Page 8 of The Mad Baron's Bride
“Indeed,” said Lady Plume, who was more interested in waving to her acquaintance and studying their dress.
“Why would you think so?” Leda asked, curious.
“Have you seen the hillside carvings in Wiltshire? That’s chalk giving the horses their white coat. Same with the White Horse of Uffington and the Cerne Abbas giant. And we’ve chalk pits near my estate, very good for brick making, so very likely the ridge is contiguous.”
Leda wondered how a lord knew anything about stone. How easily, too, he remarked these mythical sights. As a gentleman,he had the leisure and the means to travel wherever he wished. So he assumed the same privilege available to everyone, never mind that some people had salaries to earn and depended on the protection of others for their every last need, which left no room for whims and very little leisure.
For a moment—a moment only—Leda contemplated what advantages might be offered the wife of a lord. Travel in her own carriage. Pin money. The title of her ladyship, and the accompanying respect.
But she knew well what was demanded of a wife—at least, a gentleman’s wife. The duties demanded of a lady would be compounded. Only the rare and fortunate woman achieved Lady Plume’s combination of wealth and liberty as a widow. Leda lacked the fortune as well as the liberty, and one gambled on being a lord’s wife, for the fate of the lord’s widow rested all too often on the sufferance of the heir.
No, she was better off where she was: quiet as a mouse in her bolt hole in Bath, outside the notice of any feral cats that might be hunting her. She was safe here.
And she would keep Brancaster—Jack—safe from her as well.
“I’ve a package to send,” Leda said as they turned into Westgate and neared the White Hart Inn. “Shall I meet up with you at the Pump Room?”
“We can wait.” Brancaster watched her produce the packet she’d been carrying in her cloth bag, wrapped tightly in oiled brown paper.
“One of the orphans you’re supporting, I suppose? Come along to the Pump Room when you’re finished,” Lady Plume said. “Brancaster must have his name in the book, so everyone will know he’s arrived.”
“My packet is worth more than five pounds, so I must register it, but I oughtn’t be long.”
“You do not fear being left on your own, Mrs. Wroth? Here’s a busy place.”
The White Hart was the oldest coaching inn in Bath, at the heart of the medieval borough, and the coach to Gloucestershire departed in half an hour, with all the attendant bustle as ostlers readied horses and passengers readied themselves. Leda blinked at him.
“I am quite accustomed to being on my own, Lord Brancaster.”
“I wish you would call me Jack.”
“On no account will I assume such familiarity, sir. It would hardly be proper.”
He drew nearer, his gray eyes lightening as his gaze touched each feature of her face. His look was as warm as a candle.
“I confess,” he murmured, “the word I associate with you is notproper.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “What vocabulary would you employ?”
He sketched a brief bow. “I will divulge that at another time. I await your company, madame. Something tells me I shall need you to navigate this place.”
“I expect you will do sufficiently well on your own.”
“But my own company cannot possibly yield the same pleasure. Adieu for now.”
Lady Plume emerged from her chair, deciding she could brave the short distance to the Abbey Churchyard, particularly since many of her acquaintance were converging on the same point. Her ladyship took little interest in Leda’s errands, so long as her companion was available to her when she wished, but Leda feared Brancaster had seen the address written in her bold hand on the front: Tytherton Kellaways.
But that could mean nothing to him, as it would mean nothing to Lady Plume should he remark on it. Only Leda knew what the place meant.
Her nerves were stretched thin as thread on a spindle, so perhaps that accounted for the trick her imagination played. Emerging from the coffee room of the inn was a man she hadn’t seen in eight years. A man she had hoped never to see again.
A man she’d been certain she’d never see again, because she’d killed him.
Leda nearly dropped her package in the yard, where the dirt had been churned to mud with the passage of hooves, feet, and roaming dogs. A hen in a cage, waiting to be loaded atop the next coach, screeched and fluttered its wings. Leda’s insides did the same.
That hair, slick as oil. That dark brow and long nose, the small eyes with their heavy lids, the pink lips puckered in perpetual distaste. That visage was burned into her memories, into her deepest fears. Her skin went cold with apprehension.
He turned toward Union Street, away from the Roman Baths, and Leda rushed to the counter inside to lose herself in what small crowd she could find.
