Chapter Eight
THEY REACHED THE well-worn path, and he turned back the way they had come, keeping her hand in his as they walked side by side again.
Eventually, he took a deep breath and turned his head to catch her eye. “And it is done.”
“It went well, then?” she asked.
“As well as could be expected,” he said, facing forward again. “The carriage driver had relayed the message, and the other carriage had been dealt with without extensive incident. He shall have the carriage properly repaired and meet up with me in Richmond tomorrow.”
“And then you’ll have a review of this . . . um, transport to see if you’ll continue to be a courier?” It seemed so unfair that this might end something that had been so important to him these last years. It had literally been part of him becoming the man he was.
“Certainly,” he said, though she could hear the regret in his tone. “I have always known it would come to an end one day, and there is a sense of relief too.”
“There is?” She was a tiny bit disappointed to hear this.
“I have needed, for some time, to get about the business of my own life—something your brother is apt to remind me of every time we meet. I say, once he found a bride, he was quite determined that I find one too.”
Veronica laughed. “Well, Diana is particularly lovely. Every couple should be so happy.”
“They are well-suited, to be sure,” Geoffery said, squeezing her hand. “Only I want a woman with a bit more . . . steadiness.”
She lifted her eyebrows, but he did not give her time to speak.
“My father is not getting any younger, and my brother is content to stay in his role as long as he can, which puts responsibility upon my shoulders to settle in at the estate and be ready to shoulder the management for as long as I need to.”
“Oh,” Veronica said, not taking the time to define all the feelings coursing through her at this information.
Steadiness—was he referring to her, or was it simply one aspect he was looking for in a wife?
It embarrassed her to assume, and she pushed herself to stay engaged in the conversation.
“After all you’ve done, will that sort of life feel . . . stagnant?”
“I hope not,” he said with a light laugh as he glanced at her again before facing forward with a shake of his head.
“Many a second son would love to have such an opportunity, and while I have found satisfaction in being a small part of big action on behalf of my government, I am not opposed to seeking my own future. I never meant to put off family, but I have not wanted to put anyone else in an awkward position, either by holding back information or burdening her with details that could be unsettling.”
Her. A fissure of jealousy burned through Veronica at the thought of this unrealized woman, Mrs. Geoffery Meyers.
“You’ve someone in mind, then?” Veronica said in as casual a tone as she could muster. She pretended to be distracted by a sparrow jumping from one branch to another beside the road, allowing her to turn away from him as she asked the question.
“I haven’t,” he said with equal casualness. And then he squeezed her hand. She turned to look at him.
He said nothing.
Veronica considered a dozen interpretations of that nothingness until the sound of wheels caused both of them to snap their attention forward. Was there a road ahead?
Instead of pulling them into the trees to hide as she expected, Geoffery took a step forward on the path, toward the sound of the wheels on the road she couldn’t see.
She pulled back, grasping their held hands with her free one.
“The highwaymen,” she said, flushed with panic, eyes darting about to find a hiding place.
“They were in a coach. This is a wagon, and the road is not graveled, only dirt. A farmer, probably, and just what we need.”
She straightened. “Really? You know all that from the mere sound of it?”
He smiled and pulled her forward again, dropping her hand just as the path intersected with what was, indeed, a farm road.
A farmer pulling a wagon full of hay brought his nag to a stop.
After Geoffery explained that Veronica was his sister, and they had splintered a wheel on Bayhurst Road and gotten quite turned around in the woods, the farmer agreed to drive them to a posting inn—Eagle Crest—a few miles down the road, for which Geoffery paid him with a bright gold Guinea he produced from .
. . Veronica did not even pretend to guess.
The man had as many pockets as he did surprises.
At Eagle Crest, Geoffery procured them a table as though he’d been to this pub a hundred times. Within ten minutes of helping her into a chair, they had two plates of hot kidney pie and fried potatoes laid before them—the very meal she’d been imagining back in the seat box of Geoffery’s carriage.
Veronica glanced from the plate to her companion on the other side of the table, dressed in his velvet coat and mismatched hat. “Thank you,” she said as she picked up her cutlery.
“Of course,” he said, picking up his own fork.
“As we are now saved from starvation, we can discuss what to do next.” He popped out his pocket watch while chewing a bite and then returned it to the pocket.
“I was thinking that if we could get to Richmond, perhaps we could hire a carriage there to take you on to Andover, since I won’t be able to leave until I meet up with the carriage driver tomorrow. I’m not sure how to explain—”
“You won’t need to explain anything,” Veronica said, taking her third bite of the absolutely delicious pie. When contrasted against her hunger, it was the best kidney pie she’d ever had. “I’ve made a plan of my own, and it will spare us both, I hope.”
He raised his eyebrows. “How so?”
“Well,” Veronica said, then pointed her fork toward a man seated at the table just ahead of them, “while you were ordering us this fine meal, I overheard that man talking to the innkeeper. He’s the mail coach driver and is waiting to meet an older woman he’ll be taking to London.
Covent Gardens, to be exact, from which will be an easy walk to my house in Mayfair.
