From Waif To Gentleman's Wife

‘I wager you do, missy,’ the innkeeper replied, his tone scornful. ‘Well, I expect if ye’ve coin to pay, Will in the stables might be able to take you, even with night fallen, for I’d as lief not have you standing about the place.’

Though she felt her flush deepen, she tried to infuse her voice with authority. ‘I do not intend to pay in advance. Your man will reimbursed after I am safely conveyed to Blenhem Hill.’

The innkeeper shook his head impatiently. ‘I’m not sending out the boy and my gig without I get payment first. ‘Tis the way we’ve always done it, bad enough business that it is, and I ain’t about to change the arrangement now.’

Joanna worked hard to keep desperation from leaking into her voice. ‘You will be well paid, I assure you. Twice the usual rate.’

She had no idea what the innkeeper normally charged to transport items to Blenhem Hill and could only hope her brother wouldn’t be furious with her for cavalierly doubling the price. But with her strength, her funds and her spirits exhausted, she absolutely must get to Blenhem Hill tonight.

‘Double the rate! Must think pretty highly of yer charms,’ the innkeeper said snidely. ‘But the answer’s still “no”. If you’ve not got the ready, take yourself off before the wife comes in and gives you a jawing. Go on, off with you!’

The man approached, waving his arms in a shooing motion. Affronted by his insinuation that she was a woman of low repute bent on enticing her own brother, Joanna hesitated, torn between standing her ground to argue and the risk of having him drag her bodily out of his establishment.

‘I’ll see her out,’ a feminine voice said.

Joanna jerked her attention from the advancing innkeeper towards a girl who tossed her apron down on the bar.

‘Very well, Mary, but you step right back. There be paying customers to tend,’ the innkeeper said, giving Joanna one last scornful glance.

The barmaid motioned her to the door. Her momentary courage failing, her tired brain unable to reason out what she must do next, Joanna gave in and followed.

‘Not a bad man, but none too bright,’ the girl said as they stepped into the evening chill. ‘Otherwise he would have seen in a blink you’re no doxy. Have business out at Blenhem Hill, do you?’

Heartened by the first kindness she’d encountered in her long travels, Joanna said, ‘Yes. And I very much need to find transport there tonight.’

‘Can’t help you with that, but I can tell you how to get there. See the road that forks by the forge? Follow that straight on and it’ll take you to Blenhem Hill. Not above five miles or so, and there’ll be some moon tonight.’

Five miles. Tired as she was, it might as well be five hundred. But it appeared that if she meant to get to Blenhem Hill tonight, her feet would have to take her there.

‘Thank you, Mary,’ Joanna replied. ‘When I come to town next, I’ll bring you a coin for your kindness.’

The girl shrugged. ‘Hard for a woman travelling alone to keep trouble from finding her. Stay to the road and you can’t miss it, but have a care. If you hear anyone approaching by horseback or cart, you duck into the woods right quick until they go by. Best of luck to you.’

Five miles. She could keep her feet moving for five more miles. Taking a deep breath, Joanna grasped her bandbox and set off.

With the fall of night, the wind picked up, chilling her despite her travelling cloak. So desperately tired she could scarcely think, she plodded along, keeping her eye on the road ahead and concentrating only on placing one numbed foot after the other.

Once, she stumbled into an unseen pothole and fell, losing her grip on the bandbox, which rolled away from her over the side of the road. Almost she was tempted to lay her head down into the mud and give up.

Papa toiled away in the fetid heat of India, she tried to rally herself, ministering to the army and the members of John Company, far from home and all things familiar. Her brother had followed Wellington through the dirt and misery of Waterloo. Her own dear Thomas had braved the baking summers and monsoons of India, proudly serving his nation. All she need do was walk a few more miles along an English lane. Mustering all the will she possessed, she forced herself to stagger upright and collected her bandbox.

She fixed her mind on the image of Greville receiving her warmly, distracting herself from her present misery by painting mental pictures in her head of the estate he managed for Lord Englemere. There’d be a neat sturdy manor house, fields ploughed and newly planted in corn, tenant cottages with thick roofs of fragrant thatch.

Maybe he’d have a wife to welcome her, children, even. She imagined dawdling a chubby toddler on her knee, filling the emptiness in her soul by nurturing a girl like little Susan, instructing her in her letters and numbers and the sewing of samplers. Perhaps, after she had rested and recovered, Greville or his wife would know of a genteel family who might have another position for her.

She must find something else. She’d no more be a burden upon her brother than she would consider contacting her late husband’s family for assistance. Thomas’s father had made it quite clear upon their last painful meeting that the Merrill family wanted nothing further to do with the woman who, he insinuated, had used some potion of the east to bewitch a young man far from home into a most unsuitable match.

