Once Again a Bride

Twenty-two



Alec Wylde was as tired as he had ever been in his life. He’d had little sleep since the journey up from London, and what he had managed was fitful, plagued either by dreams of fire and disaster or by vivid visions of Charlotte warm and eager in his arms. Whenever he thought of her, which was constantly despite the troubles he was trying to resolve, he regretted leaving her so soon after their time together. He should have… he didn’t know what he should have done, and that was the crux of the problem.

Failure seemed to be his lot just now. He rode the countryside trying to calm the people, to save them from their own justifiable anger. If they turned to violence, they’d be hunted down and hanged; that he knew. This government had proved it again and again. On his own lands, they listened, but of course they had received some assistance. Beyond its boundaries he was met with sullenness or fury or—worst—a broken recitation of rightful grievances. He had no remedy for these and no answer for the stares of hungry children and their desperate parents.

This morning he was headed for the main southern road; rumor suggested that a group of men intended to set up a barricade there, to disrupt travel in that direction. Nothing was more likely to attract the army and result in arrests and the kind of executions they’d seen in Nottingham not so long ago. He would try to reason with them, dredge his exhausted brain for some argument that would move them. But he wasn’t optimistic. Some of these men believed the government would make changes if they were forced, and they didn’t want to hear the contrary. Well, he wished it himself, though he couldn’t have that faith. Some were so angry they simply required an outlet, to stave off despair. A few just enjoyed making mischief. But all of them risked their lives, unless he could convince them to disband.

He rode his largest hunter to look impressive, searching up and down the road until he came upon them. Then he spoke for nearly an hour, summoning all the eloquence he possessed. Finally, combining threats of what the government would do and promises of aid, he managed to persuade them to remove the carts they had used to block the highway. He was watching them hitch up their horses, hoping they were not simply moving to a different part of the road, when he noticed a post chaise approaching from the south.

He urged his horse along the highway, fearing that some of the rowdier men might decide to stop it. And indeed the group paused to watch as the carriage swept closer. Alec planted himself in the middle of the road so that it had to slow. People must be warned that it was a very bad time to travel in Derbyshire. A man leaned out of the vehicle’s window. Alec was astonished to recognize his cousin Edward. “Alec!”

“What are you doing here?” Edward never left town at the height of the Season. For a moment, Alec wondered if he might have come to help his tenants. Then he let that ridiculous thought go.

“Let me pass!”

Edward looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. He was tousled and unshaven. Alec had never seen him less than perfectly groomed since he left school, which meant that something was very wrong. “What’s happened?”

“I must get home. Let me pass!” Despite his commands, the driver pulled up. It was that or run Alec down.

“I doubt you can get through. Haven’t you heard what’s happening? The countryside is in an uproar. Roads blocked, men gathering to protest…”

“They would not dare stop me!”

“That is exactly what they would do, Edward. Why do you think they are setting up barricades?” Alec indicated the carts that were still partly blocking the way.

His cousin seemed at a loss. He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it further. “Blast it. Damn both of them to hell.”

“Who? What are you doing here? What has happened?”

“Get in,” his cousin snapped.

“Why…?”

“Tie your horse to the back and get in! I can’t be shouting private business across a highway.”

He was so agitated that Alec decided to comply. But when he’d climbed into the chaise and faced his cousin, he demanded, “What the devil is this about?”

“There’s something… wrong with my mother.”

“She’s ill?” What was he doing up here, in that case?

Edward tapped his fists on his thighs, vibrating with tension. He seemed reluctant to speak, and yet at his wits’ end. “She seems to have brought Charlotte here,” he blurted finally. “And I don’t know what she means to do with her.”

“Do…?” Alec wondered if his cousin had had some sort of brainstorm.

The admission appeared to have broken a barrier, and words tumbled out of Edward now. “We’d been to the opera, the three of us. On the way home, Charlotte and I had… a disagreement. My fault entirely. I was… not myself.”

Most likely drunk, Alec thought, his blood burning at the idea of this “disagreement.” What had Edward done?

“I woke late the next day and had to spend a bit of time… recovering. I felt vile, if you must know. It was afternoon by the time I made that hellish long drive out to Charlotte’s house to apologize. Then, when I got there, I found the place all at sixes and sevens. They’d received a note saying that my mother was taking Charlotte on a visit to the country. Charlotte hadn’t come home the night before, hadn’t summoned her maid. No warning, nothing packed, an impulse, the note said.”

