Page 29 of Hold Me Fast
“They are lovely horses,” Tamsyn said, her voice distant as if she was thinking of something else.
“We will send these beauties home to their owner,” he told her. “We turn here, and there, up ahead, is our transport for the next step. It’s not the final step, though. The hack will take us to the last vehicle of the day.”
Tamsyn giggled. “It is like the children’s game. Stop the music, and if there is not a horse to plop down on, you lose.”
She willingly allowed him to help her down from her horse and see her into the hack.
So far, so good.
*
By the timethey left London, Tammie’s mind was clear enough to be certain that this was reality and not another dream. She was impressed. The rescue had come off without a hitch. A friend of Jowan’s called Drew had supplied the horses—no fewer than eighteen had been needed in total—another friend the hackney coach, and a third the travel carriage they would use to go to Cornwall.
But not immediately. Jowan said they would spend a few days in Ealing at a house belonging to one of Drew’s friends. Just an hour from London, it was apparently used largely as a rural retreat.
“Drew tells me the house has a caretaker in the village,” Jowan explained, “but no permanent staff, since the owners usually bring their personal servants and a cook, and otherwise prefer to hire casual help from the village, as needed. Mrs. Wakefield—she played the maid who talked to you—has chosen servants who can be depended on to keep our secrets, and they will be waiting for us.”
“How long will we stay there?” Tammie asked. “Can we go straight to Cornwall? Or do you have business keeping you near London?”
“You are our business,” grumbled Bran. “By the way, who is Mac?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know anyone called Mac.
“Your footman told me that Mac knows,” Jowan said. “The Ballad of Tam Lin. Mac knows.That was the message.”
No matter how she wracked her brain, Tammie couldn’t figure out who Mac was or what he might know. “But you worked out the important part,” she pointed out to Jowan.
Bran groaned. “Jowan and I will spend our lives wondering who Mac is,” he complained.
Tammie didn’t know what to make of Bran. She had seen him with Jowan several times—in Hyde Park and when she was singing for ladies of the ton. It was a surprise to discover he was Jowan’s brother. There was a story there, and Tammie meant to find out what it was.
Bran was polite, but it was clear to Tammie that he was no happier about being part of a threesome than Tammie was. It was illogical of her to be upset. Of course, she hadn’t expected that she and Jowan would fall back into the same close friendship they had enjoyed before she was sent away. Nor had she expected them to be alone. She’d had a vague idea that he would provide a maid for propriety.
“We will go on to Cornwall once you are well again,” Jowan explained. “You told Mrs. Wakefield that you wanted to stop taking opium and the other substances?”
“I do,” Tammie declared, all the more strongly because she was not convinced she would succeed.
Jowan’s pleased nod made her even more determined to try. “You will be sick, they tell me, though they cannot be sure how sick. We will stay at Sunnynook—that is the house we are borrowing—until you feel ready to travel again.”
Tammie had to accept that. She had tried to stop before and had given up when the pain and the yearnings became too much for her. “Don’t let me have anything, Jowan. You must promise. Do not give me opium or alcohol or anything else. Promise me.”
Jowan searched her eyes. “I promise,” he replied solemnly.
Tammie was not satisfied. “No matter what I say, no matter how much I beg, hold fast,” she insisted, and Jowan nodded.
“You, too, Mr. Hughes,” Tammie said, fixing Bran with her best stare. “Promise you won’t let me have any drugs. I know it is going to hurt. I know I will feel as if I am dying, and Jowan will probably think the same. It is worth it. People hardly ever do die, or so I have been told. But if I do, at least I will have chosen. At least I will no longer be a slave to my own cravings.”
Some warmth came into Bran’s eyes for the first time. “I promise,” he said.
“You will have a nurse,” Jowan told her. “Someone who has been through this with other people. I don’t know how many or whom—Mrs. Wakefield mentioned men who had been put on laudanum after suffering injuries during the war and women who had taken laudanum for their nerves and then taken more and more. She knows what she is doing, Mrs. Wakefield says.”
“We’ll also have a cook and a general-purpose maid,” added Bran. “Just as well, for I don’t think you would want to eat my cooking.”
Tammie appreciated the man’s effort to lighten the moment but she had another concern. “Isn’t it dangerous to stay so close to London? What if Guy finds us? The Earl of Coombe, I mean.”
Jowan shook his head. “The only people in London who know where we are going are the Wakefields and Drew, and no one in Ealing will know who we are or why we are there. That’s why we are hiring our own servants.”
“We will be using false names,” Bran added. He pointed to his brother. “John Riddick.” An inclination of the head to Tammie. “Thomasina Riddick, his wife.” He put his hand on his own chest. “Barney Riddick, brother to John.”
