Amanda Scott (45 page)

The burly, grizzled man regarded her thoughtfully before he said, “You running away from home, missy? Because if you are, I won’t help you a jot. Wouldn’t like someone helping one o’ my lasses if she took it into her head to bolt. Which none of them wouldn’t,” he added, “knowing what’s good for them.”

Taking Lady Ophelia as her model, Melissa drew herself to her full height, looked the man in the eye, and said, “My good sir, I am, in fact, attempting to return to my home, and I am in a considerable hurry. If you won’t assist me, I shall simply find another man who will. I have plenty of money, so someone will certainly oblige me.”

The jarvey looked swiftly both ways along the pavement, then said, “If you’ve half a brain in your cockloft, miss, you won’t go announcing to the world around us that you’re carrying a bagful of money. Now, before, I’d have said you was needful only to get yourself to the Black Bear in Piccadilly to hire yourself a job-chaise, but knowing you now for an innocent wench without much sense in your noodle, seems to me the best thing would be for me to take you to Barnet, where I’ve a brother-in-law working at the Green Man. He can be trusted to see you safe on your way.”

“Barnet? Isn’t that too far for a hackney to take me?”

“Bless you, miss, if you was to pay my fees, and if I was of a mind to be out of town for a fortnight or more, I could take you all the way to York without a-breaking of a single rule of law.”

“Well, how much will you charge to take me to Barnet then?”

He frowned. “Regular fee be nine and six, I’d guess, for it’s all of eleven miles, and the rate be sixpence for each half mile, plus an additional sixpence for each two miles completed. Law says I ought to charge you for my return, as well, but I shan’t, for I can get a passing fine dinner from my sister, you see, and visit with her and her family. Just saw her at Easter, but I warrant she won’t say I’ve worn out my welcome.”

Realizing that he was making a joke, Melissa smiled. “You are very kind, sir. I’d be most grateful if you would take me to Barnet.”

Not only did he do so but his brother-in-law arranged for her to hire a yellow-and-white job-chaise and a pair of fine looking bays, and the jarvey’s sister packed a lunch basket for her to take along. The postilion, wearing the green livery of the posting house, was young but seemed much in awe of the jarvey’s brother-in-law, and Melissa knew she would feel perfectly safe with him.

The jarvey seemed to think that she ought to hire a full team of four and a second postilion, but when she asked the cost, the sum astonished her, and she firmly rejected the suggestion. Even more than the cost, she worried about the attention she would be likely to draw with such an equipage. A single female alone in a job-chaise drawn by an ordinary pair would not be nearly so likely to be remarked.

The postilion would not accompany her all the way, of course, but would remain with his horses when the change was made. Nonetheless, the jarvey assured her that since she had hired the chaise, she would have Green Man postilions all the way to York. She had paid for the chaise only for the first day’s travel, but the men assured her that although it was past noon, she ought to make Wandsford or even Stamford before day’s end if she was willing to endure the long hours in the chaise, and travel after dark. She assured them that the more distance she could cover the better she would like it.

Just north of Barnet, she saw the first in a series of unusual signs, a banner stretched between two poles at the side of the road with painted black lettering that read
M, forgive me.
The second one, a poster at Hadley Green, said
M, I’ve been a fool.
The third was a large placard fastened to a wall of the Duke of York Inn at Ganwick Corner. It read,
M, please, darling, I need you,
and was signed, amazingly, with the initial
N.
Melissa had thought the first one no more than an amusing example of the lengths to which someone might go to express his feelings, if he were the sort to express them. Seeing the second, she thought that whatever the fellow had done he was certainly exerting himself to make things right again. The third made her smile and pretend to herself that she was the mysterious
M
and that Nicholas had put up the signs. She opened the basket and took out a sandwich. Munching thoughtfully, she began to watch for the next one, wishing the postilion’s steady but slow pace were faster.

