Chapter 4
Emma could not leave London fast enough. In her haste and delight to be gone, she grinned at her maid, then recounted the two trunks and two valises—one each for Diana and herself—that stood before her in the hall. She patted the one tucked under her arm that contained all her financial documents.
“As soon as I find a house I like,” she told her maid and Jeffries, “I will send for the rest of my clothes and Diana’s too.”
“Miss,” the young woman bobbed. “I’ll be happy to do that and join you as well.”
“Just take good care of Peaches while we’re gone.” The cat wound round the maid’s ankles. “I’d love to take her with us, but I fear the hotel may not accept animals.”
“We will. Never worry, Miss,” said Jeffries who stood to one side, his craggy face a mix of his worries and his joys.
He and Emma had had a long discussion about him remaining to run the house here after she and Diana left.
He wished to come and attend them in Brighton.
He was right—and Emma understood his affections—when he declared that he’d served only the Tomkins family all his adult life.
He did not wish to stop now. Emma had honored his wishes and told him she would summon him to Brighton, if he wished. He did.
He also worried about their travels being disrupted by attacks of a highwayman. “The South Downs,” he had said at least three times these past few days, “have been plagued with the fellow since summer. They cannot seem to catch him!”
But Emma had been adamant. They were leaving. Highwayman or not.
“Jeffries,” she addressed him now, her hands out and a smile on her face, “be good to yourself while we are away. Rest. We have given you quite a charge here the last month. I am grateful for your service, sir.”
“Anything to m-make you happy, Miss. You deserve the best and I wish to see you receive it. Always.”
“Thank you, sir. Now, Diana?” She called up the stairs.
The girl floated down to the foyer. Her wavy mahogany-colored hair she’d caught up in a loose coil and her sea green eyes, the singular Tomkins trait, sparkled with excitement.
“Are you ready for our new adventure?” Emma teased, for Diana wore her delight like a new gown.
‘Our new adventure’ was what Diana called each new experience she and Emma had since they heard the reading of their Uncle George’s will four weeks ago.
That gentleman’s dictates to give the running of his merchant business to his chief clerk, and to grace his only two heirs—his cousins Emma and Diana—with eight thousand pounds a year each had changed the two women’s lives for the better.
Emma returned to society from obscurity, but now an heiress of note with the family characteristics of flaming copper hair and sea blue eyes, still a beauty at twenty-nine.
Emma’s young cousin and daughter of the third Tomkins brother, Diana, was a young woman of good education thanks to Uncle George, and a bright future as anything she wished, married or not.
Emma thrilled to their prospects. Bless you, Uncle George, for offering us hope and joy.
“Let’s be on our way, Di. We do not want to miss the coach stop.
” She turned, left the house she’d come to love and climbed into her uncle’s twin coach, then sank to the squabs.
Diana followed and sat opposite. Jeffries climbed in beside Diana, having argued to sit up in the box with the family coachman, but Emma would have none of that.
He was too frail for such acrobatics, though she dared not voice that.
So, he came with them to the public coach stop at the corner of Piccadilly.
He’d insisted it was his duty to supervise their departure and ensure their comfort.
The transfer was quick. Lucky for her and Di, only one other person traveled with them. They were to travel the turnpike and if they had no accidents or challenges with the horses, they’d stop only at Crawley at a carriage inn. From there, Brighton was only two hours way.
Emma sank into her seat beside Di with a sigh.
She was tired of the round of London parties, receptions and callers.
Brighton would be less hectic. More discreet.
Initially, she and Diana would take rooms in the Old Ship Hotel.
There they would remain until Emma found a house she liked that she wished to purchase.
She might even like one close to the shore.
The sea breezes and the sight of waves had always soothed her.
Again, the one to thank for that fond memory was Uncle George.
He’d been the leader of the family, the responsible one of three brothers, the businessman par excellence.
But he’d also been the kindly, watchful father-figure who had cared for his brothers’ only children through the men’s gambling fiascos, wild business ventures and poor health.
