My Lady's Honor

“You’re wrong, cousin Nigel. He knew it was his papa,” she emphasized the word, “and he understands about death.” True, Parry might not have comprehended the threat to his own position implicit in his stepfather’s demise, a threat that—with good reason, it turned out—Gwen had so feared, but he knew the elderly man who’d treated him with love and gentleness had gone away forever.

“Well, I find him offensive, so something shall certainly be done about it. Edgerton wishes to have you settled in at the Hall between the last of the hunting season and the beginning of spring planting, so the wedding is to be at week’s end, here at Southford. Given the groom’s age and the shortness of time to prepare, I see no need for anything elaborate. A simple ceremony with a small reception immediately after should be sufficient.”

Cheese-paring nip-squeeze, Gwen thought, too furious to respond. The will had not even been read yet, and already the new baron was determined to expend as few funds as possible on the former daughter of the house.

“Congratulations on your good fortune, Gwennor. You may go now to begin the preparations.” He waved an imperious hand toward the door—dismissing her from her own library like a lackey.

Too shocked and angry to reply with a remark her cousin would consider suitable for a gentlewoman, in icy silence she pivoted toward the door.

“By the way,” her cousin’s voice halted her before she reached the doorway, “since I expect your bridegroom sometime tomorrow, I intend to have your stepbrother…taken care of before his arrival. Parry shall be confined to the attics, where he can be restrained but kindly treated, at minimal expense. Oh, and should you suffer from some maidenly excess of nerves before the wedding and attempt to call off your nuptials, remember that I have the power to confine you as well, should you take a sudden notion not to acquiesce willingly in my plans.”

He paused, regarding her thoughtfully. She stared back at him, defiantly mute, not caring that he could probably read on her face the intensity of her dislike.

“I shall warn you only once,” he said softly. “Growing up, you had a deplorable tendency to obstinacy and disobedience, traits I doubt your weak-willed papa ever succeeded in rooting out of you. I am not a man who can be manipulated by a shrewish spinster entirely too accustomed to running things her own way. I am master here now, and the servants will obey me.” He nodded. “That is all.” And looked down to peruse a ledger on the desk.

Her head and heart teeming with a volatile mix of grief, anguish, worry over her brother, fury at her cousin’s threats and fear for the future, Gwen picked up her skirts and half ran through the hall, down the servants’ stairs to the deserted stillroom and out the back door.

Shivering in the late-winter cold, she continued on behind the gardens to the barn surrounded by a collection of sheds and pens where her brother carried out his father’s breeding experiments. She spied Parry’s dark head bent over one of the cages and walked in his direction. His sharp ears no doubt picking up the soft pad of her footsteps, he looked up and smiled at her.

As she drew closer, his smile turned to a frown. “You have no shawl! You’ll be cold, Gwen.” Before she could stop him, he shucked his tattered wool jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She reached up to hug him fiercely, tears seeping now from the corners of her eyes. How she loved her gentle, serene brother. Even did she not, as Nigel had alleged, feel responsible for his injuries, Parry was so unspoiled and utterly pure a soul she must love him, as nearly everyone in the county did, for his healing hands and sweet-tempered kindness.

He had a special touch with animals and young people. Both seemed to respond to his straightforward nature and both seemed to sense how competently he could soothe and help them. Not only had Parry directed her papa’s rabbit-breeding operations, he was sought by neighbors from all over to treat their ailing livestock, providing, despite Nigel’s dismissal of his usefulness, a small income to Southford’s coffers.

The whole county knew if Parry Wakefield could not cure an animal’s ills, the owner might as well prepare to bury it.

What was she to do? Gwen wondered as she held her brother close. She might detest Nigel, but she wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him. If he’d said he would put Parry under restraint, he would do it. And he would have no compunction about locking her up too if she tried to stop him. Nor did she wish to put the servants in the untenable position of opposing their new master.

At last she released Parry. He held her at arm’s length, his guileless face studying hers. “You’re sad, aren’t you, Gwen? Are you missing Papa? I am, too. Look at these babies.” He opened a wicker cage and indicated some tiny balls of fluff. “Misty had them Sunday past—and they are all browns. Just what he wanted. I think he’s happy, looking down at them from heaven.”

“I’m sure he is.” Happier than any of us this side of heaven are likely to be again, she thought bitterly.

Her brother had been wholly content since his physical recovery from his injuries, wandering the estate at Southford, watched over by family and neighbors who cared for him, collecting and succoring the animals he loved.

He would pine away and die without them, locked up in the attics at Southford Manor.

Well on the shelf at five-and-twenty, Gwennor had no illusions about her beauty or her prospects. She’d taken over the management of the household at age fifteen, upon the death of her stepmother—the only mother she remembered, her own having died at her birth. In her concern for her stepbrother and her grieving papa, she’d easily withstood the baron’s half-hearted attempts to send her away for a Season several years later. If Lord Edgerton were prepared to accept Parry, she would give herself to him, if not enthusiastically, at least with resignation.

But would he?

She’d have little time to plead with him, and no leverage to bargain with. Besides, Nigel was probably correct. Most people shied away from anyone with an impairment, which was often looked upon as God’s judgment upon the unhappy individual and his family. Being Nigel’s friend—indictment enough in Gwen’s opinion—as well as a fanatic on the purity of the bloodlines of his horses and dogs, Edgerton would doubtless agree with Nigel’s solution for dispensing with the embarrassment of his bride’s mentally deficient brother. No, she concluded, Parry would find no champion in Edgerton.

And if he would not accept Parry, she had no reason to wed the man, despite Nigel’s threats. She’d not spent the last ten years, as he’d described her, an obstinate spinster growing accustomed to running things her own way, to meekly succumb to her detestable cousin’s plans for either herself or her beloved stepbrother.

