“Son. Son!”
His mother’s voice, a loud whisper, jolted him awake. He opened his eyes, confused at first as to where he was.
“What is it?” he asked sleepily.
“We’re at the inn,” his mother told him.
“Oh. Good,” Robert murmured, feeling a little cross. She had not needed to jolt him so suddenly awake.
He stepped out of the coach, then helped his mother down, and lastly reached up for Henry, who was half-asleep. He lifted the little boy, carrying him to the inn steps.
“He can walk,” his mother hissed as they reached the door.
Robert glared at her, all his suppressed anger from the last six hours in the coach igniting again.
“He is tired,” he said carefully, not wanting to upset the little boy, who was clinging onto his shoulder, his head resting sleepily there. “If I see fit, I will carry him. I will take tea with Henry and you, and then I will go for a walk,” he added. He was seething with anger, and he needed time on his own to calm himself.
“A walk? Do not take too long! The coach will depart in an hour. Son...”
Robert just glared at her and walked into the inn. The innkeeper greeted them, somewhat nervous, it seemed, to be meeting a duke and a dowager duchess. Robert ordered their best two rooms, and tea, then carried Henry up to the upstairs parlor, where he settled his son on an upholstered chair by the window.
“Here, son,” Robert said gently. “You can look out of the window. See? There’s a coach going by. The innkeeper will bring tea and some cake, and then I will go for a walk. Grandmama will stay with you. Does that sound pleasant?”
“Cake!” Henry said, sounding happy.
Robert smiled. “Good. Here’s Grandmama. And I think the cake is here too,” he added, seeing the innkeeper hovering nervously in the corridor.
His mother took a seat at the table, pouring milk into a cup for Henry and helping him with the cake, which the innkeeper brought instantly. Whatever else Robert might think of her, his mother did care about Henry, even if her ideas of what was good for him were entirely different to his own.
“I just wish she would let me be in peace,” he muttered as he stalked down the stairs and out of the inn. He barely even looked where he was going, just followed a track that led down from the inn yard and out across a field. It was a well-worn, narrow track as though livestock were led to pasture there. He followed it away from the inn, walking briskly along until he reached a wide, empty field. He stopped. The empty, stubbly field stretched out under the gray sky. The place suited his mood. He felt desolate, deserted, just like the field was.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered as he stood there. He talked to her sometimes, wishing that she was there to guide him. “I do not wish to do what my mother asks of me.”
Elizabeth’s face filled his mind, her pale skin creased into a frown at her brow, the lines smoothing out where she grinned. She had a lovely smile, spontaneous and untamed. Everything about her was lovely, from her quick smile—and quicker mind—to her pretty fingers. His heart twisted in pain.
He could not even think of finding another woman. Even if he were, somehow, miraculously, to find a woman, he was sure it would not be Marina. He had not seen her for several years—not since before her debut—but he recalled her as shallow and superficial.
Elizabeth—who had been anything but shallow and superficial—was not there to answer, and he stared out across the empty fields. On the horizon, two larks flew, soaring and calling, surprised by something in the field below them. Robert felt his heart twist, seeing their flight. He envied them their closeness, their freedom.
“I shall not let Mama push me into a cage,” he whispered.
That was one thing he could promise himself, Henry and Elizabeth. He would keep his freedom.
Chapter 3
Sarah gazed out of the window of the coach. Her head still pounded from the exhaustion of six days of traveling, but it was late afternoon, and she stared in wonder as the coach-horses clopped along a cobbled street. They were passing the Crescent in Bath, and her jaw dropped in amazement at the magnificent, Grecian-inspired building on her right, so long and vast and perfectly crescent-shaped, curving down the long road.
“Is it not magnificent?” she whispered to Abigail.
The older woman, sitting calmly on the seat opposite, just nodded. “It is, miss. Quite something to see, it is.”
Sarah smiled. Abigail was her ideal companion for traveling—she was completely unruffled and never overwhelmed by anything. She seemed just a little impressed by the magnificent architecture—no more impressed than by well-baked tart or a neatly-hemmed seam.
“Cousin Caroline lives just a mile outside the town,” Sarah murmured as they trotted past the building, heading out of town. “We shall be able to come into Bath often, I think.”
“I am sure they will want to show it to you,” Abigail replied. She sounded a little bewildered as to why.
The coach moved on past a cathedral, its double spires seeming to touch the gray sky, and then rolled on down the street. People were coming out of their houses—women in long dresses with brightly-colored jackets against the chilly breeze, men in dark trousers and top-hats hurrying along to their destinations. Sarah gazed out, drinking in the sight of the bustling, beautiful town. The backdrop of whitish-yellow stone caught the rays of sunshine that were shining through the clouds. She drew in a sharp breath. It was exquisite. And soon she would be at Averhill House.
