Lord Melvedere's Ghost (7 page)

She
glanced at the ground as she marched, lost in thought. She was
aware of the trundling of carriage wheels and clip-clopping of
hooves approaching from behind. Jonathan had evidently found
somewhere to turn around and was coming back for them. It behoved
her to turn back and take a look to see where Jamie was, but
couldn’t discount the possibility that he might simply take matters
into his own hands through sheer frustration. The memories of the
time he had bundled her back into the carriage after her sickness
came flooding back. She stiffened her spine, bracing herself for a
fight only to catch sight of Jamie walking toward the carriage out
of the corner of her eye, throwing her a dirty look as he
went.

Sniffing
dismissively, she continued to move toward the gate at the far end
of the field. Whatever they were plotting, she was not going to be
swept off her feet again and pushed into doing anything that she
didn’t want to do. They were not going to put her into the
carriage, and she was not going to go anywhere against her will. By
the look of their secretive conversation, they were going to
continue through the town on their journey with or without
her.

She could scream as much as the next person,
she mused. If they tried to force her to do
anything she didn’t want to do, like go with them without securing
the horses properly, she would have every curious local within a
two mile radius following them to see who was being murdered, or
kidnapped, or whatever.

“
Cecily?”

Cecily
jumped as Jonathan came to walk beside her. “There is a coaching
inn in the town where I got the carriage from. I will drop the
horses off there for you and get the ostler to send them
back.”

Cecily
glared suspiciously at him for several long moments, glaring back
at a clearly disgusted Jamie, who was now sitting on the box
seat.

“
We are passing the coaching inn on our way through the town,
so you can take one last look at them before I take them in for
you.” His voice was calm and reasonable, and was as steady as the
gaze he levelled on her. He gave Cecily absolutely no reason to
object and she meekly handed him the reins with a delighted
smile.

“
That would be very reasonable and considerate of
you
,” Cecily declared
loudly, handing Jonathan the strips of leather. Jonathan’s eyebrows
shot up and he stared after her as she walked regally toward the
carriage and climbed aboard.

“
What the -” Jamie glared at the carriage door as it slammed
shut before throwing a disgruntled look toward a smirking
Jonathan.

“
Gift of the gab, dear boy,” Jonathan drawled, smiling as he
walked toward the far end of the field with both horses in tow.
“Ride on. I’ll tie them to the back.”

Jamie
clicked the reins with a snort of disgust. Clearly, he had more
work on his hands than he realised. She hated him; distrusted him.
If he was to go down on one knee and propose, she would probably
kick his head in while he was down there. Shaking his head at the
folly of unfathomable females, he began to think about the
precariousness of her future. It gave him something to think about
other than the myriad swearwords swarming in his head like a hive
of angry bees.

This
time she wasn’t sick in the carriage. However she was bored. Out of
her mind bored.

She
heaved another sigh and glared out at the dusky haze snuffing out
the last vestige of daylight and wondered what the new day would
hold. She was going to be glad for a day without travelling. Most
of her life had been spent in one place, yet in a matter of days
she felt as though she had travelled the entire length and breadth
of the country. She was bruised from head to toe, couldn’t stop
trembling – although she wasn’t sure whether that was because of
the lack of food. Tiredness made her thoughts sluggish and she was
certain she could sleep standing up if only they would stop the
carriage.

She
winced as the carriage bounced through a particularly deep rut in
the road. It was either that, or they were going through newly
ploughed fields. She didn’t need to look outside to know that
Jonathan was driving again. His breakneck, devil-may-care driving
was going to bring about all of their deaths if he didn’t slow
down. She could understand their wanting to get to their
destination – wherever that was, but if Jonathan kept at the reins,
the carriage would arrive with three corpses on board. She was
contemplating shouting at them to feed her and slow down when the
carriage began to ease to a steady crawl.

Heaving
a sigh of relief, she dropped her feet to the carriage floor and
lowered the window to peer outside and take a deep breath of fresh
air. Although Jamie had ordered her to leave it up, she dropped it
anyway. She needed to reassure herself that there was a world
outside the tiny box that was starting to feel like a prison
cell.

“
Close that window,” Jamie growled, spying the top of her
glossy head poking out of the open rectangle.

“
No,” Cecily snapped defiantly. “As you seem to be my
self-appointed protector, I would just like to make one objection
to my treatment.” Cecily had no idea where this emboldened side of
her was coming from, but didn’t really care at that moment, and
merely turned inelegantly to glare upward at him. She heard the
snigger Jonathan tried to hide around a loud cough and merely
smiled obliquely at a glowering Jamie.

“
Objections, my lady?” Jamie drawled.

“
Yes. Unless you want me to start chewing the squabs in here,
can you throw this mere peasant some food? Assuming you have some
food left, that is.”

Jamie
shared an askance look at Jonathan, who was busy hiding his
laughter in the folds of his coachman’s cloak.

“
She is going to be the death of me,” Jamie growled, rummaging
through the saddle bag at his feet. His own lip curled at the sight
of the flattened, slightly furry bread he drew out and he threw it
in disgust at the hedgerow. “We need to stop.”

Jonathan
rolled his eyes. “We are going to get our throats cut,” he
muttered, hearing his own stomach rumble.

“
I don’t know what you are finding so bloody funny,” Jamie
grumbled, snuggling down into his own cloak and blithely ignoring
the loud slamming of the window below them.

“
She is funny. I like her,” Jonathan threw his friend a
commiserating look which was wasted by his chuckling. “She is going
to be good for you.”

“
I’m not bloody keeping her,” Jamie snarled, shaking his head
at his own stupidity. “She is rude, argumentative, stubborn
–”

“
Pretty, clever, strong,” Jonathan countered, turning the
carriage toward the main street and the coaching inn at the far
end.

