An Inconvenient Journey (Pevensey Mysteries #4)
Chapter 1
Ralph had considered obtaining a special license—considered it and dismissed it seconds later.
As a humble solicitor, he had no connections with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and although he had no doubt that Helena’s brother would supply the requisite funds, he had no idea whose palms would need to be greased before that connection with the archbishop could be established.
Equally out of the question was abiding by the normal process. If he submitted their names to the banns and waited for the announcement to be read for three consecutive Sundays, another month would fly by. Time was of the essence if rumors were to be stifled and scandal was to be quashed.
No, the only course of action open to him was the one that required no paperwork whatsoever.
He must abandon his predilection for law and order and head for England’s lawless neighbor to the north.
Mr. Ralph Aldine must take Lady Helena Angiers by coach straightway to be wed across the border in Scotland.
Helena fought back a rising wave of nausea.
The hired coach that Mr. Aldine had procured for the journey had far poorer springs than she was accustomed to, and every divot on the highway sent her heart into her throat.
Finch, her lady’s maid, offered a convenient elbow for Helena to cling to, but the bony servant was scant support after the pavement of London streets disappeared into a mess of hollows and ruts.
Across from her sat Mr. Aldine, still fingering the brim of his hat although he had taken it off more than an hour ago. And beside him was the Marquis de Montesquerrat, a friend of her brother’s whom he had sent along as an additional chaperon beyond the maid.
“Are you quite all right, Lady Helena?” asked Mr. Aldine for the third time, staring at her intently.
Helena put a hand to her cheek. Apparently, her countenance was as sickly as the contents of her stomach.
“I am well enough, Mr. Aldine,” she said simply.
She looked out the window at the gray, wintry landscape of London’s suburbs.
The January rain trickled down the glass in straight, tidy streams. If only her own life was as tidy and well-ordered.
Two weeks ago, she had been celebrating the gaiety of Christmas, an engagement ball, and the prospect of a winter wedding. Now she was being whisked away to a place she’d never been, by a man she hardly knew, in a manner fraught with secrecy and shame.
If she were honest, Helena must admit begrudgingly that she’d had a choice in the matter.
But, God knows, the choice her brother Geoffrey had given her was a limited one—deliver the baby in an anonymous corner of the country and give it up to be raised by another or marry the husband he’d found for her and raise the child as her own.
She had chosen the child...and the husband that came with it.
It could have been worse. At least Mr. Aldine was a respectable man. No, it was worse. He knew the full history of her past indiscretion since the father of the child was none other than his late half-brother.
“Please,” said Helena, clutching the dark fabric of her dress with both hands and willing herself not to be sick. “I must stop for the necessary as soon as we can.”
She saw the gentlemen exchange glances, no doubt irritated at having to stop after only two hours on the road. She gripped Finch’s arm all the tighter.
“Of course,” said Mr. Aldine with a sympathetic smile, right as the marquis said, “Bien s?r, madame,” with an equally sympathetic look.
She supposed that she ought to be grateful that her brother—incapacitated as he was from a recent duel—had sent someone else along so that she need not be alone with her intended until the vows were solemnized.
But somehow, it made the entire experience more galling, to have the marquis whom she had dined with at supper balls and played with at card parties witnessing her shame.
Finch would have been enough. The marquis was entirely superfluous.