“I must feed the others,” Parry said. “Can you help?”

“No, I must get back to the house. Here, take your jacket back before you catch a chill.”

She held it out. With a smile he waved it away. “I’ll get it later. I have these—” he scooped up a handful of soft rabbit babies “—to keep me warm.”

She turned to walk to the house, her anxiety sharpening. Tomorrow morning was terrifyingly close. She would have to think of some way to rescue them both before then, but to be safe, ’twas better for her brother to remain well away from the house until she decided how she was going to do it.

“Parry!” she called back to him. “Nigel will be down for dinner.”

Her brother’s smile faded. The only person her friendly stepsibling did not like was their father’s cousin. “Must I come eat with him?”

“No. Stay with the animals. I’ll bring you a tray later. No sense both of us having to deal with him.” She made an exaggerated grimace of distaste that set her brother laughing.

“Thank you, Gwen. I’ll find you a surprise for tonight.”

A lovely surprise it would be, too, she knew—a bird’s nest he’d rescued, or a rock crystal of unusual shape and color, or an intricately woven spider’s web as complex and beautiful as a master engraving.

Unlike the surprise his cousin had in mind for Parry tomorrow.

A fate he will never suffer while I draw breath, Gwennor vowed, and walked purposefully back to the house.

Chapter Two

Her mind working furiously, Gwennor paced across the stableyard. They would have to leave tonight, secretly, after her cousin and the rest of the household had retired. She would tell Jenny and Cook when they prepared Parry’s tray that she planned to work with him well into the evening, so not to wait up for her—a fairly frequent occurrence that should protect the servants from potential dismissal for not alerting their new master that she’d left the house. Since her cousin slept until noon, it was quite possible he’d not discover their disappearance until rather late tomorrow. Perhaps not even, she thought with a savage grin of satisfaction, until his dear friend Lord Edgerton arrived and he summoned the blushing bride to greet her eager bridegroom.

She’d need to pack a small bag—something that could be easily and surreptitiously transported. She’d better bring all her mother’s jewelry; she would not put it past her cousin, once he discovered she’d fled, to sell it and keep the money. She’d also need to sneak into the office while cousin Nigel took his nap before dinner. Considering that she’d be saving the estate the expense of her wedding breakfast, she felt justified in removing all the coins currently in the estate’s strongbox.

She would also have to go through the motions of planning a wedding. Though she didn’t need to seem enthusiastic—that would certainly be suspect—Nigel might well inquire about the progress of her preparations at dinner and would find it suspicious if she had not set the servants to beginning the arrangements. They would have to be warned of Lord Edgerton’s imminent arrival in any event.

Having dispensed with the details of getting away, she turned her thoughts to the thornier problem of where they would go and how they would get there.

By now she’d reached the house. Gwennor paused before the stillroom door. ’Twas still too early to risk entering the estate office. Best to slip unnoticed up to her chamber and finish planning.

She crept up the servants’ stairs to her room and paced to the window. Hands clasped in concentration, she stared unseeing over the rose and herb gardens.

If only her first cousin Harry weren’t away with Wellington in the Peninsula! First in each other’s affections, they’d always joked. They’d been boon companions throughout the time she was growing up. Were he at home, Gwennor knew he would assist her escape. But though his mama, her aunt Frances, resided an easy two days’ ride from Southford, that widowed lady would be no match for a determined cousin Nigel, should he decide to pursue his disobedient kinswoman.

Would he pursue her? Or simply wash his hands of her, glad to be rid of the burden of a cousin he’d never liked?

Were it not for the plans he’d set in train to marry her off to his crony, she might well think the latter. But she did not believe his kindly-elder-cousin talk of arranging her marriage to insure she had a permanent position worthy of her breeding. She suspected there was far more to the agreement, and given her cousin’s proclivities, probably something involving money.

Ever since her father had declined to remarry after her stepmother’s death, her cousin had been living on the expectation of one day taking control of Southford and all its resources. His self-professed “refined” tastes in clothes and furnishings were expensive, as were his gaming habits, and she would not be at all surprised to learn he was heavily in debt. Perhaps he owed Edgerton, and had decided to use Gwen and her dowry as a means to repay the baron, at no cost to himself.

Yes, that would appeal to Nigel: not only getting rid of his detested cousin, but using her money to pay off his obligations.

If her suspicions were correct, he would not view with equanimity the double insult of being embarrassed in front of his friend and losing his free means of repayment. She’d also had a glimpse this afternoon of Nigel’s relish for exercising his power as Baron Southford. Even were there in actuality no financial considerations involved, having Gwennor flout his new authority before his friend and her former household was certain to enrage him. He’d probably be angry enough to pursue her, if only to drag her back and impose an equally public punishment.

So, how to make a swift and clean break? Were they to make haste to the nearest posting inn, Nigel would likely catch them either while they awaited the next mail coach or once they’d transferred to that slower conveyance. If they traveled by horseback and she used precious coin to hire new mounts at each stage, as a single lady traveling with no maid in attendance, she would be singular enough that most innkeepers or stablemasters would remember her, making them all too easy to trace.

It was imperative they get far enough away for Nigel’s anger to cool and to make further pursuit sufficiently expensive and bothersome that he might choose to simply let them go. Of equal importance was finding a haven that offered some unimpeachable reason for her to withstand his efforts to force her back to Southford, if he did succeed in tracking her.

Harrogate! the answer suddenly occurred to her. They could make their way to her stepmother’s Aunt Alice in Harrogate. Gwen had not seen the lady since her stepmama’s funeral a number of years previously, but they still corresponded, and she had no doubt the sweet, frivolous Lady Alice would be delighted to receive her.