“In the middle of the Season? Aunt Bella would never…”

Edward waved him to silence. “You needn’t tell me. I went over to her house. I have a key. And I found it empty.”

“They’d left already?” It made no sense.

“No, Alec, I mean empty. Only my mother’s bedchamber and one servant’s room upstairs had furnishings. A few bits in the kitchen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The rest of the place was bare walls and floorboards,” Edward almost shouted, as if volume would get his point across.

“But… that’s…”

“Unbelievable? Inexplicable? I have used those terms and more on this damnable journey.”

Alec tried to remember the last time he had been inside his aunt’s house. It was years ago. He began to feel cold despite the warmth of the June afternoon. “I still don’t understand what you think is happening.”

Edward stared at him out of bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know what is happening. I suspect that Mama has been selling her things to support her… style of living.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I’ve wondered how she managed to dress as she does and keep a carriage. I didn’t really pay attention. Why should I?”

“Edward!” He got his cousin’s attention. He wanted to shake him. “What has this to do with Charlotte?”

“Don’t you see? She must have gone into Mama’s house when she… She must have seen the empty rooms. Mama would never forgive her for the humiliation.”

When she what, Alec wanted to ask? Should he take the time to choke out of Edward just what he had done? Not now. “All right, she will never forgive her. Why in God’s name would that lead her to come to the country?”

Edward gritted his teeth. “Will you listen to me? Nothing matters more to my mother than her place in society. It’s what she lives for. She’s… a bit… fanatical on the subject. And now I find that she’s sold everything she owns to maintain her position.” He put his head in his hands. “I’ve heard her telling people she had painters in, and then it was workmen moving a wall. Who listens to such things? But I realized as I traveled that she has been making excuses to keep people out of her house for a very long time. The idea that her shift was discovered, that it might be revealed to the ton, would make her frantic. I don’t know what she might do to protect… well, she has already gone far beyond the bounds… Oh, hell! I followed as soon as I could. From what I could discover on the road, I am a day or more behind them.”

The only part of this that he cared about hit Alec like a roundhouse blow. “You think she would harm Charlotte! Over such a triviality?”

“I have been trying to tell you that it is not a triviality to her! You have never understood Mama, never considered what she was made to endure…”

“Endure?” Alec’s brain filled with jumbled visions—his aunt in a fury, Charlotte threatened. “You think Aunt Bella has gone… has become like Grandmama?” Alec saw a screaming rictus of a face, shattering glass, paroxysms of hysteria.

His cousin blanched and looked away. “No! Of course not. There have been one or two occasions… but it is not the same… Martha knows what to do.”

“Martha? The same Martha who took care of…?”

“Yes! Why not? Mama has known her since she was a child. They… handled a great many crises together.” Edward scowled, then pounded on the roof of the chaise. “Devil take it, I have to get home!”

Alec opened the carriage door and stepped down. “I shall ride across the fields to your house. It’s the only way to get there quickly. Can I get it through your head that the countryside is practically in arms? The army is on the way to suppress what amounts to a popular uprising. The roads are dangerous.”

“I’ll take one of the post horses and come with you.”

“Without a saddle or bridle? Over the walls and hedges?”

Edward leaned out and grasped his arm. “Give me your horse then.”

“No.” Alec pulled free and walked away.

“It’s my mother!” Edward jumped down and pursued him.

“Who is threatening to harm Charlotte!” If anything had happened to her… Alec’s blood burned in his veins. Edward caught his arm again. They grappled in the road, heedless of interested eyes from the carriage and the dismantled barricade. Alec twisted, jerked free, and landed a solid blow to Edward’s midsection. His cousin folded, huffing for breath. Alec ripped his horse’s reins from the back of the chaise and mounted.

Edward gazed up at him, still gasping. “Alec. Please.”

Alec didn’t remember ever hearing that word from his cousin. Edward’s anguished expression reached him, though he had no intention of giving him what he wanted. “Up ahead, take the left fork. Go through Tarne. You have a better chance that way. But I warn you, men are out on the roads, in the villages, and they are angry. They are not stopping to listen to excuses.” He wheeled his horse and headed for a gate that led into the fields.

***

Sometime in the endless night, Charlotte had freed her wrists, gnawing like a trapped animal at the layers of twine and tugging at them until her wrists were raw. Unbound, she’d felt her way around the dusty floor and, thankfully, found a chamber pot shoved all the way back under the rickety bed. She still felt weak and disoriented, but it was a huge relief to be untied and away from Lady Isabella.

