Chapter 13
The next morning dawned bright and clear, a brilliant summer day in the heart of England’s green and leafy land. After an early breakfast, the party traveling to the exhibition gathered in the forecourt, packed and ready to depart.
Although Mary had ridden the relatively short distance from Raventhorne the previous day, Ryder had ordered their traveling coach to follow, and it had arrived later that afternoon.
Now, with its team of four horses between the shafts, the coach stood ready on the gravel.
The footmen piled Mary’s, Ryder’s, Rand’s, Felicia’s, and William John’s bags into the boot or lashed them onto the roof behind the coachman.
Then the guards, all mounted and wearing livery—tabards displaying the Raventhorne coat of arms—came clopping down the path from the stable.
The Hall household, gathered about Flora on the front porch, chattered and watched.
The rising tide of excitement was palpable, investing swift smiles and the rush of action as everyone hurried to take their place.
As per their deliberations the previous evening, their company formed up in a small cavalcade.
It had been decided four riders—three of Ryder’s men plus Shields—would lead the way, followed, at what they hoped would be a safe enough distance of one to two hundred yards, by the steam-powered horseless carriage, with William John at the wheel.
Rand would sit beside William John, at least for the first leg of the journey, but Ryder, Felicia, and Mary had all stated their wish to ride with William John at some point. All were eager to experience the thrill of bowling along with no horse before them.
Behind the horseless carriage, separated again by a few hundred yards, would come four more mounted guards, closely followed by the traveling coach, with a pair of outriders bringing up the rear.
Ryder handed Mary, then Felicia, up into the coach, then shut the door; he’d elected to ride and, if need be, act as a messenger back and forth along their line.
Mary and Felicia promptly hung out of the windows, just in time to see Rand stride up.
Rand met Felicia’s eyes, then he looked at Ryder. “Ready?”
“Quite.” Ryder smiled his lazy smile. “We’re an impressive sight.”
Rand turned to look along the line, then nodded. “Indeed, and now”—he swung to grin at Mary and Felicia—“it’s time we got under way.” His expression sobered and turned determined. “Keep your eyes peeled.” With that and a brief salute, he strode back up the line.
Ryder, too, saluted Mary and Felicia, then gathered the reins of his huge gray hunter and swung up to the saddle.
Distantly, they heard the clatter of horses moving off, then came the soft cough followed by a purring hum they now recognized as the steam-powered engine starting up.
Mary and Felicia exchanged a look, then both shifted to the other side of the carriage and hung out of the windows to peer ahead and witness the moment.
Courtesy of the curve of the drive, they could see the steam-powered carriage, with William John behind the wheel; as the first group of riders had disappeared between the avenue’s trees, the steam carriage was now at the head of the line.
Rand climbed up to the seat and sat beside William John.
The steam carriage purred for another minute—no doubt to let the advance guards get far enough ahead for the horses not to be spooked by the engine—then William John adjusted a lever and the sound of the engine changed; he released the brake, and with a small lurch and the crunch of gravel under its wheels, the steam carriage rattled off.
The company assembled on the porch gave vent to a resounding cheer.
William John and Rand responded with triumphant grins and waves.
Smiling more broadly than she ever had, Felicia watched the steam carriage roll out of sight down the drive, then she sat back, settling against the luxurious leather seat.
She saw her own excitement reflected in Mary’s bright-eyed smile and admitted, “This feels like a dream that I hadn’t dared to dream actually coming true.
Until Rand arrived, and even in the weeks after that while we struggled to get the invention working as it should, I could never quite imagine that we would ever reach this point—setting off for the exhibition with a working engine leading the way. ”
Mary continued to smile, but faintly—almost wryly—arched her brows.
Her gaze drifted to the window beyond which Ryder sat his horse, waiting for the guards ahead of the traveling coach to move off.
“One thing you can say about the Cavanaughs,” she confided, “is that they are dogged and never give up.”
Felicia considered that, then inclined her head. “Those certainly seem to be family traits.”
Then Ryder called an order, and the coach lurched into motion. Mary shifted to the window alongside which her husband was riding, and Felicia quit the rear-facing seat to sit beside Mary.
Felicia straightened her skirts, then sat back. Her gaze passed over the trees lining the drive.
