Oh, Lord. She looked like some kind of magnificent avenging angel. She could not possibly go striding off in the vague direction of Wales on her own.
Why the devil had he not ducked back into his room the moment he heard her voice? She would have remembered her cottage without his help once she had calmed down. How she got there would have been none of his concern.
It was not his concern now.
Perhaps this was meant to be, Sir Benedict.
Do you believe that sometimes life points out a way for us to follow …
Lord, Lord, Lord. Why had he not left for London and Hugo’s wedding at the same time as Beatrice left for Berkshire?
“Even if I were to accompany you on your journey,” he said, “what would you do at the end of it, without any servants except presumably a maid and without friends or a companion? What if the cottage needs a great deal of work before it is habitable, assuming it is habitable at all?”
She would find somewhere else to rent, in a part of the country where half her heritage lay. She had already said that.
“I suppose,” she said, “there are servants there to be hired. And I can make friends. I do not fear being alone. I have been essentially alone for seven years and have survived. Are you thinking of accompanying me, then?”
His legs were aching from standing so long in the same position.
“How can I allow you to go alone?” he asked her.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You have no power to allow me to do anything, Sir Benedict,” she said. “Or to prevent me from doing anything. You are not my husband.”
“Thank the Lord,” he said ungraciously.
Her chin went up a notch, but she relented and lowered it again. “How very unjust of me,” she said. “I burst in upon you uninvited and unburdened myself of all my woes, yet now I am taking exception to your concern for my safety. It is kind of you to be concerned. But it is not your problem, you know. I am not your problem. I had better return home. Thank you for receiving me. I know you did not wish to do so. You have been avoiding me, and I do not blame you.”
“For your own good,” he told her, exasperated. “How long would it have been before the whole neighborhood was gossiping if we had become friends, Mrs. McKay, and had kept visiting each other without any sort of chaperonage?”
“Not long at all,” she said. “I told you I did not blame you. And I do realize that it was you who gave Lady Gramley the idea of bringing the vicar’s wife to my home so that I could become involved in parish and community activities. I am grateful to you for that.”
He was not really listening. He was thinking of traveling all day with her for a week or more in the close confines of a carriage. Of taking all his meals with her. Of their staying each night at the same inn. And he felt an unreasonable resentment, for she had not asked it of him after that first impulsive suggestion that he must go with her.
Good Lord, her reputation would be in shreds, and that was probably a gross understatement.
“You force me to very bad manners, Mrs. McKay,” he said. “I am entertaining you in my sister’s house, yet I am afraid I will have to sit while you stand.”
“I ought to have noticed your discomfort,” she said, seating herself on the sofa while he returned to his chair. “I am sorry. I have caused you nothing but discomfort since the moment of my arrival. I shall leave, and you must forget I was even here. You are going to Scotland, are you not? I have heard it is lovely there.”
She got abruptly to her feet again, and her dog took up his position beside her, his tail waving hopefully.
Ben regarded her irritably. “I believe,” he said, “I must have been a close personal friend of the late Captain Matthew McKay. I believe I must have promised him when he was on his deathbed that I would escort his widow to Wales, where he wished her to take up residence in the cottage she inherited before her marriage. I believe I must use my full credentials again and be known as Major Sir Benedict Harper.”
She looked down at him, her eyes fathomless.
“We may just get away with it,” he said, “without completely wrecking your reputation.”
“You are coming?” She almost whispered the words.
“We had better take my carriage,” he said. “But we need to decide how we are to get you away from Bramble Hall tomorrow without causing a great fuss and bother among the servants, especially those burly strangers.”
The dog flopped down onto all fours and proceeded to lick his paws. He had sensed further delay. Mrs. McKay’s hands were clasped so tightly at her waist that Ben could see the whites of her knuckles. But then her eyes brightened and even sparkled.
“With great stealth,” she said.
11
Samantha’s longtime maid had left her service after Matthew’s death, when she had married his valet. Her replacement was the young daughter of the cook, a cheerful girl who was well liked by all the other servants. Samantha liked her too, but she dared not confide in her or suggest taking the girl with her when she left Bramble Hall. Everyone in the house would know about it within minutes.
No one could forcibly stop her from leaving, of course, Samantha told herself. She was not a prisoner in her own home. Those servants from Leyland could not literally force her into the carriage and convey her all the way to Kent against her will. But, much as she tried to talk rational common sense into herself, she was not convinced that they would not do just that.
All the other servants at the house were technically the earl’s too. He paid their salaries.