” She then pointed to the clock on the other side of the pub.
“He’s leaving at ten minutes past ten, which is fifteen minutes from now, and agreed to take a case of port to London for the innkeeper because he’ll still have an empty seat.
He’s getting a free breakfast in exchange. ”
“And you mean to take that space?” He had stopped eating, setting down his fork as she explained her plan, and she thought he looked a bit disappointed, which she found rather lovely.
“When you first discovered me in the carriage, you said that it did not matter whether or not I liked London because there was a purpose to my being there. If I return to London and you go on to Andover, any potential connection between us is more likely to remain undiscovered. The last thing you need is to have any sort of scandal or question attached to my arrival at home right now.”
“Miss Veronica,” he said as he sat back in his chair, “are you sure?”
“I am,” she said with a nod. “I put things in play before I left the London house that will shield my flight from being discovered until my maid comes to wake me at noon.”
His lips tightened at the flaw in her plan, which she’d expected him to uncover.
She continued before he could say it out loud.
“I will not be back in time to hide what I’ve done, I know, but I shall come in through the front door within an hour or so of them realizing I’d gone.
My mother will be absolutely furious with me, but I shall confess that I was unable to follow through.
It is not even a lie, exactly.” She shrugged while affecting an innocent expression.
Geoffery stared back at her, looking conflicted.
“At best,” she continued, “I shall have a chance to share the depths of my thoughts and feelings about having so little say in my future. I shall certainly have their attention.”
“And at worst?”
Veronica shrugged again and cut another bite of kidney pie.
“The terms remain as they are, and I have to endure another layer of my mother’s disappointment in me.
Either option is preferable to something that would add risk to your situation.
Under the circumstances, I think it is the best plan.
I think I would also benefit from finding a way to be myself in London.
As you said, life cannot be only about what I want, but perhaps I can find a way to satisfy my parents and myself.
Perhaps this morning’s events have given me some . . . growing up.”
She smiled at him, and he lifted his fork and smiled back.
“You’ll be, uh, safe going on to Richmond?” she asked after they’d both taken a few more bites.
“Yes, I have no worries there,” Geoffery said. “And you’ll be comfortable returning by mail coach?”
“I wore my plainest dress and look nothing the part of a gentlewoman who would be above such means of travel, which of course, I am not above.” She fingered the unraveling plait lying over one shoulder as further evidence of her lack of gentility.
“I have ridden by mail coach before when visiting my father’s family in Alton.
” Of course, that had been a shorter distance and had not involved London, but she was still resolute on this plan.
“You are a woman of many surprises,” he said, smiling at her across the rough-hewn table.
“Says you,” she replied with a grin.
They held each other’s eyes, then returned to their meals.
Veronica kept an eye on the clock, and when the mail coach driver stood to leave, she hurried to excuse herself from the table.
She intercepted the coachman before he exited.
An elderly woman was just stepping out of another mail coach that had just arrived, likely the patron he’d been waiting for.
“Well, I have a delivery taking that space,” he said after she asked for a seat.
“I shall carry it on my lap,” she said with a bright smile, understanding that he’d already received his meal in trade for transporting the liquor.
“And pay my usual fare. I very much need to get to London as soon as possible, sir.” Even as she said it, she realized she had no money—yet she was sure Geoffery would cover the expense and felt around in the pockets of the oversized coat for one of the coins he’d stored there.
Five minutes later, she and Geoffery faced one another as the other passengers settled into the mail coach behind her.
“You will go on to Andover?” she asked.
“I will, I have told everyone in London that I’ll be gone a fortnight; I shall need to keep to that.”
“Of course,” she said, hiding that she would miss him, even though she hadn’t paid him any mind in London. Nor he her. “And when you return, will you, um”—she pulled herself up to her full height, determined to appear confident—“will you let me know when you’re returned to London and all is well?”
“You want me to?”
His surprise made her nervous. “Nothing overt, of course,” she hurried to add. “I do not want to, well, draw attention to us, not that there is an us, only . . . well, I just . . . well—”
“I shall find a way to make sure you know I have arrived.”
Her cheeks were hot as she nodded.
“Come on, miss,” the coachman said gruffly. She looked up to realize he was in his seat and the entire carriage was watching them.
“Very good,” she said with a smile and then a light laugh, and then she looked at the dirt to hide her warming cheeks. “Safe travels, Mr. Meyers.”
“Godspeed, Miss Veronica.”
She’d already turned toward the carriage when she remembered one more thing and turned back to him, initiating a huff from the older woman already seated in the carriage.
“I meant to ask, who is the toffee for? Your mother?”
He only paused a moment before a knowing smile spread across his face. “Impetuous indeed,” he said. “Of course you looked.”
“You did not tell me not to,” she reminded him.
“True,” he acknowledged. “My father, actually. The man is zealous about his sweets, and I always bring him something from London when I make the trip. If I am lucky, he will give me a square or two.”
She laughed, held his eyes another moment, and then nodded before turning and stepping into the carriage. She managed to meet his eye again for a singular moment before the door was shut, and the carriage was on its way back to London.