Chapter 7
Mantheria discovered rather quickly that she was not fond of traveling in mail coaches.
The couple beside her kept inching her closer to the wall of the carriage, and the family across the bench seemed to be unaware that they were supposed to close their mouths while chewing their breakfast. They were not silent eaters either.
They crunched their nuts and made sure everyone in the carriage heard every bite from each green apple.
Mantheria sincerely hoped the apples were tart—her temper certainly was.
Every stop along the way seemed to take much longer than it should have. And more people joined the crowded carriage at each stage. The munching family held their two children on their laps as four more occupants pushed their way onto the benches.
She tried to close her eyes and catch up on some much-needed sleep, but it was simply too noisy.
The horses. The carriage itself. And the people inside it.
One man in particular she could have sworn did not draw breath for an entire quarter of an hour, but instead, he kept speaking at a steady flow that a river could have been jealous of.
He was thin-faced and sparse of hair, but he was certainly thick with conversation about Fordyce’s sermons.
Mantheria did not wish to know, but she was soon in possession of a great many facts about the thin-faced man (and Fordyce, of course).
The man was receiving his first parish, being ordained at the age of four and twenty, and it was in the gift of his uncle, Sir Martin Shelley, a baronet of some consequence. At least, according to his nephew.
Mantheria hadn’t realized how privileged her life had been.
She had never before ridden with strangers on a stagecoach or mail coach, or any type of public transportation.
She’d always been conveyed in private vehicles of the very highest quality.
This was certainly an adventure, and she could only pray that Andrew was enjoying his experience more than she was.
Her head ached, and her body temperature was rising.
The stench of body odor grew stronger as the hours passed by.
Happily, the chatty vicar got off in Calne, but then the loud-chewing family had purchased cold chicken from the posting inn and crunched it loudly for the next hour.
And the woman next to her smelled very strongly of cabbage. Not her favorite vegetable.
Mantheria’s stomach rumbled, but she found that she didn’t have an appetite.
Frowning, she tapped her foot impatiently.
How could she eat when she didn’t know whether or not her son was safe?
He’d never been out on his own before. Andrew had always been carefully watched by nurses, footmen, maids, governesses, and most importantly, his own mother.
Like her parents, she’d spent a significant part of each day with her child.
Sighing, she wished the mail coach would speed up or that the driver would waste less time at each stop.
Mantheria couldn’t help but wonder if Andrew left because of something she had said or done.
No matter how hard she tried, she was not a perfect mother—although she’d always strived to be a loving one.
Her stomach churned uncomfortably, and she couldn’t stop herself from pinching the skin at her throat.
If only she hadn’t given Andrew some space for his grieving.
If only she’d returned to Avalon Palace when he’d asked to.
If only she hadn’t failed as a wife and then as a mother.
* * *
The mail coach arrived in Bath at half past five o’clock in the evening.
It pulled in front of the George Hotel. Even though Mantheria’s neck was stiff, she could have sworn on her life that she’d never seen a more beautiful building.
Not that the hotel was anything out of the common way, but that it meant she was finally in the city where her son was.
And she would be exiting the stuffy, crowded mail coach and saying farewell to her fellow travelers—hopefully forever.
A groom opened the door to the carriage and helped her down.
Then the groom handed Mantheria her bedraggled bandbox.
Both she and her only piece of luggage had seen better days.
Breathing in deeply, she walked into the George Hotel like the duchess that she was.
But unlike her previous experiences with posting inns, no one came immediately to wait upon her.
In fact, she was left standing and waiting for over a quarter of an hour.
Rubbing her leg through her skirt, Mantheria couldn’t help but feel that these were fifteen precious minutes that she might have been locating her beloved son.
Her temper was fraying like the hem of her new mourning gown.
She put her hand in the pocket of her pelisse and felt for her coin purse.
Her hand squeezed it to release some of the anger that was about to boil out of her.
Mantheria walked up to the tapster. “Sir, have you seen a boy of eleven wearing mourning clothes, with blue eyes and dark hair? He would have gotten off the mail coach earlier today.”