“
A pain in the preverbial. Stoic, too bloody kind hearted for
her own good.”

“
Exactly.”

“
She is a fishwife!” Jamie snorted in disgust.

“
Exactly. Perfect for you.” Jonathan retorted, making no
attempt to hide his mirth.

“
Thanks for that, friend, really. I appreciate your
support.”

“
I am just saying that you need someone who is strong willed at
your back. You need someone like her. Someone who isn’t afraid to
stand up for what she believes in. She may be a bit naive when it
comes to keeping herself safe, but she is fiery enough to keep you
on your toes. That is just what you need. I cannot imagine you
settling down to a life of boring matrimony,” Jonathan snorted,
wondering why anyone would be stupid enough to want to commit to
anyone, especially when there were so many willing, and available,
females around.

“
I am not going to -” Jamie sighed. If he was entirely honest,
that was exactly why he wanted to take her to Melvedere.

“
Look on the bright side,” Jonathan sighed, frantically
thinking of any bright side to Jamie’s disquiet. “Simon and Hugo
didn’t seem to be the marrying kind either, but look at them. Simon
keeps wandering around grinning like an idiot, and if Hugo’s brood
gets any bigger they are going to have to build yet another
extension. His list of nannies will soon be bigger than the Star
Elite.”

Jamie
threw his friend a grin and shook his head. He couldn’t help but
think about the rigmarole both Hugo and Simon had been forced to go
through in order to secure their ladies’ hands in marriage, and
shuddered at the thought of his own situation with
Cecily.

“
Yours isn’t that bad,” Jonathan murmured quietly, sensing
Jamie’s thoughts.

“
How do you do that?” Jamie shifted uncomfortably. He had never
been entirely comfortable with Jonathan’s ability to read another
person’s mind, it was unnerving.

“
It is a gift.”
Or a curse, I am not
sure which
, Jonathan thought bleakly. It
was something he had never spent too much time thinking about
before. His strange ability had served him well throughout his time
with the Star Elite, and had saved his life on more than one
occasion, even though it unnerved those around him. He wasn’t sure
where it came from, but he was very rarely wrong when he did pick
up on what people were thinking, even though at times he wished he
had not.

“
We are still knee deep in French spies, smugglers and now a
Star Elite traitor,” Jamie grumbled, shaking his head at the rutted
path toward matrimony that lay before him. It was the last position
he wanted to be in, but there was little he could do about it now.
If he was honest, he had been more disturbed than he had expected
to be when Cecily’s father had refused to accept his offer for her
hand, and had ordered him out of the house. While ordinarily he
would have been tugging at his collar and heading off down the
garden path as fast as his feet could carry him, for some reason,
Cecily, had continued to plague his thoughts and his dreams each
and every day since.

She had
no protector and, if his suspicions were correct, had no father to
provide for her now. As a result, her options were severely
limited. He couldn’t and wouldn’t sit back and allow her to go to a
poor house where she would, undoubtedly, spend the rest of her
days. Although their father had a fortune, and home of his own,
Jamie wasn’t sure what would happen to it if he was a traitor.
Would Cecily and Portia get the proceeds if the home and fortune
were dismantled? Or had their spiteful and parsimonious father
bequeathed it to some distant relative to spite his daughters?
Jamie suspected it was the latter.

Jamie
had no doubt that Archie would ensure that Portia was more than
adequately cared for, and would have no compunction against doing
the same for a homeless and penniless Cecily if it came to it, but
Jamie didn’t want Archie to be the one to care for her. Archie was
a great fellow. One of his best friends, but Cecily was someone
Jamie wanted to be the one to care for. It didn’t make sense
because it wasn’t like Jamie at all. He wasn’t a ‘caring’ kind of
person. He carried out his job, did what he had to do and left, not
looking back or thinking about the things, or people, that he left
behind.

They
pulled into the coaching yard moments later where Jonathan left
Jamie to quietly debate his future while he untied the extra
horses. A few words with the ostler, and a coin or two, was all it
took before he resumed his position on the box seat and waited for
Jonathan to return.

Cecily
jumped when the carriage door was yanked open, and a small basket
of food plopped at her feet along with a flagon of ale. She caught
the wink from Jonathan before the door slammed closed and the
carriage trundled onward. Her stomach actually ached from the lack
of food and she hungrily dug in, wondering if the bread, pie,
cheese and fruit in the basket were all for her. Shaking her head,
she decided she didn’t really care.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was a
long and arduous journey to Melvedere. They took many circuitous
routes, doubling back several times to make sure they weren’t
followed or likely to be intercepted.

It was
only a couple of hours before dawn by the time they did arrive at
the small parish of Melvedere. It was a small, yet rather quaint
village with a higgledy-piggledy mish-mash of houses of varying
indefinable ages. Grand two storey houses broke up the rows small
single storey workers cottages that were mixed in with various
shops, a church, the vicarage and village green.

As soon
as Jamie turned onto the main street, he felt a sense of homecoming
that was so wonderful he was suddenly impatient to get home. He had
missed the place far more than he had ever expected to. Usually he
was glad to see Melvedere because he was tired, or hungry. Tonight,
or rather this morning, he was glad to see the place for entirely
different reasons. Reasons he daren’t think over too
deeply.

They
hadn’t heard anything from Cecily since Jonathan had given her the
food and drink hours earlier. In fact, he couldn’t be entirely sure
she was still in the carriage, she was so quiet. Jonathan was fast
asleep beside him, bundled into the warmth of his thick coachman’s
cloak, his face obscured almost completely by the high collar and
hat tugged low.