A boulder by the side of the road outside Hatfield displayed the message,
You are my only love.
By the time the postilion drew up for the first change, in Welwyn, she had been on the road for nearly three and a half hours and had seen at least ten signs. She wished she had written down the messages. They seemed to indicate that the sorrowful and clearly repentant
N
had done something to make his
M
believe him unfaithful, or—at the least—to think he did not love her. He was doing everything in his power to correct that misconception, and Melissa was convinced of his sincerity. She hoped the unknown
M
would be convinced, too, and wondered if the signs would continue all the way to York, or if
N
would win his point long before that.

At Woolmer Green, the sign said,
If you must leave London, at least don’t leave me.
The next, at the Swan in Broadwater, said,
I’m waiting for you, darling.
But at Stevenage, she got a shock:
Melissa, I love you.
When the letters leapt at her from the large white placard fixed somehow or other to the brick wall of the White Lion Inn, she felt dizzy. Surely, the painter could not be Nicholas. It crossed her mind then that Oliver might have set her up for a prank, but at first she dismissed the notion out of hand, believing he would not—despite his insistence that he did not fear Nicholas—make mischief of a sort guaranteed to bring that gentleman’s wrath down upon him. But if not Oliver, who? Nicholas could not possibly have done it. Her imagination, which had made her feel increasingly guilty and uncomfortable with each passing mile, boggled when she tried to imagine him with a paintbrush in one hand, a pail of black paint in the other, lettering the signs she had seen along the road.

Then it occurred to her that Oliver might have had a more devious plan in mind. He had told her he believed Nick cared for her, and he had deduced for himself that she loved Nick. What if he had decided to bring them together, to make them see that each cared for the other? What if he not only had set her up for his latest, but had set Nicholas up as well?

At Graveley, she nearly shouted at the postilion to turn back when she saw
Melissa, I want to make things right between us. I love you, my darling
—
N.
Two thoughts stopped her. The first, that the messages might be meant for another Melissa, made her fear she would make a fool of herself if she assumed Oliver had written them. The second thought, that Nicholas might already be waiting for her somewhere on the road to the north, made her peer ahead, eager to read the next sign. She found it at Baldock:
Melissa, come to me where we first met. We’ll begin again. Nick.

Lingering doubt vanished, and she knew that from the moment Oliver had suggested leaving, she had hoped and prayed, despite her insistence that Nicholas would not follow and demand her return, that he would do precisely that. Now, persuaded that Oliver had somehow managed to arrange it all, and that Nicholas might have learned of her absence within minutes of her departure, she felt profound relief that he had not caught her in Pall Mall, chatting with the jarvey. Even now, thought of his temper gave her pause, but hoping Oliver knew his brother as well as he thought he did, she let down the window and shouted at the postilion to stop.

When he drew up and looked over his shoulder, she said, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to go to Newmarket instead of York.”

“Newmarket!”

“Yes, can there be any objection?”

He scratched his head, frowning, then said, “That’ll mean Royston to Cambridge, that will. Aye, mistress, we’ve got arrangements with the Green Man in Royston and the Bird-bolt in Cambridge, so you can keep the chaise and make your change at Cambridge. I’ve never been to Newmarket, myself, so I dunno where you’ll fetch up there, but I daresay something of a sort can be done there, too.”

“The Rutland Arms Inn is where I want to go,” Melissa said firmly, “but you need not trouble your head about where I’ll find horses or a postilion, for I won’t want the job-chaise any longer after that. It can be taken back with the Cambridge horses. Is that not what should be done when I’ve no more use for it?”

“Aye, mistress. It will get back to London from Cambridge as easy as from York or Edinburgh.”

“Need we change horses before … you said Royston, did you not?”

“Aye, I did, and we don’t, for this pair be good till Biggleswade which is much of a muchness with Royston, as I recall.”

“Can you spring them? I’m in a hurry.”

“Not from here to Royston, I daren’t,” he said. “That be a mighty slow road, ma’am, but from Royston to Cambridge be a fine one. Like as not, if you pay extra, the Royston lad will make as much haste as you like.”

“Then I’ll want four horses hitched up in Royston.” She could not think why she was in such a hurry, for she knew Nicholas would be displeased that she had left London, even if it was all part of Oliver’s scheme. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to give Oliver the satisfaction of knowing how easily he had influenced her to do as he wanted. But, if he was right about Nicholas, the prize would be worth the cost.

