Another Dream
Chapter 1
The sun was still shining down from a cloudless blue sky when one of the outriders rode up beside the carriage in which Eleanor Thompson was traveling and bent to rap on the window. Eleanor looked up from her book, startled, and removed her spectacles as the maid who traveled with her lowered the window.
“Storm’s coming up fast behind us, ma’am,” the man said, removing his hat. “Tom Coachman was hoping to outpace it, but he says it can’t be done even if he springs the horses, which His Grace don’t like his doing on account of it can lame them easy. We are betwixt and between posting houses and it makes more sense to press on than to turn back. Tom says we will stop at the first inn we come to. You will be quite safe, ma’am, till then. She looks like a nasty one, but Tom is the best. No one less than the best would do for the dook.”
With which words of alarm and reassurance he pulled back to resume his place behind the carriage. Both he and the other outrider had been sent to Bath with the carriage and the coachman and footman and maid to convey Eleanor from the girls’ school she owned and at which she taught to Lindsey Hall in Hampshire, country seat of the Duke of Bewcastle. Wulfric, the duke, was married to Eleanor’s sister Christine. Traveling thus was undeniably luxurious though it always amused Eleanor to be treated like a grand lady.
She pressed her face to the window and looked back. Oh, dear, yes. Thick, dark clouds were boiling up from the west, and even as she watched a jagged streak of lightning sliced through them. A thunderstorm was frightening, even dangerous, when one was traveling. The rain alone could quickly turn the road to a muddy quagmire. Even as she sat back in her seat Eleanor noticed that the wind was getting up. It was bending the long grass in the meadow beside the road and slightly rocking the carriage. The thunder that succeeded the lightning was felt more than heard above the clopping of the horses’ hooves and the rumble of the carriage wheels.
She had left Bath early this morning for what was usually an easy day’s journey. She had looked forward to being at Lindsey Hall in time to take tea with Christine and Wulfric and her mother, who lived with them. It was possible too that Hazel, her other sister, would have arrived before her with Charles and their children. It was a rare treat for their whole family to be together, but this summer Lindsey Hall was going to be filled to the rafters with family and other guests for a two-week house party in celebration of Wulfric’s fortieth birthday. It now seemed altogether possible that Eleanor would not get there today at all. She might be forced to spend a night on the road. She could only hope that at least it would be at an inn.
“Don’t worry, Miss,” the maid said. “Tom Coachman is the very best, like Andy just said.”
Eleanor smiled at her. “We must hope, Alma,” she said, “for the sake of the men out there with only the brims of their hats to hide beneath, that the next inn is not far off.”
By the time they reached it, however, a squat, unremarkable building on the edge of an equally unremarkable village, the storm had caught up to them and was raging about them in the form of torrential rain and a wind like a hurricane and unrelenting lightning and thunder. Alma was reciting the Lord’s Prayer with her lips though some of the words were audible—“...Thy will be done on earth...And forgive us our trespasses...But deliver us from evil, oh please, please, Lord.” Eleanor was gripping the leather strap above her head and the edge of the seat cushion on her other side and had her feet firmly braced on the floor as though by so doing she could stop the carriage from rocking dangerously in the wind and weaving and slipping over the muddy surface of the road. The carriage somehow made the turn into the half flooded inn yard and came to a stop without being blown over.
“Amen,” Alma said aloud and Eleanor repeated silently.
A few minutes later they were standing inside a low-ceilinged taproom that smelled of stale ale and was probably dark and dingy even when the sun was shining outside. At the counter the innkeeper was dealing with a tall gentleman in a caped coat, who was bespeaking two rooms and a private parlor. Eleanor doubted the inn boasted such a luxury as a parlor, but apparently it did. There were also two bedchambers available. She hoped fervently there was a third. She did not imagine this place was often besieged by large numbers of travelers looking for lodging. Its main function was almost undoubtedly to provide ale to slake the villagers’ thirst.
Eleanor thought the gentleman was portly until he half turned and she saw that he had a child snuggled inside his coat—a child with a mop of unruly blond hair. A girl of about nine or ten stood beside the gentleman. An older woman, dressed plainly in a black cloak with a white mob cap beneath her hood, probably the children’s nurse, stood a little apart from them.
