“You’ve made your point, Mr. Coates, but I’m not going home. I don’t know what I’ll do, but don’t worry, I’ll find some means to make my way. If not here, then perhaps in Halifax.”
“There’s no road to Halifax. It’s all Indian trails and bridle paths.”
She huffed in frustration. “What would you have me do, then? Go home on the next ship? Go home to a father who wanted me gone so badly that he deceived both of us to get rid of me?”
Adam removed his hat and ran a hand over his dark, backswept hair. “You don’t know that.”
“You said you asked him for Diana’s hand. The man could read.”
The horses snorted and tossed their heads. “Well, perhaps he simply thought it should be your turn. Diana had already been married. I doubt he was that determined to getridof you.”
Madeline chose not to correct him on that point. He didn’t need to know the truth, and at least he was no longer insinuating that this scheme was her doing.
“I still think it would be in your best interest to return to Yorkshire and be with your father,” he told her. “Cumberland is no place for a young woman alone.”
“I’ll consider it,” she replied, just to end the discussion.
A few minutes later, she watched a brown squirrel shimmy across an evergreen bough overhead and leap onto a taller tree. “How did you learn about Diana’s widowhood?” she asked, curious about how this deplorable situation had come to pass.
“News makes its way over here eventually. And I may have made inquiries about her over the years.”
Inquiries. Beautiful Diana. Men were always making inquiries….
Madeline gazed at Adam’s mature face beside her, and even now, after all that had happened, her childish heart found it difficult to believe that she was actually sitting beside him, alone here in the forest, their thighs bumping every so often. She felt an unwelcome, impetuous thrill over it, and a twinge of hope that perhaps one day, he might forget about Diana and see Madeline differently.
Her skin tingled beneath her dress, and she wished she could throttle the sensation. She didn’t want to start fantasizing again about this man who was not what she remembered. She would only wind up getting hurt, for she had yet in her life to experience otherwise.
“Did you love her that much, then?” She hoped her tone hadn’t revealed how hurt she’d been over all this, but she wanted to hear how he felt.
No. After that thigh-bumping thrill, sheneededto hear it.
He clicked his tongue at the horses. “Yes, I did.”
Madeline tried to crush the unwise pang of jealousy she did not want to feel.
Adam continued. “And I still wish to marry her. Perhaps you could help me?”
Help you?She tried to keep her voice light, to sound obliging. “How?”
“You could give me her address in London. I plan to notify my solicitor there, and if Diana agrees, have him arrange a proxy marriage. I want no mistakes this time.”
Feeling very tired all of a sudden, Madeline nodded. She knew that Diana had been lonely since her husband died. If it was her whim, she would be sailing into the muddy waters of Cumberland Basin on the very next ship from England—as Adam’s wife—and there was no sense harboring any secret hopes to the contrary.
Chapter Three
Madeline and Adam drove out of the woods and down a gentle slope onto the low, windy grasslands. A herd of black-and-white cattle grazed nearby, and they lifted their heads and stared, as if they were perplexed to see Madeline, who was not the woman they had been expecting. Knowing it was a ridiculous notion, she turned her face away from them and looked the other way.
In the distance, up on another hill overlooking the marsh, stood a large, majestic-looking red brick house. Madeline wondered if this was the place she had dreamed about, and wondered further how close her fantasies had been to reality. Judging by the look of the place, her fantasies had been eerily accurate indeed.
They turned into the tree-lined driveway that led up to the house, and barely made it to the door before a young boy came racing out of it to greet them.
Adam obviously wasn’t the only one who had been looking forward to Diana’s arrival.
“My youngest son,” Adam explained with an apologetic tone.
The boy bolted across the front yard. Madeline shifted uncomfortably in her seat, dreading the matter of explaining the mistake and telling him that the woman his father had planned to marry hadn’t even known he’d proposed.
They rolled to a gentle stop in front of the house. The boy approached and took hold of the harness. “Hello, Father!” He gazed timidly at Madeline as he waited for an introduction.
