Absolute Honour (20 page)

The horses, already twitchy, did not react well. When he was jabbed a third time by an irate victim’s stick, Jack turned
and forced his horses back the way he’d come. The nags, sensing their home at the Three Tuns, sped up and Jack had to ply
his own stick quite viciously to force them past the inn and finally onto the Lower Borough Walls. It was a roundabout route
to his goal. But since his was the same as the King’s, there was no chance of getting there this side of Christmas if he followed
the crowds.

Outside St Mary’s Chapel he was blocked again by the surge of people pouring into Queen Square. He forced the horses left,
glancing back once to glimpse a rotund man mounting a platform to general acclaim, a tricorn hat lifted from a bewigged head
and waved. He had, at least, seen the King. As he led his horses on a further detour, he prayed that he would not see him
again.

The chapel’s bell had sounded one, an hour later than he had planned and Red Hugh had warned Letty of. It was yet another
twenty minutes before Jack was tying the horses to railings behind her house. He sighed and tipped his head to the rain that
had begun to fall again. It wasn’t a warm day but his labours had soaked his uniform in sweat, great patches appearing at
the armpit. Rain cooled him a little and, replacing his hat, he made a final check of the horses’ cinches, bridles and stirrups,
for though he was in a hurry, he feared that Mrs O’Farrell might have been distracted only so long, that he would have to
snatch his prize, mount and ride fast. He had calculated Letty’s height for her side-saddle, thought he had it right. One
nag had Jack’s – Beverley’s – paltry possessions attached to it, with straps uncinched to take what Letty must bring. He hoped
Red Hugh had passed on his advice to travel unencumbered.

At the back gate he paused, drew a deep breath, looked once more to the skies. ‘Why are you doing this, boy?’ he murmured.
‘Why?’

Then he pushed the gate in and had his answer. She was pacing close to the house, her riding boots crunching on the
wet hoggin. She was dressed in the simplest of dark brown gowns, the apron atop it made of linen, not impractical silk. On
her head she wore a man’s tricorn, uncocked, so that the brim sloped down over the face that turned at his whispered, ‘Letty!’
The plainness of her dress only heightened the effect of her beauty, and Jack had to take another breath before she ran into
his embrace.

‘Your aunt?’

‘Gone to see the King.’

‘I think you and I must be the only people in Bath who have not.’

‘I have my own king here.’

Jack laughed. It was a speech that could have come from any of those novels that she so loved, or most of the comedies in
the playhouse. He had to keep remembering that she was only seventeen, a full year younger than him, with not one-tenth of
his experience in the world. It was one of her delights, this naivety. So what if it was wrapped up in all this fol-de-rol?
A man dallied with the Fannys and Clarys of the world; even the Widow Simkins. But the same man married a Letty.

He’d pulled her tight. Now he could feel her shaking. Disengaging slightly, he said, ‘Are you cold, dearest? I have kept you
waiting in this garden too long.’

‘A little cold, yes. And I have not slept, for nights now, it seems.’ Her lower lip was trembling and, as he looked, her eyes
welled. ‘But it is also … also …’

‘What, my dearest? Come here.’ He led her to the white garden bench. It was sheltered beneath a Judas tree and thus not too
wet with rain, his cloak used to sweep aside some drops and the tree’s few fallen seed pods, its purple flowers. ‘Tell me,’
he said.

She twisted her hands within his. ‘Should we not be riding?’

‘Presently. But if Mrs O’Farrell has gone to view the King
she surely will not leave until he has received his house. That will not be for a while because I suspect young Georgie is
only now leaving Queen Square.’

Indeed a marching song had begun to play within the din. They had time. ‘Tell me,’ he said again.

‘It’s just … just.’ The tears spilled out.

‘Have you had second thoughts,’ he said, ‘about me?’

She clutched him tighter. ‘Of you, never! Never! But it seems a low trick,’ her lips trembled, ‘to practise on the people
who love me.’

