them long enough to establish any lasting friendships before the regiment went to the Peninsula and I was sent to Leyland instead of going with them. No, there is no one.”

How abject it sounded. After twenty-four years of living, she had no one to whom she could turn for help.

He raised her hand, and she felt the warmth of his lips and his breath against the back of it for a few moments.

“But I have taken enough of your time, Sir Benedict,” she said. “You must be wishing me in Hades though you have been very kind. This is not your concern, and the longer I talk, the more pathetic I sound.”

She spoke briskly, and she tried at the same time to repossess her hand. He tightened his hold upon it, however.

“I think,” he said, “you had better marry me, Mrs. McKay.”

She jerked her hand free then and leapt to her feet. “Oh, no,” she cried in great dismay. “No, no, no. Oh, how very good of you. And how excruciatingly embarrassing. I was not in any way hinting at such a thing, you know.” She set her palms against her cheeks. As she had suspected, they were hot with shame.

“I am perfectly well aware of that,” he said. “But marriage to me would solve your problem, you know. And perhaps it would solve mine too.”

“You have a problem?” She frowned down at him.

“An inability to steel myself to rid my home of my younger brother and his family, who have usurped it,” he said, smiling a slightly crooked smile, “and an impossibility of living there with them. A restlessness and a depression of spirits at the realization that I will never again be the man of action I used to be. An inability to forge a meaningful new life for myself and settle to it. Beatrice says it is all explained by the fact that I have no woman in my life.”

“But you cannot solve a problem—not for either of us,” she said, “by creating a new one.”

“Marriage to each other would create a problem?” he asked.

“Of course it would.” She stretched her fingers and then curled them into her palms at her sides. They were tingling. “It would be very improper for me to marry only five months after the death of my husband. Besides, I do not wish to marry again. Not yet, at least. The fetters of my first marriage were tightly binding and I want to be free. And if and when I do marry, I want it to be to a man who … who had no connection with the wars. Forgive me, but I am tired of the wars and what they did to so many people. And as for you, it is nothing but sheer gallantry that has put the idea of marrying me into your head. By your own admission you are not yet ready to settle to your own life, Sir Benedict, let alone take on the burden of someone else’s. You are not ready for the bonds of marriage. Not with me, certainly, when I am as restless and needy as you are. We would drag each other down into a pit of unending depression if we were to marry.”

“Would we?” He was still smiling that crooked smile. “I find you very attractive, you know. And lest you think that not a very strong motive for marriage, I would add that you are the first woman to whom I have been attracted in six years.”

“I find you … personable too,” she admitted. Good heavens, how could she deny it? There had been that kiss, had there not? “But attraction is not everything, or even very much. I was attracted to Matthew … Oh, Sir Benedict, if we are only attracted to each other, then we should go to bed and have our fill of pleasure with each other. We ought not to marry.”

His smile had disappeared and his face had flushed. Oh, dear, had she really just said what she knew she had said?

“An affair?” he said. “That would not solve your problem, ma’am. Not unless, that is, you are suggesting that I set you up somewhere as my mistress.”

She doubted she had ever felt more mortified in her life. She stared at him and—laughed. And he stared back at her and laughed too.

“With a carriage of my own and four white horses to pull it?” she asked. “And diamonds as large as birds’ eggs for my ears and bosom, and a bed draped in scarlet satin with scarlet velvet curtains about it and at the windows? With such inducements you might be able to persuade me.”

“I believe,” he said, “I might find the four white horses a trifle vulgar.”

Incredibly, they both laughed again with genuine amusement.

And then that thought that had niggled at her a couple of minutes ago came to the forefront of her mind.

… some small country house I can afford.

She turned away sharply to the fireplace and stood with her hands on the mantelpiece, gazing into the unlit coals with unseeing eyes.

“Just a moment,” she said, holding up one hand.

There was the little cottage.

Perhaps.

Her mother had grown up with her paternal aunt in southwest Wales before running away at the age of seventeen to become an actress in London. Not long before she died when Samantha was twelve, word of her aunt’s death had reached her, and with it the news that she had been left her aunt’s cottage on the coast. That cottage had passed to Samantha on her mother’s death. She had not even realized it until, after her father’s death, John had sent on a letter from the solicitor in Wales who was managing it. Mr. Rhys had written to inform her that the people who had been renting the cottage for a number of years had left and that he would see to its maintenance, using the accumulated rent money, until he received instructions either to rent it again or to sell it. John had taken it upon himself, he had informed her, to reply with the instructions that the solicitor proceed as he saw fit. Matthew had been brought back from the Peninsula then, and they had just moved to Bramble Hall. He had been desperately ill, and she had been unaccustomed to nursing him. She had set the letter aside, as well as any annoyance she might have felt with John for interfering in her business. It had not seemed important business, anyway. Certainly she had never written to Mr. Rhys herself, as she might have and probably ought to have done.

