Chapter Two
“I’ll ride over tonight, Father,” Pel said, firmly. “I shall be at the church in the morning, I promise you. But surely a groom has a right to choose how to spend the last night before his wedding?”
Let Father imagine a night of drunken dissipation, if it would keep him from interfering. Pel had an entirely different plan for the evening.
Rumor had it that Lady Margherita Ruthermond was not going to be the bride tomorrow morning. It might be true. After all, the other rumor doing the rounds was that Clay was not going to be groom. Hoping that Clay would change his mind, Father had told no one about his planned substitution.
Therefore, as far as the public knew, Lady Margherita would be marrying Lord Clayton tomorrow morning. In real life, however, Clay had not only failed to sober up. He had disappeared entirely.
Pel had spoken to him after the interview with Father. “You should sober up, Clay. You don’t need to stay drunk now. I’ve agreed to be the substitute groom.”
Clay shook his head with the slow deliberation of the truly sozzled.
“You won’t catch me that way, Pel. I’m not that stupid,” he said, his enunciation only slightly blurred at the edges.
“Going to stay drunk till you’re wedded and bedded.
Sorry, and all that, but it’s the only way.
Calf to the slaughter, and all that. But better you than me. ”
After that, he had gone off somewhere, and no one admitted to seeing him. He was hiding, Pel assumed. So, Pel was about to married. The only question was, to whom?
It made no difference to the agreement, which merely called for marriage between a daughter of the Marquess of Ilton and a son of the Duke of Harwood.
Pel, who had spent the last fortnight finding out everything he could about Ilton’s daughters, thought the identity of the bride might make a huge difference to the groom. Tonight, he intended to find out whether the stories he’d heard were true.
He saddled his horse, turning away any offers of help—from the stablemaster—and suggestions of a drink—from one of his cousins. “I want my wits about me while I’m riding into Coombe,” he told his cousin.
“And for your brother’s wedding,” said his cousin. “Poor Clay.”
“And poor bride,” Pel suggested.
That is, if the wedding had gone ahead as planned.
If Clay had been the groom, the marriage was doomed, and so was the peace.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Father’s heir was both spoilt and stupid.
Lady Margherita was clever, by all accounts, but just as spoilt.
And both insisted on having their own way in all things.
If Pel was marrying Lady Margherita tomorrow, he was in for a miserable time. But he hoped for better, and if tonight turned out the way he wanted, perhaps he and his bride could come to an agreement of their own before the ring was on her finger and their fates were sealed.
An hour later, he tied his horse up in one of the lean-to sheds in the far corner of the field that adjoined the Crown and Unicorn. No need to advertise his presence. In fact, his intention was to slip in quietly, meet the lady, and depart with as little fuss as possible.
It could be a little tricky, for there were men in Ilton livery posted in front of the inn, and probably all around it too. However, Pel had a trick or two up his sleeve.
He fetched water for the horse and gave it the oats he had brought with him and a forkful of hay from the stack that occupied another of the sheds. Then he stepped quietly but swiftly along the hedgerow toward the inn.
Ilton had men patrolling the gardens. Pel knew how to keep to the shadows and move silently. No one saw him.
Reaching the stables, he waited and watched.
He had timed his ride to arrive here after most of the guests had settled to their beds, and fifteen minutes was enough to confirm that most of the indoor servants and grooms had also finished up for the night.
And both the Ilton men posted to the stable yard were at the road entrance, leaning against the gate posts, half-asleep.
At last, Pel’s patience was rewarded when someone he knew came out into the stable yard. “Hsst.” The noise had his quarry tripping slightly over his own feet. “Over here,” Pel whispered.
“Master Pelham?” The boy had been a stable boy at the Harwood stables until Pel found out he was being bullied and had arranged for him to take a job as one of the under-grooms here at the inn.
“Yes, it’s me. Jack, are the Marquess of Ilton and his daughter staying here tonight?”
Jack nodded, looking wary.
“How big is his party?” Pel asked.
“Master Pelham,” whined the boy, “you’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?”
“Not at all,” Pel assured him. It wasn’t in the least crazy to meet the lady who would be his wife tomorrow, even if it meant invading her bedchamber in secret.
