She fumbled frantically. Suppose Pirate grew tired of waiting for her and went away! He might decide he did not want to elope with her after all, and then she would have to marry Lord...
Ah, there was the key. Hard to turn, it grated in the lock. The noise seemed to Alicia excruciatingly loud, and the screech of the hinges was louder yet. But no one called out to her, no one ran down the garden after her. She slipped out into the lantern-lit mews.
The grooms were all snoozing as they waited for the carriages to return after bearing their masters and mistresses to and from balls and routs, to clubs or the play. Unseen by any but a tabby cat crouched by a mousehole, which stared at her with yellow eyes, Alicia hurried along the alley to the street corner. A church clock began to strike the half hour, with others joining in, near and far. She was right on time.
And as she rounded the corner, a gig drew up.
“That is all you have brought?” asked Pirate, reaching down for her bag and stowing it under the seat. “Good girl! My sisters never travel with less than a pair of trunks. Hop up now, and let us be off.”
As a loverlike greeting, a stern critic might have felt this left something to be desired. Alicia was satisfied with his praise, and still more with his presence. She took his outreached hand and hopped up.
On the Road to Gretna 1794
“This reminds me of running away from Miss Porringe to ride up on the moors with you,” Alicia said, as the gig rattled away over the cobbles.
“Lord, yes, what times we used to have!”
Reminiscences kept them going for several miles. The city was left behind, and a bright half-moon lit their way along the turnpike. From recalling their adventures in the dinghy, Pirate moved on to the sloop his naval friend had shown him over. He was in the middle of describing its wonders when they came to a post-house.
“We shall hire a post-chaise here,” said Pirate. “I could drive another stage, but you will be more comfortable, especially if it comes on to rain, and we shall go along faster. Not that we are likely to be pursued.”
Enjoying the moonlight drive, Alicia had almost managed to forget about pursuit. She glanced back fearfully. “I am perfectly comfortable, but by all means let us go as fast as possible.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “No one will guess that you are with me, nor where we have gone.” He laughed as he turned into the inn yard. “They will look for you on the road to Plymouth. You did leave a note to that effect, did you not?”
“Yes, just as you told me, only I doubt they will believe it. After all, going home could not save me from Lord Ransome. Papa would simply fetch me back to London.”
“I think he will think that you think...oh, this is altogether too convoluted for me! At the very least, it will delay them.”
A groom ran to the horse’s head, and a waiter hurried out of the inn. Ordering one to call a postboy and put a team to a post-chaise, the other to bring a dish of tea for the lady and ale for himself, Pirate sprang down from the gig.
As Alicia wearily prepared to clamber to the ground, he came around and lifted her down, his hands about her waist. How strong he was!
“What a little bitty creature you are.” He kept his hold on her for a moment after her feet touched the cobbles, smiling down at her. “Light as a feather. You will feel better after a cup of tea.”
His touch, his solicitude, and the tea revived her somewhat, driving off the chilly fears of the small hours of the morning. However, she had slept little the night before, after learning she was to marry Lord Ransome. In spite of the chaise’s jouncing, she dozed off. Though distantly aware of a change of horses in the grey dawn, she did not wake fully until a sunbeam struck her face. She found herself reclining upon Pirate’s chest.
“Oh!” Quickly she sat up, trying to smooth her hair. “I am so sorry.”
“You kept me warm,” he said with a grin. “I believe I am going to enjoy being married.”
“I shall try to be a good wife, Pirate, truly.”
“The first thing you must learn is that gentlemen appreciate a hearty breakfast. At the next stage, we shall stop long enough to fortify ourselves.”
After a good meal, they drove on, talking about how different the countryside was from Cornwall. They agreed that they would prefer to take up residence in Cornwall rather than at any of Lord Orford’s other estates. Time passed quickly as the miles disappeared beneath the wheels, and postilion succeeded postilion.
That evening, as darkness fell, they stopped to sup at an inn, and Pirate took two bedchambers. Though nights were short at this time of year, he told the chambermaid to rouse them at dawn.
Alicia slept soundly, if only for a few hours. In the morning she felt quite refreshed. When Pirate proposed that they should drive on through the next night, she was perfectly willing.
