When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,46
of law could reach into the English countryside, if not magistrates and runners?
Secondly: Was Matilda protecting family, and, if so, from whom?
Thirdly: If, in fact, the wisest course was for Matilda to flee to a distant corner of the earth, would she allow Duncan to flee with her?
“I am embroiled in a situation that has consequences at the highest levels, Mr. Wentworth, though my involvement began unintentionally. If I share with you what I know, you cannot claim the same innocence and will find yourself embroiled along with me.”
Stubborn woman. She’d fit right in among the Wentworths. “I enjoy nothing so much as a conundrum, which you apparently face. Embroil me, Miss Wakefield.”
She rose and paced across the room. “You must not call me that. Not when Lord Stephen could barge in here, not when a servant could listen at the keyhole. For all anybody knows, I stole that prayer book or purchased it used. I am Matilda to you, or Miss Maddie, but never Miss Wakefield.”
She’d expressed a wish to study their chess game, but now she was taking pieces off the board, lining them up in order of rank. Her white pawns, Duncan’s black pawns. Her bishop, knight, rook, and queen, her king.
“Matilda,” Duncan said, getting to his feet, despite the protest from his right knee. “Please calm yourself. You have made a minor slip by letting Stephen see your prayer book. He will carry your identity to his grave if need be, as will I. I’d rather not. I’d rather see you free of the burdens you carry, else I shall never have an opportunity to properly court you.”
She went still, Duncan’s king in her hand. “Did I hear you aright, Mr. Wentworth?”
“My name is Duncan. Your hearing is excellent.”
She set the king down slowly, right next to the white queen. “You seek to court me?”
“I most assuredly do.”
Based on the lady’s expression, this disclosure astonished her almost as much as it surprised Duncan.
* * *
The coachman and grooms, borrowed from Parker’s titled older brother, were unhappy to be poking around the countryside, and Parker was unhappy as well.
“She’s below middling height, dark-haired, and pretty, though not stunning,” Parker said.
The squint-eyed old fellow minding the tollbooth scratched under his cap. “Pretty, shortish, dark hair. That certainly narrows it down, guv, and you say she came this way sometime in the last four months?”
If Matilda had come that way at all. London sat at the confluence of many roads and could be escaped through dozens of turnpikes. Foot traffic often skirted the tollbooths, and Matilda was also a competent horsewoman.
“Or perhaps in the last two weeks.”
The old man shot a glance at the coachman, the same glance Parker had seen passed among enlisted men: Did you know yon gentleman is an idiot?
Parker was traveling out of uniform, the better to blend in among the hunt crowd and the squires. “She would have been intent on reaching a ducal property to the west of here, one that changed hands in the past few years.”
“A ducal property sits at the end of every cow path this close to London, sir, and they change hands every time some old buzzard goes to his reward.”
The pikesman spoke patiently, which Parker supposed was more than he deserved. “This is my card. If you should happen across a female traveling either direction, one who appears to be a lady fallen on hard times, dark-haired, petite, please notify me. She might be speaking a language other than English, but you’ll notice her comprehension of English is excellent.”
Parker’s card disappeared unread into a pocket, suggesting literacy was not required of his majesty’s tollkeepers.
“Why might you be looking for the young miss, sir? Is she a fugitive from the bench?”
The old man was apparently impervious to the cold, while Parker’s toes were turning to ice. “She’s not a fugitive, and there’s no reward…”
A coach horse stomped, the harness jingling in the frigid, gray air. Parker realized his error while the tollkeeper examined the bare trees lining both sides of the road.
“There’s half a crown in it,” Parker went on, “for the person who leads me to her. We are sweethearts, and her father has tried to come between us, but she’s of age, and so, obviously, am I.”
A clearly unimpressed perusal of Parker’s person followed. “‘For aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.’ I’ll keep an eye out for your lady, guv.