Page 117 of His Duchess in Disguise
“So, you say the young lady was distraught at being offered a good marriage?” the stocky man asked.
“She is very young, and I’m afraid I’ve indulged her,” the distraught father said. “I have come upon hard times, and this is the best way to give her security. Alas, I have no idea what will become of me. Or what has become of her, now.”
The man’s face was completely impassive. He turned to the bereft bridegroom. “How did you meet the young lady?”
“At her coming-out ball. I am quite taken with her.” The speech was delivered with all the enthusiasm, or possibly even less, of a man who has found a prime mare for his breeding stock. “I have need of a wife, and I believe she will do admirably.”
The stocky man looked the man over skeptically. Then he said, “You are offering a reward for her return?”
“Yes, yes,” said the father, weeping into his cup.
“I am,” the bridegroom said. “She is one of a kind, quite irreplaceable.”
“I’ll expect at least half the amount of the reward upfront, and the rest when she is returned. But now, here’s the thing: if she don’t come willing, I’m not going to bind her or drag her back kicking and screaming. If she don’t want to come back, the front money is mine to keep.”
“That hardly seems reasonable.” The father emerged owlishly from his drink. “We are paying you to find and return my daughter.”
“No such thing,” the man said firmly. “You are paying me to find her. For all I know, she ran off and married up behind yer back. I’ll find her, I’ll bring word of her, but I am not a slaver. You’ll have to do the bringing back by force on your own.”
“Done,” said the bridegroom. “You find her and leave the rest to me. Or, if you want the full reward, bring her back. But any bribes or greasing of palms you must do along the road come out of the advance. You’ll receive nothing further until you return with my blushing bride.”
“Don’t want much, does ye?” the stocky man looked the bridegroom over. “Seems like a fine young man such as yerself should be able to keep a woman on the string. But the ways of the gentry are ever a mystery to such as I. Me, I like my women both willing and loyal. Don’t seem to me you are getting either here.”
“She’ll come around,” the bridegroom said confidently. “She was just shocked and startled by the way her father told her of her upcoming nuptials.”
“Well then, I’ll have my twenty ponies upfront, an’ I’ll do my own greasin’ of palms. If I brings the girl back, that’s another monkey into my hand.”
“Of course,” said the bridegroom, with scarcely a wince at all. He brought out a heavy pouch containing ten gold coins, as well as a bundle of banknotes, and patiently waited with the stocky man counted out his advance.
“Don’t be thinkin’ to rob me along the way,” the fellow said. “I’m far from alone. I’ve dealt with yer kind before, an’ I’ll count myself lucky to get out with my skin intact. But I’m fair strapped fer tha ready, and I’ll take yer deal.”
With that, the stocky man walked out of the dingy private room of an even dingier inn, leaving the grief-stricken father and bereft bridegroom alone. The father looked into the dregs at the bottom of his cup and said, “Are you not sure that you should not simply allow me to rent the cove to you?”
“When I could own it and have so fine a young lady as your daughter to wife? No, this has become a matter of principle. I will have her, and she will like it. You shall see.”
Besides, did you think that I would really give the fellow genuine guineas and good banknotes? Just wait until someone weighs those coins or takes one of those notes to the bank.
The bridegroom smiled at the father. “You will soon have your darling Emma back in your household, and she shall then quickly be transferred to mine. I’ll see to it that she doesn’t take any more unplanned excursions into the countryside.”
“Of course, of course.” The Baron of Calber downed the last of the liquid in the bottom of his cup. “And I am grateful. My poor, naïve daughter. How will she ever be able to make her way in the world?”
* * *
Some days later, the stocky man stumped into a pretty little village inn. The place was called The Leaning Stone, and the legend on the sign bore a strong resemblance to the great standing stones the man had passed out on the chalk. He was not in the best of moods, for some of the banknotes and turned out to be counterfeit, but he was still able to pass them to some of the locals who took no thought to check.
He used one of the bad bills now to purchase a small beer and a bowl of barley soup. He almost felt regretful afterward, for the beer was not bad, and the soup was pleasantly filling. But he felt no remorse at all about pressing a few of the false notes on a young man who was boasting about the new kitchen maid up at the manor house.
“She’s a prime ‘un,” the youth had declared. “She’s indifferent to me now, but I’ll have her come round to my way o’ thinkin’ soon.”
One thing had led to another, especially when the stocky man paid for some of the inn’s better brews with a good, gold coin and wheedled the young man into a bet that he could get the kitchen maid to come down to the Inn for a cup or two.
“I kin do it,” the youth had boasted. “She’ll be that impressed. She sleeps downstairs off the laundry room. It won’t be hard at all.”
Chapter 25
Emma soaked in the big tub in the laundry room. She didn’t have a bathing robe, so the wet fabric of her chemise clung to her beneath the enshrouding sheet she had draped over the wooden rim of the tub for the sake of decency. Her backside ached from contact with the saddle, her spine hurt from sitting up straight in a side-saddle, and the inside of her left knee was chafed from the knee support. But her heart was light and her head full of daydreams.
Complete foolishness. But it was so wonderful to ride beside the Duke and talk with him, just as if we were equals. And books. I have a whole room full of books to look after and to read. There are so many I don’t think I can get through all of them in a lifetime. Perhaps I shall grow old in his service and be the keeper of the library for many years to come.
