The Adventurous Bride. Miranda Jarrett
some with small trunks and bundles of belongings who were waiting to climb on board, others there to welcome disembarking passengers, and still more in tattered rags, waiting with hands outstretched to beg. Surrounded by clouds of dust from the road, the lumbering diligence finally ground to a stop before the inn, the four weary horses in the harness flecked with foam and coated with dirt, and the men riding postilion on their backs, not much better, their whips drooping listlessly from their hands.
“What a curious coach!” exclaimed Mary, standing beside John. “I never would have seen such a thing if I’d stayed in Kent!”
It was, she decided, as good as any play. With its thick wooden wheels and double-horse team, the diligence did resemble its English cousins. But the body of the coach was long and flat, and made not of panels, but of tightly woven splints, with a small, covered compartment with an arched roof in the front to protect the driver. The passengers packed inside and on top looked like so many eggs gathered in a basket for market.
And a diverse assortment of passengers it was, too. There were the usual half-drunk sailors with long queues down their backs and soldiers in ragged uniforms to be found on any English coach. But there were also two fat monks in brown robes, their tonsured heads gleaming in the sun, a grumpy-faced woman dressed in a red-striped jacket who carried a cage full of chirping canaries, an old man with an extravagantly tall white wig and a rabbit-fur muff so large it hung to his knees, and a pair of young women with gowns cut low enough to display their rosy nipples through their neckerchiefs, much to the delight of the sailors and soldiers. Around her bubbled a rush of French words and exclamations and likely curses, too, all in dialects that bore scant resemblance to what she’d learned in the schoolroom.
“So does the Paris diligence qualify as another adventure, my lady?” John asked. He was smiling so indulgently at her that she felt foolish, more like a child hopping up and down before a shop window full of sweets than the touring lady of the world she was trying to be.
Purposefully she drew herself up straighter. “It would be an adventure if I took my passage to Paris in it. Hah, imagine what Father would say to that!”
His smile widened, daring her. “Then do it. The driver and postilions will change the horses, turn about, and leave for Paris again. I’ll come with you for—for companionship. You’ll have a score of chaperones to keep your honor intact, you’ll improve your French mightily, and I’ll give my word that you’ll have a true adventure.”
She stared up at him, more tempted than she’d wish to admit. “But we’ve no provisions, no food, no—”
“Dinner and supper are included in the fare,” he said. “And I guarantee that those meals, too, won’t be like anything you find in Kent.”
“None of this is like Kent,” she said, but she was laughing, pushing her breeze-tossed hair back from her face. She’d never even considered doing anything as scandalous as riding in a public coach for days and nights at a time with a man she scarcely knew, and yet somehow now it seemed less scandalous than, well, adventurous.
“Then come with me,” he said, cocking his head toward the unwieldy diligence. “Be brave. This is Calais, not your blessed Kent. No one knows you here, nor cares what you do. When else will you have such an opportunity?”
She shook her head, laughing still. What was it about him that made the most ridiculous proposal she’d ever received seem so wickedly intriguing? If it had been Diana with one of her swains, she would have been horrified.
“Do you like strawberries, my lady?” he asked, out of the blue. He raised his dark brows, and held out his hands, slightly curved, as if offering the largest imaginary strawberry for her edification. “Juicy and sweet upon the tongue, fresh as the morning dew in the mouth?”
“Excuse me?” she said, and laughed again. She’d never met another gentleman who could make her laugh so often, or so richly. She’d always prided herself on being practical, responsible, capable. Who would have known that she’d have such a store of laughter inside her, as well? “Why ever ask me of strawberries now?”
He shifted behind her, resting his palms on her shoulders, and gently turned her toward the diligence. “Because there, climbing down from the top, is a sturdy French farmwife with a basket in each hand, the sort of deep, narrow basket that is used only for strawberries in this region.”
He’d kept his hands on her shoulders after the reason for having them there was done, and his palms were warm, the weight of them oddly pleasant, as if in some strange way they belonged there.
She twisted her head around to face him. “I do like strawberries, Lord John,” she said, delighted by how his eyes were the same blue as the June sky overhead. “In fact I am monstrously fond of them.”
“Then I shall fetch some for you directly,” he said. “Perhaps they’ll persuade you to make an adventurous journey with me.”
He winked—winked!—and gave her shoulders a fond, familiar pat before he went striding toward the farmer’s wife with the berries. The tails of his coat swung with a jaunty rhythm, his square shoulders broad and easy, his dark hair tossing in the light breeze.
If he’d tried to kiss her, she would have kissed him back. It was a staggering realization for her to make. He might still kiss her once he’d returned with the berries, and she knew she’d kiss him them, too, and that was more staggering still.
“Lady Mary!”
She frowned and glanced around her, not knowing who was calling her name. Hadn’t Lord John just reminded her that in Calais she was a stranger?
“Lady Mary, here!” The shopkeeper Dumont was standing in the shadow of an alley beside the inn, half-hidden by a pyramid of stacked barrels. He wore an old slouch hat pulled low over his face, a grimy scarf wrapped many times around his throat, and the same leather apron she remembered from his shop. Agitated, he looked from side to side to make certain he’d not been noticed, then beckoned to her.
“If you please, my lady, if you please!” he called in a anxious quaver. “I must speak to you at once!”
“On what subject, monsieur?” She hesitated, unwilling to be drawn so far from the bustle of the inn’s front door, even on this sunny day. “Why do you wish to speak to me?”
“The picture, my lady!” His claw of a hand beckoned again. “The angel! Do you have it still?”
She took one reluctant step closer, and no more. She glanced swiftly over her shoulder, wishing now that Lord John had returned. “Of course I’ve kept the picture. I only bought it from you yesterday.”
“Has anyone asked you for it, my lady?” he asked urgently. “Does anyone know it’s in your possession?”
“Only those in my traveling party,” she said, her heart racing with fear of what she didn’t understand. “Monsieur, I do not believe that any of this is your—”
“You must tell no one, my lady,” Dumont interrupted, his voice shaking with emotion. “Tell no one that the picture is your property now, or that you bought it from me, or even that you have seen it!”
“You can’t threaten me like that!” she exclaimed, trying to be brave. “I paid you dearly for that painting, and if it’s your game to try to intimidate me into selling it back to you, why, I’ve no intention of doing so!”
The old man shook his head. “I would not take it back, my lady,” he said vehemently. “It is yours now, and the peril with it, and I—”
“Lady Mary!”
That voice Mary recognized at once.
“Miss Wood!” Quickly she turned to her governess, glad for an excuse to leave Dumont and his unsettling questions. “Oh, Miss Wood, how glad I am to see you feeling better!”
“What I am feeling, my lady, is inestimable relief at finding you unharmed.” She bustled forward and took Mary firmly by the upper arm. “But look at you, my lady!