“I promise you, Jack, I mean the lady no harm, and no one else shall know I am here. All I need is to confirm she is in one of the three bedchambers on the southern face of the inn, looking out over the private garden and the river. Can you find out for me? And if you can find out which one, there’ll be a half crown for you. ”
Jack’s worried expression didn’t ease, but he said, “She’s in the one on the corner, sir. The whole inn is talking about it. Her father has the one next door, and there are footmen in the passage, to keep the lady safe. You’ll not be able to see her, Master Pelham, so don’t think to try.”
Pel handed over the half-crown the information had earned.
“I’ll not be caught, Jack. And if I am, I’ll not give you away.
” And—since I’m to be groom tomorrow—if I was caught, I’d not be harmed.
He wasn’t too certain of that latter point, but he did not intend to give Ilton’s men a chance to hurt him.
He went back along the stable wall the way he had come, followed by Jack’s whispered admonition to be careful. His goal now was another of the sheds at the far end of the field.
A quick visit to make certain his mount was comfortable, and he headed for the least visible and most tumbledown of the buildings.
Tumbledown at first sight, that was. In truth, with the judicious removal of a single loose beam, the rest of the apparent mess of beams and planks proved to be a door, moving as one unit to allow access to a flight of steps, leading downward.
Fumbling around just inside the door, Pel found a store of candles and a tinder box. He soon had a light, and was on his way down to the network of smugglers tunnel he knew about only because of a long-ago boyhood adventure, retrieving Clay from one of his scrapes.
Come to think of it, rescuing his brother was also the reason he was here again tonight.
The tunnel led to the inn’s cellars, and a hatch in those cellars let out into the inn’s walled garden.
Since the only other entrance to the garden was from the inn’s kitchen, there was no need for Ilton to have set guards out there.
Around the outside of the wall, yes, and inside the inn. But not in the garden where they might disturb the privacy of Ilton’s daughter. That’s how Pel would organize it, and he was counting on Ilton to make the same calculation.
As for the cellars, Pel had been told that only the innkeeper came down into the part where the tunnels came out. He was unlikely to do so at this time of night, for no doubt he had long since fetched any wine or brandy or other such supplies needed for the evening.
Sure enough, when he cautiously opened the door at the end of the tunnel, the lack of light showed that the rooms beyond were deserted. He closed the door behind him and made his way through the tangle of rooms to the one he needed.
Perhaps it had once been a coal or wood store, for the hatch to the outside seemed designed for delivering heavy goods directly to the cellars.
If that was the case, it had lost its purpose when the garden was enclosed, and it now contained nothing more than stored vegetables and fruits from last autumn’s harvest—root vegetables stored in tubs of straw, trays of apples, and other such produce.
He hoped that anything needed for the kitchen had been fetched much earlier in the evening, and again, he was in luck.
No one was there to see him stack several boxes to access the hatch, unlatch it, and clamber out.
Once the hatch was lowered again, but not latched, his escape route was unobtrusive but easily accessible.
Now to see how easily he could climb to Ilton’s daughter’s balcony.
*
Sleep evaded Mima. She eventually gave up trying. Instead, she put a robe on over her night rail and wandered out onto the chamber’s balcony.
It was safe enough. At this time of night, no one was in the enclosed garden, and even if there were, the kitchen garden was at the other end, and the outdoor space for inn guests to enjoy an ale in the sun next to that.
If anyone was in the garden, their view of her balcony would be screened by the orchard that spread below her, from here by the inn’s main building all the way to the far wall of the enclosure.
She leaned against the balustrade. Blossoms on the trees gleamed white in the moonlight, reminding her of weddings and then of the ordeal that awaited her.
If only she knew what Harwood’s son was like. Lord Clayton had a name for being part of every riot and rumpus within riding distance of Marshhold, including the incident at Coombe that was the proximate cause of the peace agreement between the two families and therefore the wedding.
That did not make him a bad man. Her three brothers and her male cousins had also been part of the Coombe riot.
On the other hand, it did not make him a good man. Lord Clayton also had a name for being a womanizer, and if that distinction likewise applied to her brothers and cousins, it still did not promise a happy marriage. A man like her brothers and cousins would be her last choice as husband.