Keep your eyes peeled.
There—among the shadows.
She blinked, then stared. As the carriage rolled on, she turned to look back, trying to spot what she thought she’d seen.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
Felicia frowned. “I thought I saw someone lurking in the wood, but…” With a sigh, she sat back and faced forward. “When I looked again, there was no one there. I must have imagined it.”
“Shall I tell Ryder?” Mary asked. “He’ll stop, and he and the guards can search.”
Felicia thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“It might have been a curious farmworker or some such person, and it doesn’t matter now—we’re on our way.
” She glanced at Mary and smiled. “Besides, we should keep as close as possible behind the steam carriage—we don’t want anyone slipping in between. ”
“True.” Mary settled against the seat. “If anyone wants to sabotage the engine, they’ll have to catch us first and then go through the guards.” Her smile turned edged. “They’ll never manage that, so, I believe, we can relax on that score.”
After seeing the men Ryder had brought as guards, Felicia had to admit that was a reasonable assessment and conclusion.
As they rolled out of the drive and turned onto the lane leading away from the village, then almost immediately turned right onto the lane heading north toward Oxford and Banbury beyond, she imagined how their cavalcade would appear to all those they passed.
Imagined how the Throgmorton Steam-Powered Horseless Carriage would look to others—like a fantastical machine from the future.
As she swayed with the motion of the carriage, she inwardly sighed, touched by a combination of happiness and sadness as she thought of her father.
It was an abiding pity he hadn’t lived to see this moment—to see William John complete the invention and drive it off to the exhibition. How proud her father would have been of William John.
And, perhaps, of her.
Standing cloaked in shadows, Clive Mayhew watched the Throgmorton machine rumble down the drive. One small part of him cursed, but a larger part of his mind was fascinated.
Enthralled.
As for the rest of his mind, that had taken a firm stand, lecturing and hectoring him on his fall from grace.
He now deeply distrusted his uncle’s stance.
And despite the black cloud of despair and desperation that hung over his own head, he was nevertheless increasingly sure that for his own sake, he needed to pull back and step away from the action he’d agreed to undertake.
To turn aside from that particular path to monetary salvation.
His attempt to seize Miss Throgmorton had been calculated to bring about his uncle’s desired end without physical harm to any person or, indeed, to the machine, even though he hadn’t, at that time, set eyes on it.
The thwarting of that attempt—the manner in which it had been thwarted—had shaken him. He’d seen the looks on both Cavanaugh’s and Miss Throgmorton’s faces, signaling their contempt and his loss of all gentlemanly status in their eyes.
Their expressions had haunted him. Had started the voice in his head niggling, asking questions such as What sort of man are you?
And some deeply buried part of him had surfaced and warned that there was no point erasing his debts if, in the process, he lost all standing in his world—and, most especially, with himself.
He hadn’t thought of himself as overburdened with morals, yet in that moment when Cavanaugh and Miss Throgmorton had looked at him, his inner self had flinched. Had cringed. And he’d turned and run away.
Now, as he listened to what he realized was a quite fascinating advance in steam-powered carriages hum its way toward the exhibition in Birmingham, he felt that deeply buried part of him strengthen and take firmer hold.
He set his jaw, then softly reiterated, “I’m not going to do it.”
He waited to see how clinging to that resolution of yesterday felt—whether it still fitted him, the man he truly was. And it did; it resonated and felt right.
He drew in a breath, slowly exhaled, and felt immeasurably better—lighter—than he had.
He was, thank heaven, a complete failure when it came to illicit and underhanded sabotage.
In reality, he felt more comforted than bothered by that conclusion.
How he would pay his debts, he didn’t know, but he would find some way—some legitimate way.
Some way that wouldn’t make him ashamed to be Clive Mayhew.
Perhaps he could grow serious about his sketching.
His family had never encouraged him to think his sketches worth anything, but Cavanaugh and the Throgmorton ladies had thought them better than merely good.
The London News used his sketches here and there, but they didn’t want art so much as recognizable depictions of this or that, and they didn’t pay much.
Perhaps he should gird his loins and offer his private portfolio to some art dealer and see what might come of it?
One way or another, he would find a way.