oath. “Devil take it, there’s not even enough time for me to dress your wound. You must go, Nick. You must hide yourself from Fred and the magistrate until my father returns next week, and then, when you come back, we shall go to Papa together and explain—”
“Why should I come back?” Nicholas spat in a sudden burst of anger. “I hate this cursed place.”
Maggie shook her head, denying the truth of his words. “Don’t say that.”
“I hate everything about it. I hate Sir Roderick and I hate Fred Burton-Smythe. I hate the vicar’s wife and your Aunt Daphne. I despise working in this damned stable and—”
“What about me?” she asked.
He felt a spasm of deep anguish. “How can one good thing outweigh all of this misery?”
“Well, you can’t go away and never come back. As horrible as everything else is, Jenny’s here, and I’m here, and you have someplace to sleep, and a chance to earn your living—”
“Earn my living? As what? A groom in your father’s stable?” Nicholas laughed bitterly. “I’ll never be a gentleman if I remain here. No matter how much you teach me about books and music and dancing. Bastards and commoners can never be made into gentlefolk, by no miracle. I’ll never be anything more than a servant to you. And one day…” He looked at her, his chest constricting with torment. “One day you’ll marry Fred Burton-Smythe, and you’ll forget I ever meant anything to you.”
“I would never!”
“I can’t be here when that day comes, Maggie. I’d rather be dead. And if I remain here, I might as well be. There’s no future for me as a servant at Beasley Park. Can’t you understand that?”
“But where else can you go?”
“To Bristol. To the sea. I’ll go to find my father.”
“Your father?” Maggie repeated. “Do you mean…Gentleman Jim?”
“Jenny says that the last time she ever heard anything of him, he was on his way to Bristol. Perhaps if I can find him, if I can convince him I’m his son, he’ll allow me to stay with him. To ride with him on his travels.”
“But you don’t even know for certain that Gentleman Jim is your father! Jenny has never admitted—”
“She’s never denied it. And everyone who remembers what Gentleman Jim looked like says I’m the very image of him.”
“Yes, I know that, but no one has seen him in ages. What if you can’t find him?”
Nicholas’s jaw hardened. “I will find him.”
Maggie glared at him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Confound you, Nicholas Seaton, you know there’s no time to argue!” She stamped her foot. “Oh, very well.” She reached into the folds of her cloak and drew out a small, heavily filled sack. “If you insist upon going, then you must take this with you.”
Nicholas eyed the sack warily. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. Most of my pin money and all of the little tokens Papa has given me in the last several years. A shilling here, a guinea there. I daresay it has added up to a tidy sum. I was going to give you a few coins to sustain you until Papa returns from London, but under the circumstances I think you must take it all.”
No.” Nicholas took a step back from her. “It’s a king’s ransom.”
“Good. Then I’ll never have to worry about you freezing to death or going hungry.” She thrust the sack of money at his chest. “Take it. And take Miss Belle, too. Ride her as far as the crossroads and then set her loose. She can find her way back to Beasley Park from anywhere in the county.”
Nicholas swallowed hard as he accepted the money. “Maggie Honeywell, you’re an angel.”
At his words, the first tears spilled over onto Maggie’s cheek. She dashed them away with her hand. “I know I will never see you again.”
Nicholas stepped closer, and reaching out, caught her little cleft chin in his hand. It was an old habit. Something he’d done since she was a little girl. But this time the gesture wasn’t