Jack was suddenly stricken. It had all seemed such a game up to now. A play, one of a thousand enacted each day in Bath, just
as Fanny Harper had said. There hadn’t seemed any true harm in being a player in one of them. Yet now, as he touched a tear
upon her face, it came to him that what he was about was not entirely honourable. Not honourable at all. He’d always planned
on telling her, was certainly not going to let her marry ‘Beverley’, but he’d hoped to leave the revelation till they were
away from Bath, from her inevitable instinct to run in anger back to her guardian. To tell her in a quiet of village in Scotland,
after two weeks’ travelling, of truly getting to know each other, knowledge deepening their love. Now her tears rebuked him.

‘Letty,’ he said, ‘there’s something—’

A finger came onto her lips. ‘Hush! Hush now! Never mind me. Just a young girl’s foolishness. Come!’ She was rising, pulling
Jack by the cuff of his jacket. ‘We will talk more when we are certain we are safe.’

‘No. You must hear me. I …’ He was resisting her impulse and the rest of the words he would utter were taken away by a loud
rip. Suddenly she was standing there looking down at him, with one of his red sleeves in her hand.

‘Oh, Gemini,’ she said and giggled, and so did he, and then they were both laughing so hard she had to sit down again. When
she got her breath, she added, ‘So sorry, sir.’

The play had suddenly turned farce! ‘Pray, madam, give it no mind.’ He took the sleeve back, held it to the dangling threads.
‘Could only be an improvement to this damned coat.’ The tailoring was poor, it had obviously been repaired before and the
sweat of his labours had rotted the few threads that somehow had held it together. He hated the bloody thing! He loved his
clothes and here he was disguised as a man with no purse and lamentable taste. What must she think of him? What would she
think of him, when all was finally revealed, when she’d forgiven him the follies love had driven him to, when she stood before
the Scotch parson and looked at him, stinking, rotten, sleeveless Scarecrow Beverley! No, he would be marrying her as Jack
Absolute. And, dammit, he would be wearing Jack Absolute’s uniform!

‘Excuse me,’ he said, rising. ‘I will be but a moment.’

She rose in her turn, alarmed. ‘Where are you going?’

‘My lodgings.’ She gasped. ‘Do not fear. We still have time. If you will wait by the horses—’

‘You cannot go!’ she cried with a force that startled him. ‘Hearken to the band, sir. They are getting closer. The crowds
may prevent your swift return. There can be nothing of such importance—’

It was his turn to interrupt. ‘Forgive me, but there is. I have another uniform there. Still poor,’ he added hastily, ‘but
better than this horror. And now I remember, my sword is with it, necessary for the dangerous road.’ He pulled away, began
to move towards the gate. ‘Do not fear. I will not go through the crowds. The park takes me around the back of the Circus.’

She seized his hand. ‘I beg you. Do not leave me. I feel sure all will go amiss if we do not leave now!’ The force of her
declaration, the tears again in her eyes, made him hesitate. She saw, drew close to him again. ‘Please, Beverley,’ she said
her tones softer, that husk coming into them. ‘Please.’

She had pressed herself into him. Her dress was not the
swathes of cloth she wore to the Assemblies. It was more like the linen shift he’d watched her emerge from the water in, clinging
to her shape. That shape pressed against him now, into him, at distinct points.

‘My love,’ he murmured, his timbre matching hers.

She raised her face to him. He looked into those eyes, thought, as ever, how he wanted to drown himself five fathoms deep
in their greenness. He bent, kissed the lids that closed, and when his lips moved downwards, there was no holding back as
there had been even in the kiss at the Spring Gardens. Her lips parted. He was lost.

Somehow they walked backwards, his hands up and cupping her face, hers reaching back. Her knees collided with the bench and
she guided him down, the kissing frantic now, a jumble of give and take. When he ran the tip of his tongue along the roof
of her mouth, she gave a cry that turned swiftly to a laugh. He threw her hat to the side, thrust his fingers into her piled-up
hair.

Her mouth was close to his ear. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’ Confirmation came in her sigh, in the way she suddenly pushed herself up off the bench and into him as she had before.
His hands moved down slowly, fingers stroking from her neck, running around and then over each breast, pressing through the
material, circling, feeling a firming there. ‘Yes?’ he asked again, the last question he thought he’d ever ask. For she didn’t
reply in words, just took one of his hands, kissed it and pushed it lower.