She watched dawn lighten the small window, far too small to be any use for escape, even if she hadn’t been at the top of the house. The door was sturdy, the walls solid. Without tools, she had no chance of breaking through them. The sparse contents of the room offered no weapon. She had no resources but her wits, and they were far from sharp. She still fought the muzziness of the drug and the fatigue of the forced journey.

When the lock clicked, she braced for a fight about her bonds, but Martha merely frowned at her wrists. She’d brought a glass of water, which Charlotte wanted so desperately she nearly cried. But when Martha stood by waiting for her to drink it, she knew it was dosed. “What are you going to do to me?” she asked, holding the glass.

Martha merely waited, leaning against the closed door.

“People know where I am. They will come here looking for me.” And so they would, eventually. How long might it take? “What Lady Isabella has done will be exposed,” she tried. “This is not some trivial matter. How can she imagine…?”

There was a cry outside, and the clatter of something large falling. Martha looked toward the window. With a lightning twist of her wrist, Charlotte dumped the contents of the glass into the straw mattress, then put it to her lips as if drinking. She got one tantalizing wisp of moisture on her dry lips, enough to make her thirst even stronger. When Martha turned back to her, she lowered the empty glass. “There will be real trouble if you do not let me go,” she said to distract her further. Perhaps she imagined it, but she thought Martha looked uneasy. She only took the glass and left, however, locking the door behind her.

Charlotte waited until her footsteps died away, then tried the door. It felt as impregnable as ever. But they thought now that she was drugged; that was one small advantage.

The day wore on. Charlotte was alternately frantic and exhausted. She longed to collapse into sleep, yet she had to remain alert for any opportunity to break free.

It was late afternoon before one arrived, in the person of the old housekeeper with a tray of food. She looked surprised, and alarmed, to see her awake. “Feeling better, miss?”

Charlotte took the tray from her, set it on the bed, grabbed the old woman’s shoulders, and forced her down beside it. She snatched the key from her trembling hand. “Perhaps they have told you I’m mad. That is a lie. I have been kidnapped, and all of you are going to be held accountable for it.” And so much else, Charlotte thought. But that was not to be mentioned here and now.

The old woman stared up at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“If you keep silent when I’m gone, I will tell the magistrates that you had no hand in my abduction.”

The housekeeper shrank away from her, nodding.

Charlotte didn’t know if this was agreement or simple fear, but she couldn’t afford to wait, and she wasn’t willing to hurt the old woman. She locked her in the room with no guarantee that she wouldn’t start shouting at any moment and moved as quickly as she dared along the bare corridor.

She found the back stairs and crept down to the kitchen, fortunately empty. A short corridor led through the scullery and out into the yard. The conflicting needs to hurry and to be careful were almost unbearable, and Charlotte’s heart pounded as she stopped to listen. She didn’t know who else might be here—stablemen, farm laborers? But if there were horses… She raced across to the stables and found them empty. Disappointed, she took the time to dip handfuls of water from the horse trough and drink, then slipped into some shrubbery behind the building and worked her way around the house. She wasn’t able to run for very long; her body hadn’t recovered from the drugged journey. She needed transport, and direction to Sir Alexander’s house. Luckily, Lady Isabella didn’t appear to have a staff of servants to search for her. Martha was formidable, but she was just one person.

At the end of the drive, she had to decide which way to turn. She debated briefly, afraid her choice would be just the wrong one, and eventually chose to go back the way they’d come. At least that led to the London road, at some point. She couldn’t recall the whole of the route.

The day was waning. Charlotte slipped along the side of the country lane, ready to hide if she heard anyone approaching. Seeing her walking in her now filthy evening dress and slippers, her hair crushed by days in a chaise, people might easily believe she was mad. She didn’t want to risk any encounter so close to Lady Isabella’s home. But for a long while, she saw no one; the countryside was curiously empty.

The sun approached the horizon. Shadows slanted across the rutted lane. What would she do once it was full dark, Charlotte wondered? The June night wouldn’t be too cold. She could spend the night in a field, she supposed—but it was a daunting prospect.

She heard the rattle of cart wheels approaching, then the clop of hooves. For a moment, she froze. This could be rescue, or servants of Lady Isabella’s returning to the house. She must have more than one old woman taking care of the place. If they’d been given the story of her madness… She couldn’t think. Her head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton wool. If she asked for help, surely… She remembered the sullen faces and hostile eyes of countrymen they’d passed on the road. Sir Alexander had said Derbyshire was on the edge of violence. She couldn’t risk it.