Her mother, when she had learned of the bequest, had described the cottage with open contempt as a “heap” and a “hovel” that was best left to crumble to dust. That had been a long time ago, maybe fourteen years, and her mother had been remembering it from years before that. It might well have deteriorated to nothing by this time, especially without renters to look after it properly. Besides, the cottage might as well be at the other end of the world for all the good it would do her. Wales! And West Wales at that. It was not even close to the border with England. Samantha had never been there. She knew no one there. As far as she knew, there was no one to know. No one connected to her, anyway.

But it was a house. Perhaps. If it still existed. It had existed in some form five years or so ago, though, otherwise the solicitor would not have written that he would sell it or rent it again if she wished.

She was desperately in need of a home—and she already owned one. If it was still standing. And if it was habitable.

And suddenly its very remoteness became its chief attraction. It was far away from Leyland Abbey.

Sir Benedict Harper was still sitting on the sofa when she swung around to look at him. He was gazing quietly at her. Gracious heaven, he had just offered to marry her. How very noble he was, and how different from what she had thought the first time she encountered him.

“I know where I am going to go,” she told him. “At least for now. Perhaps forever.”

Forever? Her stomach lurched.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I own a cottage,” she told him. “My great-aunt left it to my mother, who grew up there with her. I believe it was a very old, dilapidated building even then. It is probably far worse now, but I have not heard of its falling down or having been demolished. It is mine now, and that is where I am going to go. Even a crumbling ruin would be preferable to Leyland.”

“It is in Wales?” he asked.

“On the southwest coast, yes.”

“And you intend to go there alone?” He frowned. “You will need to give the matter some careful thought, Mrs. McKay. It is a long way to go, through wild and lonely and possibly dangerous country. And who is to know what you will find at the end of it all? Perhaps the cottage really is uninhabitable.”

“Then I will find one that is not,” she said, “and rent it. At least I will be in a part of the world where half my heritage lies. And no one will find me there. No one will bother me. I will be able to live again.”

“And dance?” But he was still frowning.

“On the beach, if there is one, as I daresay there is,” she said. “On the edge of the world with all the wild power of the ocean looking on.”

“And you intend to travel there alone and live there alone.” He got slowly to his feet while Tramp sat up and watched, ever hopeful. “It would be sheer folly. The idea may seem appealing to you, and I can understand why. I can even applaud your courage. But consider the reality of leaving Bramble Hall behind and traveling alone and unaccompanied into such a distant unknown.”

She did consider—for a few moments. And she was frightened—but undaunted. The alternative was far worse.

“Then you must come with me,” she said.

Ben could not have been more effectively robbed of breath if someone had planted a fist in his stomach.

Then you must come with me.

They stood staring at each other, four feet apart. Color had flooded her cheeks while he feared it must have drained from his.

“Impossible,” he said. “Who would be your chaperon?”

“You.”

“But I am neither your father nor your brother nor your husband nor your betrothed. Nor female.”

“So?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Your reputation would be in tatters,” he told her.

Her lips curved into a half smile. “So?”

Oh, good Lord.

He went at the problem from a different angle. “I am hardly the ideal man to defend you should danger threaten.” He looked down deliberately at his canes. “Unless, that is, we were assailed by a brigand obliging enough to come close enough to be clobbered.”

“We will take a loaded pistol,” she said, still with that half smile hovering about her lips and the color high in her cheeks, “and you may shoot him from a distance—while sitting.”

“Between the eyes, I suppose.”

“Where else?”

It struck him that she was actually enjoying herself, that her sudden realization that there was a solution to her dilemma awaiting her, in the form of a cottage that had been dilapidated even during her mother’s girlhood, had made her giddy with relief.

“Mrs. McKay,” he said, “do consider.”

“Why?” she asked him. “I have had seven years of nothing but doing what is proper, Sir Benedict. And for what? I married in expectation of a lifetime of happily-ever-after and remained decently married after the disappointment and heartbreak that followed quickly upon the heels of my wedding. I spent a year at Leyland Abbey trying my hardest to be the sort of respectable lady my father-in-law insisted I be even while he disliked and despised me. I spent five long, weary years here, nursing a demanding, peevish invalid because he was my husband and I had promised on my wedding day to love and obey him in sickness and in health. I have observed every requirement of my mourning period but have still not satisfied my sister-in-law or the Earl of Heathmoor. I am facing the prospect of more years at Leyland while what is left of my youth dwindles into middle age and then old age and death. Where has considering ever got me? Perhaps it is time to do something unconsidered and impulsive. Perhaps it is time to take my life in my own hands and live it.”

