Hugs all round, and he left with a brief word to Mrs. Green to take care of them.
“Of course, my lord, they will be fine until you get back. Do not worry.” Emrys nodded and left to collect his bag, check he had sufficient funds for a journey, and make his way to the stables where his superb, dark chocolate-colored gelding, waited for him.
The skies were a leaden gray, and the fine rain that he started out with grew progressively heavier as he rode. It was just gone three o’clock in the afternoon when he reached Leicester and proved what he had already suspected. It was impossible to reach Bath from Leicester by any publicly available form of transport. Reaching Bath required either one’s own horse or carriage, or alternatively to travel to London and thence to Bath from there, a journey that would take well over a week all told.
Finding the stagecoach inn at Leicester, he established the Royal Mail had passed through Leicester at around 10:30 that morning. As to whether a young woman meeting Miss Pringle’s description had boarded it, the proprietor of the inn couldn’t say. With the worsening weather, that worthy noted pessimistically that the mail would be running several hours late and likely not to reach its destination of Watford that evening at anything like its scheduled time.
It was just past Swinford, well after five o’clock and almost dark due to the heavy cloud cover and persistent rain, when he ran across the mail coach mired in the mud. Its passengers sat damply by the side of the road on their luggage, while its officers and such male passengers who deemed themselves capable attempted to unstick the carriage’s wheels from the mud.
Scanning the passengers in the gloom, he found her sitting on her bag under the branch of a tree and huddled in her cloak, with her head down. She didn’t even see him as he approached and dismounted his horse. He squatted in front of her. “Miss Pringle?”
Her head came up abruptly, and she stared at him wide-eyed. Her face was so pale as to be almost white in the gloomy light, and she seemed to sway slightly as she stared at him uncomprehendingly. Fearing she was about to swoon, he put his arms round her and murmured, “It’s all right, I’ve got you.”
“Emrys?” she said faintly. “Is it really you?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling at her use of his name. “Come, I’m taking you home.”
“But—”
“No buts. If you truly wish to go to Bath, you shall go in the duke’s carriage suitably escorted. But for right now I need to get you somewhere warm and dry before you catch your death of cold. Your cloak is soaked through. And you’re shivering!” he scolded.
She seemed to subside at this and nodded dumbly. He scooped her up, plopped her on his horse, where she sat sideways, clinging to the pommel, while he tied her bags to the saddle and then got up behind her. Wrapping his arm round her waist he turned Inigo and set off back toward Swinford. He would find an inn for the night. She was done in, and no wonder—she had walked goodness knows how far, carrying a heavy bag, and then sat in an uncomfortable coach for hours, followed by at least an hour sitting by the side of the road in the cold and wet.
She subsided back against him and mumbled, “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t difficult. Hush now and rest,” he said, pulling her back against him.
She wrapped her arms round his middle and nuzzled her face into his chest, which made him smile despite the inclement conditions.She is wet through and exhausted, I need to get her warm and dry as soon as possible.
“I think we should stop in Swinford for the night. And given that we are arriving on one horse I think I should say you are my wife, or it is going to look dashed peculiar, and I’d rather not wrangle with the landlord over proprieties,” he said, tightening his arm round her as he urged Inigo into a canter.
She looked up at him dazed.
“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. You’re safe with me, Annis.”
She bit her lip and nodded, subsiding against his chest again, and he said nothing more until he brought Inigo to a halt in the courtyard of the Blue Rose Inn.
He nudged her gently. “We’ve arrived.”
“Hm?” she straightened up. “Where?”
“Swinford.” He dismounted and drew her down into his arms and set her gently on her feet. She clutched at his arm to steady herself.I am right—she is completely done in, and cold to thebone.“Here, hold onto something while I get our bags,” he said, putting her hand onto the pommel. He unlashed both bags and turned just as a servitor appeared.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Yes, take these. I require a room for myself and my wife, a hot bath for the lady, and a meal for us both served in the room. And see that my horse is attended to.”
The man, recognizing him for quality from his speech, bowed. “At once, sir.” He indicated to the ostler to take the horse. “Come this way.”
Emrys turned his attention back to Annis. “Can you walk, or would you like me to carry you?” he asked quietly.
“I can walk,” she said faintly, grabbing his arm. Deciding that she couldn’t after all, he swept her up and carried her into the inn and up the stairs after the man with their bags.
The room he showed them to wasn’t elegant, but it was clean. It boasted a fireplace where a fire was already lit, and there were several candles and two lamps to give them light in the gathering gloom. There was also a large bed covered in a cozy red coverlet and piled high with pillows, a small round table with two chairs, a small two-seater couch drawn up to the fire, and a dresser with drawers, on the top of which rested a ewer and bowl.
“You shall have the bath and hot water directly, sir, and a meal soon after.” The man left, and Emrys set Miss Pringle—Annis—down on the settee and began unlacing her cloak. “Let me get this off you,” he said.
She let him, and he divested himself of his own coat as well, which was also wet, but being made of thicker material, had withstood the soaking rain better. He turned to his pack and found the flask he carried and took that to her and offered it. She needed something immediately to buck her up a bit.