Her heart twisted again, remembering the coldness on Lord Merrill’s face, more hurtful still since she could see her dear Thomas’s features echoed in his sire’s countenance. The snug bungalow she’d shared in India with Papa, where she and Thomas had met and fallen in love, had been her last real home. Not since she’d lost their unborn child and Thomas insisted she leave him and the malevolent fevers of India for the healthier clime of England had she felt there was a place she truly belonged.

Ironic that she’d swiftly recovered after the miscarriage, while it was Thomas who had succumbed to a fever. Alone in her London lodgings, she’d patiently awaited his return. He’d been dead for weeks by the time the news reached her.

A surge of grief swept through her, bringing her dangerously close once again to despair.

With Lord Walters having at the last moment cavalierly awarded the living on his estate, promised to Papa when the current incumbent retired, to some distant connection, the joyous reunion she’d looked forward to when Papa and the rest of her family returned from India had never happened. Anticipating their reunion had been her sole comfort as she’d struggled to cope with the enormity of Thomas’s death. The loss of that consolation was yet one more charge she could lay at the feet of a venal, uncaring aristocracy, she thought resentfully.

And as if her spirits were not already low enough, the moon dipped behind a bank of clouds and it began to rain.

She wouldn’t think any more of sad things, she told herself, straining through the gloom to follow the dim road and keep her feet moving while rain dripped off the brim of her bonnet and soaked through her cloak.

She’d think of Greville, his genial smile, his easygoing temperament. He’d always been a charmer, if a bit slow to bestir himself. But having served with Wellington, a notorious taskmaster, would surely have cured him of his lazy ways. The army would be the making of him, Papa always said.

A sudden flow of icy water dripped from an overhanging tree down her neck, shocking her back to the present. It seemed she’d been walking for hours, days, her whole existence. Her feet and fingers beyond numb, she forced herself onwards through sheer will-power, knowing if she missed one step she might lose her balance and fall. This time, she’d not be able to rise again.

She’d begun to fear that this would indeed be her fate when finally, in the distance, she perceived a faint glimmer of light.

Blenhem Hill! She must be approaching Greville’s manor at last.

Now that the moment of reunion had almost arrived, her heart jolted with a gladness tempered by anxiety.

What if Greville were not happy that she’d sought him out uninvited? Certainly she must look a sight, her sopping skirts muddy, her cloak and bonnet soaked through.

Still, regardless of what her brother thought about her unsolicited midnight arrival, surely he would take her in? With a shiver, she made her clumsy-cold feet pick up the pace until, a few moments later, she stood before the front door and knocked, wincing at the pain to her frozen knuckles.

She waited, but when no response was forthcoming, she knocked again. It was late enough that she might have believed everyone within already abed, but for the light still glowing through one of the windows. She’d almost decided to try rapping on that when at last the door swung open.

A man in butler’s attire gazed out at her, the mismatched buttons on his waistcoat suggesting that he had indeed been abed and only hastily re-donned his clothing.

‘Good evening, sir,’ she said. ‘I know it is late, but I should like to see your master, please.’

For a silent moment the man looked her up and down. Then, without a word, he moved to close the door on her.

‘Just a minute!’ she cried. ‘I demand to see the manager!’

‘The manager?’ he said finally. ‘And who would that be?’

Did he think she’d wandered aimlessly across the countryside with no definite destination? ‘Mr Greville Anders, of course,’ she snapped back. ‘Please tell him that Mrs Merrill has arrived and wishes to see him at once. He will receive me, I assure you.’

‘It be Mr Anders you’re wanting?’

‘Yes,’ she replied impatiently. ‘And I warn you, he will be most displeased when I tell him you forced his only sister to stand forever in the doorway before admitting her.’

‘His sister, are you?’ the man asked with a sly look. ‘When did he send for you?’

Though her brain was muddled with cold and fatigue, she thought it was probably best not to admit that she hadn’t been sent for. ‘That’s not your concern,’ she replied. ‘All I require is that you convey me to him at once.’

‘Must have miscalculated the date,’ she heard him mutter before he said in a louder voice, ‘Nothing here for you, miss. Best go back where you come from.’

‘Go b-back?’ she repeated, her voice breaking as alarm jolted through her. Desperately summoning up her best governess tone, she said firmly, ‘At this hour of the night? You must be mad! Why are you keeping me here on the threshold, nattering on in this stupid manner? Just inform Mr Anders I have arrived.’ Ducking around him, she darted into the hall.