But all that was done. She would carve a new life for herself and for Diana, too.
Seeing Lance had revived her dedication to it.
Nothing was so bracing as hearing someone speak of your youth and help you to remember that life, despite its setbacks, once upon a time had been a treasure.
That what one thought and what one wished for was a viable and peaceful existence.
That laughter was essential to survival and that one should not stop striving for the joy of it, even unto one’s last breath.
She welcomed that revival of laughter and joy. After all, she headed toward a tiny perky town, refreshing all who strolled there with the smells of salty air, the sight of endless sea and sky, and glorious sunshine.
After so many years shivering and lonely, Emma most of all valued sunshine and the warmth of others.
* * *
Lance had had enough of the rules and those who implemented them without regard to kindness.
In truth, he always had.
As he led his horse walked along the hedgerows near the highway, he frowned at what society had done to Emma after his attempt to lift her spirits.
So few had ever honored her with the good things of life.
She’d grown up, a little girl with only a father—and an abusive drunkard at that.
Yet she had found laughter in the tidbits of daily life.
A pianoforte she played well, though badly out of tune.
A stray kitten she’d nursed to health and tamed.
Her constant hope that when she grew up, she’d have a better life, happier, free of her father’s power…
and in a home of her own where she was unafraid, comfortable and loved.
When he and she met, they were so young.
He was ten and she eight. She’d come north to her Uncle George’s country home that marched along the border with his uncle’s.
Both were visiting for the summer. Their friendship was that of shared moments of pleasure and the youthful acceptance of one for the other.
More than eight years later, after Emma’s father died and Lance had come north during recess from his Oxford studies in physics, they had renewed their friendship and he had fallen in love with her.
He’d never voiced it. He’d had no future of any substance to offer her.
He was a second son of a second son, with no inheritance.
His future life in the military could be one of hardship and he would be paid poorly for it, too.
But he’d rejoiced each time she came running toward him over the hill, her heart in her eyes, her desire on her lips. God, he had savored her.
But at the end of his first year at Oxford, his cousin who had paid for his studies recommended he join the Royal Corps of Engineers.
Off Lance went to Woolrich to study. He excelled at his work.
Lance’s skills with calculations of geometry were the perfect ones necessary to the expanded war effort beginning in Portugal.
The corps of Engineers was a small, highly trained segment of the British military.
Every man knew how to make something out of nothing.
A wall from earth. A bridge from rocks. A road from dust. No engineer was without purpose—and all rallied when a new commander arrived to take charge of the heretofore failing effort.
Arthur Wellesley was no laggard. His reputation marched before him and those who implemented his vision were the engineers who cleared the way and built new ones for the thousands of soldiers who came after.
Lance cocked an ear. A coachman’s crack of whip and the grinding of wheels signaled his darling came near in her coach to Brighton.
“I saw you climb in this morning,” he murmured to himself. “I doubt you’ve stayed in Crowley.”
He had seen her and her cousin Diana climb down for a respite at the carriage inn when the coach stopped.
But he had not waited for Emma or Diana to get back inside.
He’d spurred his horse on to the bend in the road.
Here he had waited patiently to demonstrate to his beloved that time had not destroyed his love of her.
And that the ton could go hang by their own silly rules.
He was here, standing and delivering like a true highwayman that love and laughter went hand in hand—and he’d give it to her from this day forward.
From his vantage point, he saw the dust cloud billow above the hedgerow—and at once, there was the coach, fast on approach.
He put up his half mask and brandished his wooden pistol. Then he charged forward.
Headed straight for the carriage, he halted a hundred yards or so from view and encouraged his horse to paw the air.
He’d even asked the groom where he’d rented the horse if the animal could and would do that on command.
He did now….and Lance grinned at the image he must make.
A black horse, large and rearing, upon which sat a large man in black, his face half concealed by his black scarf.
“Halt! Halt, I say!” He shouted as the coachman slowed his horses and came to an idle, then stopped.
The fellow stood in the box. “What ho, sir? Ye don’t want to hurt us, nay!”