The door creaked at the opposite end of the mews. Blast. She had to go.
Aurora flicked the reins, and they were off.
~ * ~
Ten minutes. Ten bloody minutes he had been standing at the altar, waiting for his deuced bride to arrive. Quin was ready to explode. He clenched his jaw and prayed that he would not strike the next person who spoke.
The vicar kept sending anxious looks his way and tapping his feet. The few guests in the pews stared at him.
He’d been bang up to the mark, by God. They could not blame him. They’d better not try, least of all Hyatt. The man ought to have done a better job of teaching his daughter punctuality.
If this was a sign of things to come within their relationship, Quin would have to learn patience. Either that or he’d have to tell Aurora to be ready an hour before he expected her.
That might be the better option. He doubted himself capable of adopting patience.
The vicar gave him yet another pointed look.
“Where in God’s name is she?” Quin yelled, startling everyone in the church, including Lord Hyatt, who jumped long enough to cease pacing at the opposite end. “What is taking her so bafflingly long?”
His bride’s maid and friend stared back at him with huge eyes. Jonas stomped on Quin’s foot and glared at him.
Christ, he shouldn’t have lost his temper like that. But really, how long must a man be kept waiting? “I apologize,” he gritted out to the small gathering. “Hyatt, would you go and check on your daughter? Hurry her along.”
The older man looked at him with disdain. “Perhaps, Quinton, you ought to go and check on your bride. It is, after all, your fault all of this is taking place.”
“Excuse me, please,” said the young maid. “I will check on Miss Hyatt.” She slipped out of her pew and rushed down the long aisle, disappearing from sight.
Well. That eliminated the likelihood of Quin and Hyatt cursing at each other over whose responsibility Aurora was at the moment.
Quin paced before the altar. He wanted to rip the fussy cravat from his neck and toss the overcoat aside, but Jonas would give him hell if he did. With every sound, from the creaking of a seat to a muffled clearing of a throat, his head snapped about, expecting to see Aurora coming down the aisle to meet him.
But she didn’t.
Finally, after the maid had been gone for what had to have been another ten minutes, she came back.
Alone
.
He tried to maintain his sanity as he returned to his position. “Where is Miss Hyatt?” he asked through clenched teeth.
The poor girl trembled before him. “The door is locked,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “She won’t answer.”
“Bloody hell.”
A chorus of shocked gasps sounded around. Blast, Quin thought he’d only said it in his head, not aloud.
She couldn’t be doing this to him. She could not leave him standing at the altar. He’d be damned if he let her get away with it.
Quin marched down the aisle, into the hall, and to the changing room where his bride had been
supposedly
getting dressed and taking a moment to calm herself before their nuptials. He tried the knob. It didn’t budge.
“Aurora! Open the door.” He pounded out an impatient rhythm. “This is neither the time nor the place for this.”
Nothing. He didn’t hear a single sound, not one peep.
A crowd gathered behind him, Jonas in front of them all. “Do you think something has happened to her? Perhaps she is unwell.”
“She will be if she doesn’t unlock this door in the next thirty seconds.” He’d make certain of it himself.
Everyone started talking at once behind him.
“Should we ask the vicar for the key?”
“Perhaps someone ought to break down the door.”
“I can’t
believe
the nerve of her. Ungrateful chit.”
“Sir Jonas! Sir Jonas.” This voice rang out urgently amongst the din of the others. Quin turned to see a groom pushing his way through the small crowd. “Your horse, sir.”
“We are busy here, man,” Jonas responded. “The horse can wait.”
“But, sir! Your horse was stolen. She rode off with it before I could catch her, she did.”
She
.
“Damnation,” Quin muttered. He rammed his shoulder repeatedly into the door. By the third time, Jonas joined him. After a few joint efforts, the hinges gave way and the door fell open.
“Of course,” Quin said. Aurora’s belongings were strewn about the small chamber as a slight breeze blew in through the open window, fluttering everything about.
Aurora Hyatt, however, was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Nine
3 April, 1811
There is an art to horse thievery. Or at least there is an intelligent manner of going about it and an unintelligent manner of going about it. The intelligent manner, should one be of the female sex, would be to either steal a horse that is saddled with a side saddle, or else to be certain to wear breeches instead of a gown. Particularly troublesome is a wedding gown. It is rather unbecoming, not to mention curious (and conspicuous), to ride astride through Mayfair while draped in ivory silk. This is not an act I recommend.
~From the journal of Miss Aurora Hyatt
His bride was an imbecile. What other explanation could there be?
Quin had thoroughly and completely ruined her. He had offered her a chance to salvage her reputation—and she ran. He would damned well catch her, too. Whether he would return with her to the church or take her straight to Bedlam was still up for debate.