“You don’t have to be afraid any longer, Robbie,” the girl said. “We are safe in here, are we not, Papa? I was not afraid at all, was I?”
“You were very brave,” the gentleman said as he signed the register and the child inside his coat peeped with one eye at the girl until he spotted Eleanor and covered the eye with his hand before ducking against his father again.
“There was nothing to be afraid of, was there, Papa?” the little girl asked. “Just a lot of flashes and cracks and mud. Is that not right, Papa?”
“It is always wise,” the man thus addressed said, “to have a healthy respect for thunderstorms, Georgette. They can certainly do harm to man and beast, though not when one is safely indoors.”
“And woman too, Papa?” the child asked.
“Assuredly,” he said with admirable patience. “To woman too and girls and boys and puppies and pigs and slugs. Thank you,” he added as the innkeeper handed him two large keys. “We will move out of the way now so that this lady can be served. I do beg your pardon for delaying you, ma’am.”
He had turned to Eleanor and smiled, revealing himself to be a handsome as well as a patient gentleman. He had his hands full with the child, who had been scared witless by the storm, poor little mite, and the girl, who seemed the sort to ask a million questions even when all she was really asking for was reassurance. For who would not be frightened when caught out in such weather?
“That is quite all right,” Eleanor assured him. “At least it is safe and dry in here.” Though she had got more than half soaked just in the dash from the carriage to the door.
Tom Coachman, drenched and dripping onto the floor, dealt with all the business of engaging a room for her and quarters for the servants after the gentleman and his family had moved away. Tom was not wearing the ducal livery—that happened only when he was conveying the duke or the duchess—but there was an air of authority about him that commanded respect. Before many more minutes had passed, Eleanor was in possession of another of the large keys and was on her way upstairs with Alma while an elderly lady and gentleman took her place at the counter. There was, alas, no other private parlor for her use. She would have to eat her dinner in the small public dining room with other stranded travelers. There would doubtless be more. She was quite resigned to spending the night here. Even if the rain stopped at this very minute—and it showed no sign of abating—it was doubtful the road would be safe for travel before nightfall.
Her room was small and stuffy. It looked clean, though, and there were two beds, one for her and one for Alma. But, oh, the tedium of being delayed. The storm might have been kind enough to hold off for a few more hours.
“At least, Alma,” she said, standing by the window and looking down through the rain at a water-logged stable yard, “the floor is steady beneath our feet.”
The terror of the past hour had exhausted poor Alma. Eleanor persuaded her to lie down for a few minutes and then, when the girl was fast asleep and snoring, she went downstairs to see if there was a cup of tea to be had in the taproom or, preferably, in the dining room.
She was ushered into the latter by the innkeeper and was pleasantly surprised when he quickly brought to her table a good-sized teapot with milk, sugar, a cup and saucer, and a plate. He returned moments later, while she was still wondering about the plate, with a platter of cakes and pastries, all of which looked freshly baked and smelled altogether too appetizing.
“The wife is in her element, ma’am,” he explained, jerking a thumb back in the direction of the kitchen. “As soon as we heard the first rumble of thunder a couple of hours or so ago, she says, ‘Joe,’ she says, ‘we are going to get company before the afternoon is out, you mark my words,’ she says, ‘and that company will be Quality,’ she says. And she fired up the range and the oven and set to work. I haven’t seen her this happy since it snowed sudden last December and we squeezed eleven persons and two nippers in here for two days. You will have a dinner tonight that you will remember till next summer and beyond, ma’am, and no mistake. She used to be head cook up at the big house, did the wife, and mighty put out they was when she married me and up and left to come here.”
“But how fortunate for travelers who find themselves stranded here,” Eleanor said. “I expect you have a full house by now, do you?”
“Ten and two nippers,” he told her. “Even the couple I thought I would be obliged to turn away on account of there being no rooms left ended up staying. They were willing to sleep on the benches in the taproom if there was nothing else available, but when I mentioned the old attic room that is half full of boxes and gets wet in one corner when it rains hard, they took it sight unseen. I did not charge them more than the cost of their dinner and breakfast, though. It would not have been Christian, would it?”
“You are very kind,” Eleanor assured him.