The road from Baldock to Royston was as poor as the boy had predicted, taking them two full hours, though he told her it was only a bit more than eight miles. She saw no more signs, and shortly before they rolled into the yard of the Green Man in Royston—which looked nothing at all like its counterpart in Barnet—she had begun to wonder if she might be mistaken. Surely, Oliver—or whoever had acted for him—would have put up at least one sign to show he really wanted her to go this way.

Doubts continued to assail her on the Cambridge road. What if she were mistaken? What if Nicholas was at Epsom, just as he had said he would be? What if she were making an utter fool of herself? However, her doubts vanished again east of Cambridge when she saw,
The inn garden, darling. I’ll be expecting you.

Just as well that she had doubled the number of her horses and postilions, she thought, smiling in anticipation. The day had been gloomy, with the sun never putting in so much as a brief appearance, but the gray light was fading rapidly, and she was sure the sun must have set some time before. After the slow pace she had been forced to endure before Royston, she might well have missed that last sign in darkness.

The closer the chaise drew to Newmarket, the more clearly she remembered her first visit. How much had happened since that dreadful night. Less traffic traveled the road tonight than she and Sir Geoffrey had encountered then. Not only were there no races being held now, but nearly everyone in town associated with racing had undoubtedly gone to Epsom for the Derby.

Darkness had fallen some time before the job-chaise rolled through the arched gateway into the torchlit inn yard. A middle-aged groom came running to let down the steps and open the door of the chaise. Melissa thanked him but said, “One moment, please. I must speak with the postilions.” Moving to the nearside wheeler, she said to the man mounted on it, “I hope you don’t mind returning to Cambridge tonight. I shan’t need this chaise any longer.”

“No, ma’am, that’s what we were told when we left Cambridge.”

She had paid extra posting charges in Royston and Cambridge, but she gave both postilions generous gratuities and thanked them for delivering her safely. The man on the wheeler tipped his hat when the foremost one gave his leader the office. As she watched them deftly turn the chaise in the narrow confines of the yard, she became conscious of a presence behind her. Turning, she saw that the groom was still there. He held her bandbox, which she had forgotten until that moment.

“Oh, thank you for retrieving that,” she said. “I’d have left it in the chaise and never given it another thought till I required something from it.”

“I’ve a message for ye, ma’am. The party what you’re meeting tonight be yonder in the garden behind the stables.”

“Oh, good, then he is here!” Since her mind was occupied with wondering what Nicholas would have to say to her, it was not until she had moved past the stable into the garden that it occurred to her to wonder how the man could have known she was the one to whom he was meant to give the message. She turned back to ask him, but when she did, he gestured, and she turned again to see a cloaked figure standing a short distance ahead of her in an area shadowed from the torchlight. He stepped further back into the darkness, and Melissa hurried forward, exclaiming, “You don’t know how close I was to turning tail once I realized what Oliver had done, but now that I see you here, if you dare to be angry with me for allowing myself to be gulled—”

Her last words, and the scream that followed, were muffled by the heavy cloth thrown over her before she was scooped up into a pair of strong arms and carried swiftly away. She saw nothing more before she heard the eldritch screech of a door opening and found herself dumped onto a hard floor. Though the cloth was removed, she was quickly blindfolded, bound, and gagged, all without once having clapped eyes on her captor. The door screeched again. Then all was silent.

Nick reached London shortly before ten that night, driving his phaeton, with the Minley brothers following in Tommy’s curricle. Leaving Tommy to deposit Lord Dorian at his house, and believing Melissa to be safely at home, where he could speak with her later at length, Nick drove straight to the Billingsgate Club. He had taken care not to follow Oliver too closely, for he wanted to discover exactly what mischief his brother had become embroiled in, and he fancied that if Oliver knew he was looking into it, he would elude him. In any event, Nick was convinced that Oliver would be allowed to win for a time at least, so there could be no need to make haste.