The horse he’d borrowed from Jonas was close to foaming at the mouth, he had been pushing the animal so hard. He had no choice. Aurora must be found.
Immediately.
The groom said she rode off with the skirts of her gown bunched up about her knees, for Christ’s sake. Idiotic. Rash. Gauche. Why on earth had he ever thought it a good idea to marry her?
But after what he’d done, not only did she not have any other option—
he
had no other option. He’d never find a respectable bride after his behavior at that ball. No one else would have him, and then he would be unable to do what Rotheby required.
She was the closest thing he would find to it.
And she
would
marry him.
Aurora was not at Hyatt House. Nor was she at Grantham Manor on Grosvenor Square, where the Duke of Aylesbury had been none too pleased to find Quin pounding at his door, demanding entrance and to have the house searched at such an early hour of the morning. But he had to check. Lady Rebecca had suggested that Aurora might seek solace there.
Quin turned down Piccadilly, headed toward Hyde Park. It was illogical for her to go to such a public place—certainly not if she was trying to hide—but nothing the minx had done of late made any blasted sense.
The park was virtually empty at this hour. Only a small group of matrons strolled along the Serpentine from what he could see on first glance. Blast. Where else could she have gone?
Devil take it. Did she have other friends? Surely she did. This was one moment it would help if he knew just a mite more about his intended. Quin turned the mare and headed back into Mayfair. He’d ride up and down every damned street, if that’s what it took to find her and drag her back to the church.
He’d already searched both Cavendish Square and Grosvenor Square. Might as well try some of the other elite areas. Her closest friend was the daughter of a duke, so the rest of her acquaintances likely came from families of equally elevated ranks.
Berkeley Square. He’d go there first, with it still early in the day. Perhaps Rotheby would still be abed and not up, wondering if Quin had actually gone through with it and leg-shackled himself. The last thing he needed was to run into the man and have to explain this current mess he’d gotten himself into.
If there even was an explanation to be given.
When Quin turned the corner, he nearly fell off his horse. He’d never seen anything so utterly farcical (not to mention bizarre, ignominious, and indiscreet) in the whole of his life.
Aurora Hyatt, impeccably clad in a white satin wedding gown and some silly Spencer and bonnet, sat astride a horse outside Gunter’s. Her stockings were visible up to her knees, with the gown draped in an unwieldy fashion across the saddle horn. Dangling above the stirrups, one foot kicked about for something to grab onto, while she attempted to swing the other over. However, her slipper continued to catch upon the satin gown, and if she didn’t stop her flailing about, she’d fall and crack her skull on the pavement.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed, ignoring the aghast looks of passersby. They could all go hang. Quin rode over and took her reins.
She had the audacity to look affronted. “I thought to have an ice.” Aurora tried to snatch the reins back from his grasp, but he would be damned if he let them go. She huffed and swatted his hands in response. “What the devil do
you
think
you’re
doing, my lord?”
Not here. He had hashed out enough of what should have been their private matters in public, with the gossips of the
ton
hanging on their every word or touch. Quin would rather rot in Newgate than give them anything else to print in their bloody society papers.
He turned his mare and made for Curzon Street, pulling Aurora’s horse along behind him. She lost her balance at the sudden change in direction, particularly since she already had her body in a convoluted mess. She let out a squeal of panic.
Quin turned to see what the problem was this time. She’d fallen forward over the saddle horn and was holding onto it for dear life, with her sweet little derrière hanging precariously off the side.
Blast. They wouldn’t make it to the end of the street, let alone to Jonas’s bachelor lodgings, with her dangling about like that. Drawing the horses to a stop, he plucked her from her horse and settled her sidelong across his lap.
“Oh!” Aurora said. “How rude.” She wiggled her bottom and squirmed about.
“Be still,” Quin ordered. She’d wriggle herself off his lap and land face first on the ground, if she didn’t quit. “And we’ll discuss rudeness in private.”
“Why, I never” The blasted minx continued to struggle until she would have pitched forward and fallen, if not for his arm about her waist keeping her still.
Patience. He needed to be patient. Quin took a deep breath, then pulled her tighter against his chest. “Be still,” he growled.
Thankfully, they didn’t have far to travel. Within minutes, they arrived at Number Five. Quin dismounted, pulling his bride along with him. She fidgeted for freedom, but the silly chit would likely run off again, or try to climb onto a damned horse, or perhaps just plop down on the steps of the flat and scream for help. None of those scenarios suited his mood.
Instead, he flipped Aurora over his shoulder—the opposite shoulder from the previous ramming, since that one felt like a horse had kicked it repeatedly—and held her legs about the knees.