Page 13 of A Lyon for Luck
“You’re her father. It isn’t abduction. It’s retrieval!”
“She’s two and twenty. The law permits her to marry where she chooses regardless of my feelings on the matter,” he stated. “And we are not in London where your many connections will smooth the way for us. We are both far from our normal territory and here we are without friends.”
“I have wealth and a title, Acres,” Pozenby snapped. “I do not need friends. What I need is a young and hopefully fertile bride. Given the amount of funds you are indebted to me for and that your daughter fits those parameters nicely, we are in accord. But do stop pressing your luck on the matter. I’m a good ally to have… do not make me your enemy, man. It will not go well for you. There are worse things than the Fleet.”
No more was said as Pozenby mounted his horse and they once more headed north, searching for his runaway daughter. But resentment burned inside Reginald. He detested men like Pozenby—men who lorded their titles over others as if that accident of birth somehow made them superior in all ways. But for one misstep in his life, he had a greater sense of propriety and could be considered a more rarified gentleman than the lout next to him. Indeed, marrying Daphne’s actual mother—the woman who had died giving birth to her—had been his greatest mistake. Few remembered it. Fewer still would dare mention his middle-class bride to him. But that was the source of Daphne’s inheritance, his former father-in-law’s connections to trade. What would Pozenby say if he knew that? That marrying Daphne would taint his family coffers with money earned instead of simply inherited?
If they found Daphne and Pozenby managed to get her to the altar, that information might be useful. After all, what was a bit of blackmail between family members?
Daphne awakened justafter sunrise to the weight of a heavy arm draped over her. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Not at all. In truth, she rather liked the feeling. Certainly much more so than she could have anticipated. She was not in love with Fletcher Quill. Not anywhere near it, in truth. But she could admit without qualm that, had they met under more typical circumstances such as at a ball or other social event, she would have found him quite handsome. And if he had flirted with her, she would certainly have flirted back. She might even have intentionally dropped her handkerchief or her fan in order to make him flirt with her. She was certainly more attracted to him than she had ever been to Viscount Lynley, and she’d been more than willing to marry him.
All of that only added to her unease, however. Because they hadn’t met under normal circumstances. There was no flirtation or courtship. There was only the pressing weight of knowing that she had to marry someone and he was not an objectionable option. But it was hardly the way she had thought she might marry. She was marrying him for the protection of his name, and he was marrying her for the not-insignificant fortune that would be handed to him once they had wed. And that was the wrinkle in her otherwise perfect plan. She didn’t want a husband for whom she might have feelings when there was a very real possibility that those feelings would never be returned.
She wasn’t so naive to think that a kiss indicated any sort of romantic connection. Men kissed women all the time without even athought to romance, affection, or even tenderness. It wasn’t at all the same for them.
Carefully lifting his arm to slide from beneath it, Daphne paused on the edge of the narrow bed, waiting to see if he would awaken. He didn’t. Instead, he rolled to his side and continued sleeping. Getting to her feet, she moved toward the front room of the small lodge. Taking a seat at the table there, she continued to dissect and pick apart every aspect of the decision she’d made and all the ways in which she might come to regret it.
It was a mystery how long she sat there, lost in deep contemplation of just what her future might hold. The awareness came upon her slowly. She was not alone. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Fletcher had risen and was standing in the doorway to the small bed chamber watching her.
“It isn’t too late,” he said softly. “If you have regrets or if your doubts are insurmountable, I can return you to your father’s home.”
“Then I would have two aborted elopements attached to my name—well, one aborted elopement and a carefully camouflaged abduction,” she observed. “If the latter was scandalous already, I cannot imagine what this might do. My father would have apoplexy and my mother would faint dead away. Then they would disown me entirely and toss me into the streets. I think, for better or worse—no pun intended—I am committed to our course.”
“Then we should refresh ourselves quickly and get on the road. We are still a ways from Nottingham and if we mean to be there early enough to get the license and be married in the same day, we will need an early start.”
He was so calm, so matter-of-fact in the face of their current situation even as their plans shifted and changed seemingly on a whim. “Does nothing ruffle your feathers? Are you truly so perfectly unbothered by everything around us?”