Nonetheless, and in spite of having fallen asleep leaning against Pirate again, she was very weary by the time a damp, grey daybreak found them approaching Kendal. The road was in bad shape, the many potholes filled with water by recent rains. Ahead rose the high fells, wreathed in mists. To Alicia, they looked like an insurmountable barrier.
“Must we cross the mountains?” she asked. “Can we not go around?”
“I am not sure,” Pirate admitted. “We left in such a hurry, I did not bring a road book.”
On top of their travel through the night, this reminder of their hasty departure from London renewed Alicia’s fears. She was certain someone must be on her trail by now. When they stopped in Kendal to breakfast and change horses, she kept glancing behind her.
Pirate consulted the postboys. “The other roads north are equally rugged,” he reported to Alicia, “and several miles longer.”
“Oh, let us take the shortest way!” she cried.
The twenty-eight miles to Penrith took all day and well into the evening. Where the road was steepest, Alicia and Pirate got out of the chaise and walked, to spare the horses. By the time they reached the Gloucester Arms, Alicia was exhausted.
Helping her down from the carriage, Pirate looked at her white face and drooping figure and said firmly, “We shall stay here tonight.”
“How much farther is it to the border?”
“I shall find out.”
They went into the inn. Alicia sank onto a hard, cushionless settle, while Pirate spoke to an inn servant. He came back to her frowning.
“It’s about thirty miles to Gretna Green, an easy road, most of it Roman and straight as a die. So we shall be married tomorrow. But there is a large party of Scots staying in the house, and they only have one chamber free. An attic chamber at that, but I have taken it for you. I shall stay in the coffee-room.”
“You are as tired as I am, Pirate.” She stood up and took both his hands, gazing up at him earnestly. “You will not sleep properly on a chair. And we are to be married tomorrow.”
“I shall ask for a pallet and sleep on the floor beside you, then.”
Alicia gave him a loving smile and repeated, “We shall be married tomorrow.”
* * * *
Awaking in Pirate’s arms, Alicia lay quite still so as not to disturb him. Beneath her head, his chest rose and fell steadily. She heard the strong beat of his heart.
She had not thought it possible to love him more than she already did.
His body heat kept her warm, although the chamber was chilly. Last night he had forced open the tiny window under the eaves to let fresh air into the small, stuffy room with its low, sloping ceiling. In most of the room, Pirate could not stand upright. He had laughed and said it reminded him of Jerry’s sloop, where he had hit his head on a beam, though he was not tall.
Just the perfect height, Alicia thought dreamily, snuggling closer.
Through the open window came the noise of hooves and wheels on the cobbles below, and indistinct voices. The large party of Scots who had taken all the chambers in the inn must be setting out early.
Early? That was not the dim grey light of dawn. It was broad daylight! Jerking upright, Alicia shook Pirate’s bare shoulder.
“Pirate, wake up! We have overslept. We must leave at once!”
He was instantly awake, sitting up and gathering her into his arms for a quick kiss before he jumped out of bed, reaching for his breeches.
“The chambermaid must have forgotten to call us, with so many others in the house. You are right, Allie, we must be off at once. While you dress, I shall go down and have the horses put to, and ask them to put up some provisions in a basket, to save time. I am ravenous.”
“So am I.” Meeting his laughing eyes as his head appeared through the neckhole of his shirt, Alicia blushed.
With a grin, he leant across the wide bed and kissed the tip of her nose. “Don’t be long, sweetheart.”
“I shall hurry.”
“Good girl.” He shrugged into his coat, slung his cravat around his neck like a muffler, and dashed out.
Hastily Alicia dabbled her face and hands with the cold water in the ewer on the washstand. Blessing the simple modern fashions, she dug a clean batiste gown out of her bag and slipped it over her head. Crumpled and creased, it was hardly what she had imagined wearing on her wedding day, but after all, the bridegroom was far more important than her clothes, and she had the right bridegroom.
Hurry or not, she must look as pretty as she could for him. She picked up her hairbrush and turned to the small looking-glass hanging over the washstand.
