“See?” the innkeeper’s wife said, poking her husband in the ribs with one large elbow. “I told you they was newlyweds.”
“I finally caught up to her yesterday,” Rannulf continued and watched her catch her lower lip between her teeth. “I am happy to report that I have been forgiven for my inappropriate laughter and all is now well.”
Her eyes widened.
The innkeeper’s wife turned her head to beam tenderly at Claire.
“Don’t you mind none, ducks,” she said. “The first time is the worst. I didn’t hear no sobbings, mind, and I don’t see no trace of tears this morning, so I daresay it was not so bad as you feared. I expect Mr.
Bedard knows how to do it right proper.” She laughed conspiratorially and Claire joined her.
Rannulf glanced sheepishly at the innkeeper, who glanced sheepishly back.
They went outside after breakfast, Rannulf and Claire, though he was surprised when she asked to join him. He wanted to see his horse, to make sure it had taken no harm yesterday and had been properly tended. He wanted to rub it down and feed it himself this morning. Claire put on her half boots and her cloak with the hood up, and they made a dash for it across the open yard, trying to step on tufts of grass as they went and avoid the worst of the mud and manure.
She sat on a clean pile of hay while he worked, her hood back, her hands clasped about her knees.
“That was some story,” she said.
“About you as skittish bride? I thought so too.” He grinned at her.
“The landlady is going to tidy our rooms herself and make sure fresh fires are laid in the hearth in both rooms,” she said. “It must be a great honor to have her personal services instead of those of the maid. It seems hardly fair so to deceive them, Ralph.”
“You would rather we told the truth, then?” he asked. His horse was looking none the worse for wear, though it was doing some restless snorting. It wanted to be out and moving.
“No,” she said. “That would not be fair either. It would lower the tone of their house.”
He raised his eyebrows but made no comment.
“What is your horse’s name?‘ she asked.
“Bucephalus,” he said.
“He is a beauty.”
“Yes.”
They were quiet then until he had finished brushing the horse down, forking the old hay out of the stall and spreading fresh, feeding and watering the animal. It was surprising really. Most women of his acquaintance liked to chatter, with the notable exception of his sister Freyja. But then Freyja was an exception to almost all rules. The silence was a comfortable one. He did not feel at all self-conscious at her quiet scrutiny.
“You love horses,” she said when he was finished and leaned back against a wooden beam and crossed his arms. “You have gentle hands.”
“Do I?” He half smiled at her. “You do not love horses?”
“I have not had much to do with them,” she admitted. “I believe I am a little afraid of them.”
But before they could become more deeply involved in conversation, a stable lad appeared to inform them that the innkeeper’s wife had a pot of chocolate awaiting them in the dining room, and they made their way back across the yard, running and dodging puddles again. The rain seemed to be easing somewhat.
They sat and talked for two hours until their midday meal was ready. They talked about books they had both read and about the wars, newly over now that Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated and captured. He told her about his brothers and sisters without telling her exactly who they were. He told her about Wulfric, the eldest; about Aidan, the cavalry officer who had recently come home on leave, married, and decided to sell out; about Freyja, who had twice been almost betrothed to the same man but who had lost him to another woman last year and had been spitting mad ever since; about Alleyne, his handsome younger brother; and about Morgan, the youngest, the sister who bade fair to being lovelier than anyone had any right to be.
“Unless,” he added, “she were to have fire-gold red hair and green eyes and porcelain skin.” And the body of a goddess, he added silently. “Tell me about your family.”
She told him about her three sisters, Cassandra, older than herself, Pamela and Hilary younger, and about her younger brother, Branwell. Her parents were both still alive. Her father was a clergyman, a fact that explained why she was estranged from her family. What had impelled the daughter of a clergyman into a life of acting? He did not ask the question and she did not volunteer the information.
By the time they had finished the midday meal, the rain had eased to a light drizzle. If it were to stop within the next hour or so, the roads should be passable by tomorrow. The thought was somewhat depressing. The day seemed to be going far too fast.
“What is there to do for amusement in this town?” he asked the landlady when she came to remove their dishes— they had been deemed far too important for the services of the maid, it seemed. That wench was busy serving a few townsmen their ale in the adjoining taproom.
“There isn’t nothing much on a day like this,” she said, straightening up, setting her hands on her hips, and squinting in concentration. “It’s not market day. There is just the church, which isn’t nothing much as churches go.”
“Any shops?” he asked.
“Well, there is the general shop across the green,” she said, brightening, “and the milliner’s next to it and the blacksmith’s next to that. Not that you would have any need of his services.”
“We will try the general shop and the milliner’s,” he said.
“I have a mind to buy my wife a new bonnet since she ran away without one.”
Claire’s—the only one she had brought with her—had been lost inside the stagecoach, she had told him earlier.
“Oh, no!” she protested. “Really, you must not. I could not allow—”
“You take wotever he is offering, ducks,” the innkeeper’s wife said with a wink. “I daresay you earned it last night.”
“Besides which,” Rannulf said, “wives are not supposed to question how their husbands spend their money, are they?”
“Not so long as it is spent on them.” The woman laughed heartily and disappeared with the dishes.
“I cannot let you—” Claire began.
He leaned across the table and set a hand over hers. “It is altogether possible,” he said, “that every hat in the shop is an abomination. But we will go and see. I want to buy you a gift. There is no question of your having earned it. A gift is simply a gift.”
“But I do not have enough money with me to buy you one,” she said.
He raised one eyebrow and got to his feet. She was a proud woman indeed. She would drive a large number of potential protectors to madness if she were ever to descend upon any of the green rooms in London.
All the bonnets on the display at the milliner’s shop were indeed abominations. But any hope Judith had entertained about avoiding the embarrassment of having a gift bought for her was dashed when Miss Norton disappeared into the back of the shop and came out with another bonnet lifted on the back of her hand.
“This,” she said with an assessing glance at Ralph, “I have been keeping for a special customer.”
Judith fell in love with it on sight. It was a straw bonnet with a small brim and russet ribbons. About the upper side of the brim, where it joined the rest of the bonnet, was a band of silk flowers in the rich colors of autumn. It was not a fussy bonnet, nevertheless. Its simplicity was its main appeal.
“It suits madam’s coloring,” Miss Norton observed.
“Try it on,” Ralph said.
“Oh, but—”
“Try it on.”
She did so, helped by the fluttering hands of Miss Norton, who tied the wide ribbons for her to the left side of her chin and then produced a hand mirror so that Judith could see herself.
Ah, it was so very pretty. She could see her hair beneath it, both at the front and at the back. Every bonnet she had ever owned had been deliberately chosen by Mama— though with her full acquiescence—to hide as much of her carroty hair as possible.