“I am not unbothered,” he said with a shrug. “But I am imminentlypractical. I was never intended to hold the title. I was the second son of a second son. At best, I could have hoped for a commission in the army, a small church, or perhaps to become a solicitor. Those were the options laid out for me—none of those options included marriage. The army certainly did not. The church—well, I could marry but who would bloody want to be a vicar’s wife? Hours of work, not an ounce of credit, and poverty as far as the eye can see. Solicitors… well, more long hours and short pay. I’d never have been able to support a wife under those circumstances. Now, I find myself betrothed to and eloping with a woman who is beautiful, intelligent, spirited, and not in the least given to hysterics. My dearest Daphne, I am beyond lucky in this exchange and I know it.”
Daphne considered his statement carefully. To her father she was either a burden or something to be bartered. To Lynley, she’d simply been the least objectionable option available to him. No one had ever really appreciated her simply for her. And while that was a luxury they did not have, she could at least believe it wasn’t only her fortune which he appreciated. “Then we should get on the road, as you said. We haven’t any time to waste.”
By the timethey’d reached the main road, the coachman was already there in a newly hired vehicle. It wasn’t as luxurious as the one which Lynley had sent them off in and the moment they were settled on the poorly sprung seat, Fletcher winced.
He might have pushed on to Gretna Green if only to give her an opportunity to seem more certain of things. It rankled a bit, to feel that she was only willing to marry him because he was the least objectionable option available to her. Of course, he supposed she might be justas offended by the idea that he was only marrying her because she had the necessary funds to keep his head above water. They knew very little about one another, but neither of them had the luxury of delaying to determine if they were actually suited enough to one another to make a marriage between them anything but a misery. Perhaps it was that which roused in him a sense of impending disaster. Or it might have been the feeling of being pursued that persisted despite the lack of evidence to the contrary. Perhaps it was simply that they’d had to depart the city under such havey-cavey circumstances. Regardless, the need to look over his shoulder weighed heavily on him.
But it wasn’t simply his own fate and the need to secure Daphne’s fortune for himself. If she were forced to marry Pozenby—he couldn’t even imagine what that would do to her. Over time, the man would strangle any hint of the strong, independent, and quite remarkable woman she appeared to be. He was cruel, vicious, and it would be—if she was his wife—well within his rights to subject her to any sort of treatment he chose. There had been, to his mind, enough men in Daphne’s life who had treated her thusly. Even Lynley. While the man had truly believed himself to be jilted, there had been no great effort on anyone’s part to locate her when she’d “eloped” before. No one had ever thought to check and see if perhaps she’d taken off of her own accord or if she’d been forced to do so. Everyone else’s word had held more weight than her own. Because she was a woman? Perhaps. Because she was young? Again, it was possible. Or maybe it was simply that she was surrounded by so many selfish people, himself included in that number at present, that no one dared to give her even the slightest consideration. She’d suffered terribly and suffered still, because the world was simply not designed to accommodate a woman who did not bow to the will of men.
Perhaps it was his lack of expectation prior to the unforeseen tragedies that had befallen the Quill line, but he’d never understood theappeal of a woman who lacked a mind of her own. If a wife was meant to be a helpmate to man, as the Church told them she should, then surely a mindless woman would only be a burden. In truth, he felt that such behavior was encouraged in women because men feared what women might become without some degree of dependence. But then, he’d often been accused of overthinking things. Analyzing, dissecting, picking something apart until he could examine every last bit of it—that was his way. And it had often made life more difficult rather than less.
They were near Nottingham, had stopped just outside of it to stretch their legs and allow the coachman and the horses a rest. Daphne emerged from the coaching inn where she’d made use of their facilities to wash up. Even a short drive could leave one covered in dust. Of course, the aging carriage they’d procured didn’t need additional dust from the road. It had come with more than enough of its own.
Fletcher approached her. “Let us walk the rest of the way. I’ll inform the coachman we are going on ahead and when he has finished his meal and the horses changed, he can follow and pick us up. I cannot face the notion of being cooped up in the carriage just yet.”
She sighed with relief. “Yes. Thank you. The fresh air is divine.”
After discussing the matter with the coachman, Fletcher returned to her and they set out, making their way along a small path that bordered the road, just on the other side of the hedgerow. The weather was mild, the sun shining though the air was crisp. It was quite different from their walk the previous evening. Perhaps, if he were to believe in such things, it might be a portent of things to come. They were leaving the storms behind—both of them together—and walking into the light.
“What shall we do after?” she asked.
“After we are married?”
She nodded.
He shrugged. “It will be a struggle at first… to find a balance between societal obligations and the management of the estate. It’s quite in shambles.”
“Must societal obligations be met?”
“You do not wish to be part of society?” he asked.