Charlotte plunged off the hard-packed ruts and into the fringe of weedy growth beside the lane. There was a clump of small trees not too far away. She ran. If she could just reach… her foot caught in the hem of her gown, and she went down with a thump that sounded like a thunderclap in her ears. Heart pounding, she curled small among the weeds and held her breath. The hoofbeats came closer; the rattle of the cart seemed almost on top of her. And then it passed and went on along the lane, back the way she had come.

Charlotte lay there, waiting for her pulse to slow, her hands to stop trembling. Then she stumbled up and began walking once again.

***

“Can’t we go any faster?” Lucy asked. The old cart Ethan had borrowed from Sir Alexander’s stables seemed to crawl along the lane. It was nearly dark, another day passing, and they hadn’t done a thing but wear themselves out traveling.

“I’d be going faster if I’d ridden,” he complained.

“And how would you take Miss Charlotte away if you was on horseback?” Lucy countered. “Throw her across your saddle like some lunatic in an old tale?” He had no reply to that, because she was right.

“You should have stayed at the house,” Ethan grumbled instead. “I don’t like the feel of the countryside. Tempers are up. Something’s in the wind.”

“I wasn’t going to be left there amongst a lot of strangers.” And if Ethan couldn’t see why, he was no better than a numbskull, Lucy thought. It had been bad enough walking up to that grand estate smudged and rumpled from the long journey, having traveled for days alone with him. How was she going to explain that kind of scandalous goings-on, if she was left there, when the housemaids and all started eyeing her and whispering? She couldn’t tell them about Miss Charlotte; she’d never betray her mistress by gossiping about her. So what was she to say? And all the while knowing that Ethan’s family was part of the staff, and people who’d known him all his life. She might get on the wrong side of his father—or worse, his mother. And then how could she live right next to them if they were married? Couldn’t he see that she mustn’t be plopped down there like a parcel with no explanation? It was clear as clear, but not to him seemingly.

Gates loomed in the growing darkness. “This is it,” said Ethan. He turned the cart and headed down the drive.

Lucy clenched her hands in her lap. She imagined a grand butler ordering them from the door, or a high-nosed housekeeper having them thrown out of the house by a group of hulking footmen. Ethan was big, but he was just one man. And she didn’t want him hurt. But they had to find Miss Charlotte. Her stomach churned with nerves.

They drove right up to the place. Strangely, the building was dark except for one lighted window on the second floor. Ethan directed the horse around to the back premises and pulled up near the stables. “We’ll have to leave her standing,” he muttered as they climbed down. He looped the reins over a post.

The back door wasn’t locked. Nobody locked their doors in the country. They slipped inside a dark corridor. “Have you been here before?” Lucy whispered.

“No. The family don’t visit here much.”

They groped their way to the kitchen. It was spooky how empty the house felt. Ethan circled the room and found an oil lamp, which he lit after another hunt. Aided by its wavering light, they walked quietly up the stairs. “Where is everybody?” Lucy whispered.

“Reckon they closed the house when they went up to London. There ought to be some servants, though. It’s right odd.”

It was more than that, Lucy thought. Her anxiety grew.

In the upper corridor they followed the light to the room she’d seen from outside. Its door was half open. Ethan hesitated briefly, then pushed it wide and stepped in. Lucy followed right on his heels.

From a huge four-poster bed, Lady Isabella shrieked like a train whistle. A big woman standing right next to her whirled and faced them. “Who are you? What are you doing in this house?”

“We’ve come for Mrs. Wylde,” Ethan said. His voice didn’t shake at all, Lucy thought admiringly.

“I don’t know what you’re…” the big woman began.

“We know you’ve got her,” Lucy interrupted. “We had the note. And we didn’t believe it for a minute!”

“Get them away from me! Get them away from me!” cried Lady Isabella. She brushed at her arms as if flicking dust from her nightdress.

“You are trespassing,” her servant tried.

“You’d best send for a magistrate then,” Ethan answered. “Because we’re going to keep right on doing it.” He stepped farther into the room. Lucy liked how he loomed over them.

“Martha!” Lady Isabella sounded fretful now. “Why are these people in my bedchamber? Can’t you understand the simplest order? Am I always to be disregarded and harassed?”