In the mirror, she saw the door latch move. He was back already.
“I shan’t be a minute,” she called.
The door swung open and Rupert and James strode in, mud-spattered and weary.
The hairbrush dropped with a splash into the basin as Alicia swung round, aghast. “What are you doing here?” she cried inanely.
Head bowed beneath the low ceiling, James crossed to the window, closed it, and perched half-sitting on the sill. Rupert shut the door and lounged against it.
“Why, Allie,” he said, eyebrows raised in a sardonic look, “what sort of a welcome is this, when your brothers have galloped day and night to the rescue?”
“But I do not wish to be rescued! There is nothing to rescue me from.”
“Disgrace,” said James tersely.
“I shall be married today, and to the son of an earl. That is no disgrace.”
“If it were going to happen,” Rupert drawled, “perhaps not. But it ain’t. Pendragon has just decamped.”
Alicia stared at him, uncomprehending.
“The pirate has weighed anchor and spread his sails.” He shrugged. “Dash it, Allie, he has ridden off hell for leather and abandoned you.”
“I don’t believe you!” Alicia choked out.
“Come now, my dear,” said Rupert cynically, “why the deuce should an eligible gentleman lacking only a fortune wed a girl who has not a penny to her name, but a purse-pinched family lurking in the wings? No, no, all our young friend wanted was to take you to his bed.”
London 1814
“The sets are all made up long since, Mr. Pendragon,” said Alicia, recovering her countenance, “and the dance is quite half over.”
“I beg your pardon,” Pirate said ruefully. “I’m not much accustomed to this sort of affair, though no doubt naval officers attend balls when ashore. You will stand up with me for the next, then? And in the meantime, may I sit down?”
While Alicia was trying to decide what her answers to both questions ought to be, he took the seat vacated by Lady Jersey. She noticed that he moved slightly stiffly.
“You are wounded?”
“Nothing to signify, but I thank you for your concern. The hazards of war, you know.”
Alicia seized upon the neutral subject. “You have been a privateer, I understand. I am not precisely certain what a privateer is.”
“A privateer is a ship or ship owner who holds a letter of marque,” Pirate explained, “which is a licence from the government to attack the enemy’s shipping in time of war. That is, to harass, sink, or capture both naval vessels and merchantmen.”
“Is that not what our Navy does?”
“Indeed, but they must employ many ships in blockading enemy ports, carrying troops, despatches, and dignitaries, and so forth. The privateer does not have those distractions. Thus the government gains fighting ships without cost.”
“Without cost?” Alicia queried. “But the sailors must be paid?”
“Oh, your privateer is in the business for the sake of his pocketbook as much as patriotism,” Pirate said with a grin. “Naturally, he prefers to take merchantmen, and as little damaged as possible. The value of the prize, both the vessel and its contents, is divided between the owner and the crew.”
“So it is sort of half way between being in the Navy and being a pirate? I am glad you attained your childhood goal in the end.”
He was suddenly grave. “Yes, but I had no intention...”
“I hope you took many rich prizes?” Alicia interrupted hastily. Almack’s was no place to delve into the painful aspects of the past, if, as she feared, that was what his gravity portended. In fact, on the whole she wished he would just let sleeping dogs lie.
“I have done very well for myself,” he replied, cheerful again, but with a determined look which warned her that he did not mean to let the past alone forever.
It also reminded her that he was now a mature man, to be taken seriously, not the harum-scarum boy she had once believed she knew through and through.
“I started out as third mate,” he continued, “on the strength of my experience with the Buccaneer. We were soon at war with Spain, when the French conquered the country, and the ship I was in had the great good fortune to fall in with a couple of Spanish treasure ships.”
Alicia recalled his pirate book. “Galleons full of gold and jewels from the New World?”
“Remember the picture? They have not changed much. Of course, the contents were bound for French coffers. My share gave me a good start. I worked my way up to first mate, and then the owner outfitted a new ship and made me captain. Can you guess what I named her?”
“Buccaneer II?” Alicia hazarded. He shook his head, his expression half teasing, half intent, almost anxious. “The Jolly Roger?” she guessed again.