Page 118 of Marry in Secret
“Oh, so he’ll be filthy, too? What a shame. He’s quite the dandy, your cousin Ambrose.” She looked at the portmanteau still standing on the wharf. “I suppose he’ll need his other clothes then.” And she tossed it in after Ambrose. It must have hit him, because as well as a splash she heard a yowl of pain or outrage, Rose wasn’t sure which. Nor did she care. She turned away from the water and linked her arm with Thomas’s. “Now, shall we go home?”
“So, you’d flee the country with me, would you?” he asked as they walked back. He sounded surprised. “If I’d killed him, I mean?”
“Of course I would, Thomas. How could you think otherwise?”
After a moment he said, “But you’d miss your family, terribly.”
“I know. I would hate not seeing them.” She hugged his arm tightly. “But you’re my family too, Thomas. My husband, who I love very much. And whither thou goest... Always.”
They walked on in silence. A small part of Rose ached, because again he hadn’t said it. She shouldn’t need him to speak the words, she told herself. Actions spoke louder than words, and his actions ought to be enough for her.
Theywereenough for her. Thomas was protective, supportive, and affectionate. And he made love to her like a dream. He was a wonderful husband. It was foolish to cry for the moon as well.
They reached the place where they’d left the horses and found Thomas’s urchin horse-guardian arguing fiercely with Kirk, the Ashendon groom.
“This big Scotch bugger was tryin’ to pinch your horses,” the boy said as soon as Thomas got near enough. “But I stopped him.”
“I wasna trying to steal them,” Kirk began with asperity. “I was checking to see—”
“I watered ’em, din’t I? Just like the man tole me to.AndI rubbed ’em down with a bit of straw.”
Thomas repressed a grin. “Thank you. You did a fine job. You may hand responsibility over to Kirk now.”
“You know ’im?” said the urchin suspiciously.
“I do. Here’s your money. You did a splendid job.” He handed the boy a gold sovereign.
Kirk blinked. “A yellow boy, just for minding your horses?”
“He prevented you from stealing them, didn’t he?”Thomas said mildly, and walked over to the curricle. He placed the small trunk on the floor and turned to Rose. “You drove the curricle?”
“If you tell me it’s not a vehicle for a lady, Thomas, I’ll scream. First Saul and then Kirk—he insisted on coming with me—”
“For which I’ll thank him later.” He lifted her into the curricle and climbed in after her. He called to Kirk, “We’ll spend the night at the White Hart in Broad Street. There’s a livery stables close by. If you don’t know the way, I’m sure our friend here will guide you for a small fee.”
“Half a crown,” the urchin said immediately.
Leaving Kirk and the boy haggling over the price, Thomas picked up the reins and moved off at a walk—the horses were very tired.
Rose slipped her arm through his. “You don’t mind, do you, that I hit your cousin? I just couldn’t let him leave without giving him a piece of my mind.”
“I know.” They left the docks area and headed into town. Thomas wasn’t sure that he could explain his decision to let Ambrose leave, unpunished. It had been an impulse of the moment, but the more he thought about it the more he felt it was the right thing to do. Even though it went against everything he believed. Or thought he believed.
The man had tried to kill him three times at least, by poison, shooting and tree branch. He’d forged Uncle Walter’s signature and sentenced Thomas to a life in slavery. He’d embezzled money from the estate he was employed to administer. On all these counts he deserved to be imprisoned, if not hanged.
“I hadn’t planned to let him go. I was all ready to drag him back and make him face justice. But there’s no evidence that it was him who tried to kill me, and shot you and poisoned Peter.”
“Didn’t he admit it?”
“Freely—to me, in the dark, with no witnesses. But that won’t hold up in court. We could get him for theembezzlement—that was the reason for it all—to cover up the fact that he’s been stealing from the estate—and me—for the past four years.”
“And the bank account mystery?”
“Yes, that was him, too.”
They turned into Broad Street and made their way toward the White Hart Hotel. “He’d be jailed, or most likely transported for the forgery and embezzlement, but that’s all.”
“Better than nothing.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “But you’re saying that it’s not worth pursuing him for the sake of justice?”