A look of resignation, or maybe defeat, settled on the woman’s sharp features. “Come with me, then,” she said.

She led them out of the room, Lady Isabella’s cries of “Martha!” echoing behind them, and up to the top floor of the house. There by the light of the oil lamp, she unlocked an unpainted door and threw it open. “Take her and welcome,” she said. “I can’t stand this any longer.”

Lucy hurried forward. Ethan waited by the door, making sure she’d have no chance to slam it on them, and held the lamp high. Its light fell on a mean little room with a shabby bedstead. A wizened woman lay curled upon it, drowsing. “What’s this supposed to be then?” demanded Ethan.

The old woman sat up, then cowered back as Martha strode in. “What the… where’s the girl?”

The crone crouched even lower. “She said she’d bring the law down on us. I’m not being taken by the law, I’m not! I haven’t done nothing.”

“She should have been sleeping,” Martha muttered. “How did she…?”

“Where did she go?” Lucy asked.

“How’d I know?” the old woman replied. “She locked me in here and went off.”

“You old fool,” said Martha.

“I ain’t such a fool as you, getting yourself into trouble for the likes of…” Martha raised a hand, and the ancient woman fell silent.

Ethan turned away. “Come on. She must be walking.”

“In the dark?”

“We’ll find her.” He hesitated, then turned back to address Martha. “You keep any horses?” At the sullen shake of her head, he added, “You’d best hope the young lady is all right. Because if she ain’t…”

Lucy clutched his arm as pictures of various disasters crowded her mind. “Let’s go!”

***

Charlotte crouched in deep shadow by the wall of a stone cottage. Up ahead, the flickering orange light of torches outlined the buildings of a village. The sight had been hopeful at first; she’d expected to find someone she could ask for aid and had hurried on. But then she’d heard the shouting, and the low growl of male voices in response, and slipped into hiding. She peered carefully around the corner of the cottage. At least fifty men milled about the village center. Some of them carried long pikes; others held the torches that threw warm light on angry faces and shaken fists. Charlotte leaned against the stone wall in exhaustion. It seemed she’d left Lady Isabella’s prison only to fall into the midst of a riot.

One man stood on a step or box, head and shoulders above the others, a black silhouette against the flames. He brandished a gun as he spoke, his voice raised to carry. “Men of Derbyshire, how long are we going to watch our children cry with hunger? Or our wives weep with fear?”

There were more growls of agreement, but one voice shouted, “Who’re you to stand up there above us, Jeremiah Brandeth?”

The speaker turned in the direction of the questioner. “Not above you, brother. I’m just like you, a stocking knitter who can’t find work because of the damned machines, with a wife and two children to keep. I’m willing to work. Are you?”

This brought a much stronger roar of approval. Pikes were waved in the air.

“We want our rightful work and a chance to do it, that’s all. And this government ought to know it. We’ll march down to Nottingham, we will, and show ’em they need to listen to their own people.”

There were mutters in response to this proposal. Charlotte heard some reluctance, mentions of the army riding men down. She remembered that Alec had deplored the brutality in the suppression of protests in Nottinghamshire not long ago.

“We’ll stop in at the ironworks down Butterley way,” the speaker added. “There’s weapons there for the taking. Let anybody try to stop us, we’ll give him a taste of this.” He waved the gun over his head. “And there’s bread and beef and ale waiting in Nottingham. Cash money, too, for any man who comes. We’ll take over the damned army barracks. The whole country is ready to rise and join us. There’s sixteen thousand just waiting to march on to Newark!”

Another man began pounding on the door of a house behind the speaker. “Open up, Mary Hepworth!” he shouted. “Every house is required by the revolutionary committee to provide a man and a gun.”

“Get away with you!” screeched a female voice from within. “Criminals! You’re a disgrace to Derbyshire.”

Someone threw a stone and broke a window in the house. The man on the box continued to wave his gun, and all at once it fired through the shattered glass. Charlotte couldn’t tell if he’d aimed, or if it had simply gone off in his hand. But a cry rang out from within the house, followed by the female voice shouting, “You devil, you’ve killed Bill!”

Some of the men in the crowd fell back, murmuring. A good portion looked as if they might leave at this development. A few at the edges did fade into the darkness. “Stand where you are,” cried the shooter. “I’ll shoot any man who turns tail now. By God, I will.”

Horrified, Charlotte shrank into the deepest shadow. She hadn’t expected it would come to this, not murderous violence. She turned and fled silently back the way she had come.