He wiped the tumbler that he was holding with a cloth. “Can’t say that I have, ma’am. Not all of the passengers come inside the hotel.”
“Your Grace,” Mantheria said between clenched teeth. It wasn’t that she cared whether or not people called her by her title, but she knew the power that it possessed. And a duchess would get results, whereas an average widow would not.
“You could be the Queen of Sheba, ma’am,” the tapster said, picking up another tumbler and starting to dry it, “but I don’t pay attention to the comings and goings of stagecoaches, and I doubt duchesses do either.”
She sucked her teeth in surprise. It had never occurred to Mantheria that people would not believe that she was a duchess. It had never happened before. But then she’d never traveled unescorted by servants and outriders before. “May I speak to the proprietor?”
The tapster pointed a finger at a man on the other side of the room, who was wearing a black suit with a green waistcoat.
He was rather round in the chest and stomach area, but then he had very small and slender legs.
“You’re welcome to talk to Mr. Edwards, but he’s a downy one.
Don’t think that you can fool him with your fairy stories of being a duchess. ”
Without bothering to thank the unhelpful tapster, Mantheria went over to the proprietor.
She held her head high and said in her most duchess-like voice, “I am the Duchess of Glastonbury, and I require your best room and a private parlor. And I should like to make inquiries about a young boy, dressed in black, who got off the stagecoach earlier today. He is my son, and I believe he may be in trouble.”
Like the tapster before him, Mr. Edwards looked behind Mantheria for a maid, a footman, a companion, or any servants at all. He raised one of his eyebrows. “Didn’t you just arrive on the mail coach?”
Barely holding onto her seething temper, Mantheria forced herself to take a breath before she answered him. “My traveling carriage lost a wheel near Southall, and I am desperate to find my son, who has run away.”
“A young lord, I take it?” The tone of his voice was softly mocking.
“Actually, he’s a duke,” a familiar voice said.
Spinning around, Mantheria saw Sunny. His face was rather pale and haggard.
He must have ridden all day to catch up with her.
Instinctively, Mantheria threw her arms around him, briefly forgetting that his shoulder was injured and that she was in the middle of a public inn.
As she squeezed him tightly around his trim middle, she couldn’t help but be grateful that he had not given up on her and stayed at the inn in Southall. Or returned to London.
He’d come to help her.
She wanted to rub her face against his coat and cry. It had been such an awful and terrible day without him. Tears filled her eyes, and her legs felt distinctly wobbly.
But instead of returning her most inappropriate and public embrace, he gently detached her from him and took off his hat.
Mantheria’s knees nearly buckled. The proprietor seemed to recognize him at once and bowed twice as if to make up for his rudeness from before, and he smiled obsequiously.
“Your Grace, we are honored that you would choose our establishment again.”
Sunny’s countenance remained grave, but he was polite.
“Thank you, Edwards. The Duchess of Glastonbury requires a bedchamber, a private parlor, a hot bath, and a warm meal. I should like the same, but first, I need to speak to your employee about the stagecoaches. I will need a full list of names of who got off the coaches today and the addresses of their destinations, if possible.”
Why hadn’t Mantheria thought of that first? She’d been so intent on becoming presentable before asking questions that she had wasted precious time.
Mr. Edwards bowed repeatedly as he backed away from them.
Mantheria touched Sunny’s arm, and he flinched.
She dropped her hand. She’d been rebuffed for the second time that day, and it wasn’t as if she could blame him.
Her behavior had been that of a hoyden instead of a proper lady.
No doubt he was ashamed to be seen with such a disheveled duchess.
“I should like to go with you and speak to the employee.”
“You look dead on your feet, and you smell strongly of cabbage.”
Needled, Mantheria retorted, “Well, you look dead on your feet, and you smell of horse.”
Sunny’s lips twitched, and then he chuckled as if he couldn’t hold in his amusement any longer.
“I am certain that I do, and I have every intention of enjoying a bath after I start sending inquiries to the previous occupants of the stagecoach. And before you suggest that two heads are better than one, if you were to faint from exhaustion or lack of nutrition, you’d very much be in the way. ”