Chapter 1 #2
“Oh yes,” Birchall said enthusiastically, before the priest could finish the words, and planted his dry lips on hers.
Despite her impressive dowry, which surely was a large part of her allure to Lord Birchall, Anna felt cheap.
She might as well have been a mare, sold to the soonest bidder.
He turned her face up with a pointed finger and kissed her with all the ownership of a man signing the deed to a mansion.
Anna grimaced at the contact, at the sheer agony of what was now her first kiss.
They walked outside, and she found the morning had grown no warmer, an echo of the coolness that seized Anna’s heart. Birchall had her elbow once more and was guiding her down the steps. She went without protest, because there was no longer any point in not going. Her fate had been decided.
Jonathan fell into step on her other side, and she looked at her cousin.
I will never forgive him for this.
She arrived at the carriage to find it was already loaded.
Of course it is.
She could see the trunks strapped to the back, her trunks, with her things inside them. They had been packed by hands that were not hers, under instructions she had not given.
Did they remember my keepsakes? Papa’s handkerchief? Mama’s necklace?
“Be a good wife, Anna,” Jonathan said, breaking her from her thoughts. He said it quietly, and he had the grace, at least, to look somewhere over her left shoulder rather than at her face.
She did not answer him, did not look at him. She let herself be handed up into the carriage like the parcel she was. She sat down on the velvet seat and folded her hands neatly in her lap.
The door closed, and Birchall settled across from her. The horses moved with a jerk, and they were off.
He talked as they rode out of London. That surprised her, in a distant way, as if she were looking down on the strange scene and not experiencing it firsthand.
She had expected the quiet of a man who had gotten what he wanted and saw no further need for chatter.
But Birchall talked, very pleasantly, about the road ahead of them and the weather they might encounter and the name of the village nearest to his estate.
Anna found it disturbingly disarming, the way he could oscillate between violence in the church and easy conversation in the carriage.
She clutched her hands tighter in her lap, bracing herself.
“Birchall Park,” he went on. “You’ll find it most agreeable once you settle.
It wants for a woman’s attention. I fear the rooms in the east wing have been closed for some years.
That will be your work.” He glanced out the window and tapped on the glass absently. “I keep a small staff. Loyal people.”
She looked at the passing streets through teary eyes. London had thinned out around them as they entered the country. Slowly houses grew smaller, and the gaps between them wider.
“You’ll learn the household management quickly,” he continued, paying no concern to her silence and its cause. “I’m not a demanding man, in that regard.” A pause. “In others, of course, I have my expectations. But we’ll have time for all of that.”
The road roughened. The carriage swayed along with her stomach. She feared she might retch, and kept her mouth shut tight.
“There is also the matter of the tenants,” he continued. “I’ve had some difficulty there, mismanagement by a previous steward. You’ll stay well out of all that, naturally, but you should understand that economies will need to be made until the estate is—”
The carriage lurched to a sudden halt. Birchall frowned slightly and leaned forward to look out the window. Anna realized they had reached an inn yard, a large one. It was busy with the mid-morning trade of coaches and Cumberfords.
Birchall rapped on the roof. “We need supplies,” he called up. “No more than a quarter hour. We must arrive at Birchall Park by dusk.”
He stepped down and shut the door behind him, without looking at her again or saying a word. Why would he? She had nowhere to go.
Or did she?
Anna sat very still until his figure disappeared through the inn’s side door. Then she looked at his coat, folded on the seat beside her.
She did not let herself think too much; she had to be quick. Thinking would make her slow, and slowness was a luxury she did not have. Her hands moved on their own, steady into the inner pocket, where she had seen him reach twice during the journey.
A small purse. Thank Heavens.
She took what she could identify as coin by touch without opening it and closed the coat again. That was a start. She smoothed the fold as she had found it and opened the carriage door on the far side, away from the inn. She crept out as quiet as a church mouse, shutting the door behind her.
The yard was loud and crowded with the hustle and bustle of travelers.
Despite her dress, no one was watching her.
There was a bay horse tied near the water trough, already saddled, its rider presumably inside.
She could not believe her luck and crossed the yard in the white silk dress with haste, but she did not run.
Running was conspicuous. Knowing this was her only chance, she walked with the confidence of a woman who knew exactly where she was going.
She deftly untied the horse and pressed the coins—all of them, whatever they were; she didn’t stop to count—into the empty space at the trough where he had stood.
Payment. Not theft.
She couldn’t ride sidesaddle in this skirt, so she didn’t try. She gathered the silk tight in both fists, put her foot in the stirrup, and swung up astride as she had as a girl. She pictured herself in the country, her father watching her gallop through the green.
The horse, bless the wonderful creature, moved forward without complaint.
She didn’t look back.