There was a moment perhaps when he still could have stopped, before the world became blurred by linen rising, flung aside,
by cotton shifts furled like sails, by scent and sight and the sudden surprise of her thigh against his cheek. He rose up
and her hands were steady at his breeches’ buttons, where his fumbled. A slight pain came as his knees ground once more into
the gravel of the garden; pain swiftly supplanted by sensations of a better kind, as he ripped the
last of his buttons away, moved clear, moved inside her. A moan, but not of pain, swept the last cautions from his mind, as
did her movements beneath him, not holding him off, guiding him, her legs so wrapped around him that he could not move if
he’d wanted to, which he didn’t; content to stay like that until … until that band, getting ever closer, played in tune at
last. Which would be never.

He lifted and turned her so he was sat upon the bench and she upon him. The rain rolled off the bare shoulder thrust from
her shift, fell onto him, cooling him but only a little as breaths came shorter, his matching hers, faster now, faster. Groans
replaced breath, somehow they’d moved again and he was on top of her on the bench and the moment came when he could hold off
no longer and she managed the impossible, pulling him even deeper inside, holding him there while all their moans passed,
all their shudders subsided.

‘Stay,’ came the whispered order, and he obeyed, shifting only enough to take his weight off her, and to reach for his crumpled
cloak to cover them both. They lay there, her eyes closed, his open so he could study a little pulse in her neck, fluttering
like a moth trapped behind glass.

‘Letty,’ he whispered, and she wriggled into his chest. He stared up into the Judas tree that part-sheltered them, amazed
that he’d never noticed before just how intense was the purple of its flowers …

He woke with a start, arm pressed between her body and the bench. He thought it was the pain that woke him, not the tuneless
band that was now considerably nearer, was probably close to entering the Circus itself. When he moved his arm, she gave a
little whimper but slept on. He watched her for a moment, then shivered. The rain was still falling lightly and if he was
cold, he was sure she must be, too. For a moment he thought of waking her; but she looked so beautiful he didn’t want to disturb
her. She hadn’t slept in a
week, she’d said. Mrs O’Farrell would, surely, be gawking at the King. He could allow her a few minutes more. He just needed
something to keep her warm. Another blanket would be useful for the journey too.

The rear door of the house was locked, her bags for the elopement outside it; mercifully few, he noted approvingly. She may
have been a romantic but she was no fool. He stepped back, looked up to the first level, where the drawing rooms would be.
A window was open a half inch. Between the pediment of the rear door and the window sill there was a six-foot gap.

The sill was a little slick with rain. But the exterior covering of the joist, a small metal shield, was not quite flush to
the wall, giving him enough of a foothold to perch on, reach a hand, grip the underside of the window itself. With a heave
he was balanced on the sill, then shoved the window up and was through it.

He was at the rear window of a drawing room, the one where Letty said Mrs O’Farrell would obligingly doze while her niece
walked alone in the garden. Thus Jack expected a chair to be placed there, was surprised when there was not one; a surprise
swiftly surpassed when he realized that not only was there no chair, there was no furniture in the room of any kind whatsoever.

He moved into the hallway, as cheers exploded below, and the band increased the discordance of their playing. The King was
entering the square just as Jack entered the second drawing room to find it as barren as the first. As with the other room,
it was clear that it had not been recently emptied of furniture. There had simply never been any furniture in it.

‘No,’ he said aloud, not believing. ‘Oh no.’

A sprint to the top floor, to bedrooms devoid of beds. As he stood there gaping, even above the music from the street, he
heard her cry.

‘Beverley! Beverley! Where are you?’

He was down to the drawing room in a moment. ‘Here,’ he called, appearing at the window before thrusting himself through it,
lowering himself to the hand- and footholds, reaching the ground, turning to her. She was standing by the bench, still beneath
the Judas tree.

‘What were you doing?’ she asked as he moved to her.

‘Looking for something to cover you up. I didn’t find anything.’

Now he was close, he could see fear in her eyes. Not in her voice though. ‘I’ve a cloak in my bags.’

‘No,’ he said, just holding back the anger. ‘I didn’t find
anything.
The house has not been lived in.’ Suddenly he shouted, ‘What is happening here?’

She flinched but did not recoil. ‘I was going to tell you. My aunt decided to leave Bath. That is why we had to flee today.
We …’