Her eyes flashed, and there was passion in every line of her body. Who was he to tell her she was wrong? And perhaps she was not.

“I have one day in which to make a decision that will affect all of the rest of my life, whatever that decision is,” she told him. “I have one day in which to make my escape—or bow to what seems my inevitable fate. I do not know where escape will lead me. On the other hand, I do know where bowing to my fate will. I would be a fool not to take a chance on escape. Perhaps this was meant to be, Sir Benedict. Why else would I have been left that cottage? It has seemed so useless to me since I learned it was mine that I have scarcely ever even spared it a thought. Yet now it is of crucial importance to my future. Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow even if it does not force us into taking that particular path? I am going where life points me. I beg your pardon for trying to involve you. Of course you will not wish to accompany me. Why should you? You owe me nothing. You have been more than kind even to listen to me, and that kindness has led to my thinking of a solution for myself. I am going.”

Oh, Lord. She looked like some kind of magnificent avenging angel. She could not possibly go striding off in the vague direction of Wales on her own.

Why the devil had he not ducked back into his room the moment he heard her voice? She would have remembered her cottage without his help once she had calmed down. How she got there would have been none of his concern.

It was not his concern now.

Perhaps this was meant to be, Sir Benedict.

Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow …

Lord, Lord, Lord. Why had he not left for London and Hugo’s wedding at the same time as Beatrice left for Berkshire?

“Even if I were to accompany you on your journey,” he said, “what would you do at the end of it, without any servants except presumably a maid and without friends or a companion? What if the cottage needs a great deal of work before it is habitable, assuming it is habitable at all?”

She would find somewhere else to rent, in a part of the country where half her heritage lay. She had already said that.

“I suppose,” she said, “there are servants there to be hired. And I can make friends. I do not fear being alone. I have been essentially alone for seven years and have survived. Are you thinking of accompanying me, then?”

His legs were aching from standing so long in the same position.

“How can I allow you to go alone?” he asked her.

Her eyebrows shot up. “You have no power to allow me to do anything, Sir Benedict,” she said. “Or to prevent me from doing anything. You are not my husband.”

“Thank the Lord,” he said ungraciously.

Her chin went up a notch, but she relented and lowered it again. “How very unjust of me,” she said. “I burst in upon you uninvited and unburdened myself of all my woes, yet now I am taking exception to your concern for my safety. It is kind of you to be concerned. But it is not your problem, you know. I am not your problem. I had better return home. Thank you for receiving me. I know you did not wish to do so. You have been avoiding me, and I do not blame you.”

“For your own good,” he told her, exasperated. “How long would it have been before the whole neighborhood was gossiping if we had become friends, Mrs. McKay, and had kept visiting each other without any sort of chaperonage?”

“Not long at all,” she said. “I told you I did not blame you. And I do realize that it was you who gave Lady Gramley the idea of bringing the vicar’s wife to my home so that I could become involved in parish and community activities. I am grateful to you for that.”

He was not really listening. He was thinking of traveling all day with her for a week or more in the close confines of a carriage. Of taking all his meals with her. Of their staying each night at the same inn. And he felt an unreasonable resentment, for she had not asked it of him after that first impulsive suggestion that he must go with her.

Good Lord, her reputation would be in shreds, and that was probably a gross understatement.

“You force me to very bad manners, Mrs. McKay,” he said. “I am entertaining you in my sister’s house, yet I am afraid I will have to sit while you stand.”

“I ought to have noticed your discomfort,” she said, seating herself on the sofa while he returned to his chair. “I am sorry. I have caused you nothing but discomfort since the moment of my arrival. I shall leave, and you must forget I was even here. You are going to Scotland, are you not? I have heard it is lovely there.”

She got abruptly to her feet again, and her dog took up his position beside her, his tail waving hopefully.

Ben regarded her irritably. “I believe,” he said, “I must have been a close personal friend of the late Captain Matthew McKay. I believe I must have promised him when he was on his deathbed that I would escort his widow to Wales, where he wished her to take up residence in the cottage she inherited before her marriage. I believe I must use my full credentials again and be known as Major Sir Benedict Harper.”

She looked down at him, her eyes fathomless.

“We may just get away with it,” he said, “without completely wrecking your reputation.”

“You are coming?” She almost whispered the words.

“We had better take my carriage,” he said. “But we need to decide how we are to get you away from Bramble Hall tomorrow without causing a great fuss and bother among the servants, especially those burly strangers.”

The dog flopped down onto all fours and proceeded to lick his paws. He had sensed further delay. Mrs. McKay’s hands were clasped so tightly at her waist that Ben could see the whites of her knuckles. But then her eyes brightened and even sparkled.

“With great stealth,” she said.