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In the darkness, it was next to impossible to make out the colour of the horse, though it might have been a dappled brown or perhaps even grey. One thing not mistakable, however, was its rider. Instinctively, Philip threw himself down the carriage steps and moved carefully down the side of the lane, all too aware of just how close his feet fell to the edge of the ditch beside him.
“Excuse me, Miss, it is dangerous for a woman to be travelling alone at such a late hour,” Philip called out as he made it past the horses, giving the nearest a quick pat on his neck to calm him as he passed by. “Perhaps we might be of assistance?”
The horse, which had been moving at a steady trot, suddenly sped up, and had the carriage not been filling most of the lane, Philip might have thought that the rider intended to race right past them.
Philip stood his ground, knowing the rider had nowhere to go and held his breath until the horse skidded to an abrupt halt right before him. It was so close when it stopped that he could feel the beast’s warm, sour breath upon his face.
Although the smell of the horse was quite overpowering, there was another strong scent, one that caused his nostrils to tingle the moment he smelled it.
“Lavender …” he breathed out as the woman upon the saddle suddenly dismounted. The coachman behind Philip had clambered down from his bench and was walking towards them now with the carriage lantern lifted to see the woman who had climbed down from her horse.
Yet even before she turned to them and began to lower her cloak, Philip got the sense that he knew exactly who she was. Lady Daisy dropped the hood of her emerald riding cloak and offered him a beaming smile.
“It is good to see you again, Mr Radcliffe,” she said in such a sweet tone that it brought tears to his eyes.
Unable to believe what he was seeing, Philip hurried forward. Forgetting that the coachman was watching him, he grabbed hold of Lady Daisy’s face and kissed her. Feeling the soft yet firm realness of her lips, he pulled back and gasped, “My Lady, what are you doing out here and all alone?”
With his hands still upon her cheeks, he could feel as well as see how much she was smiling, and when she made no move to escape his embrace, he felt his heart soaring.
“I received your letter, Mr Radcliffe,” she told him in a hushed tone as if she weren’t certain whether she ought to allow the coachman to hear her. “I received your letter, and I knew I could not wait for you to return to Oxford.”
“You still ought not be out here alone,” he protested, “it is dangerous for a woman to travel alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” Daisy protested, and at that moment, she glanced over her shoulder just in time for them to see a second horse rushing forth as if the rider had been struggling to keep up with her. “Thomas may be good with caring for the horses, but he is dreadful at riding them. I shall have him return home now that I have found you!”
It was at that moment that Lady Daisy threw herself at him, cutting him off from responding by kissing him with her arm wrapped around his neck.
She paused only to tell him, “I did not receive your letters and soon as I read your latest I was certain someone inside my father’s house had to have been sabotaging them somehow,” she explained, kissing him again before she added, “I wanted to send a response to you, but I could not wait a moment longer. Bertha and her groom helped me to sneak out as soon as everyone else had retired for the evening.”
Struggling to breathe for kissing, Philip gripped hold of her hips and urged her back slightly, relieved that she didn’t immediately pull away as if he were rejecting her.
“Slow down, My Lady,” he urged her. “You are all worked up. What are you doing here?”
“I could not spend another moment in that house!” Lady Daisy announced. “I cannot stay there. I cannot marry Lord Bessington. I have no intentions of marrying him, though I know not how to escape it.”
At that moment, hearing her words, he knew what they had to do. The idea came to him immediately as if it had been whispered into his ear by the breeze. Gripping her hands, Philip said, “Daisy, there is only one way you can get out of this engagement.”
Lady Daisy’s strawberry blonde eyebrow rose then, and she looked quite uncertain. “What is it? I shall do anything.”
“You cannot be engaged to one man if you are already married to another,” Philip pointed out, his heart hammering as he thought of all he was suggesting to her.
“But I am not married to …” Daisy began only to cut herself off as if it were dawning upon her exactly what he was suggesting.
“Gretna Green is only a few days away from here,” Philip pointed out, unable to say the words aloud, unable to ask her outright for fear that she might reject him.
“I am not sure my horse can go much further,” Lady Daisy admitted, and Philip was only comfortable knowing she had not rejected his proposition outright.
Hoping not to put her entirely on the spot, Philip glanced over his shoulder and asked the coachman, “Is there an inn close by?”
The coachman nodded, remaining silent, though his expression was not without suspicion. Philip was certain that if he asked for the man’s opinion, he would likely receive it. Yet he did not wish to, and so he told the coachman, “We shall go to the inn and ask for a room as Mr and Mrs Radcliffe. In the morning, we shall continue to Gretna Green.”
“Are you certain, Mr Radcliffe?” the coachman asked, and Philip cringed when he added, “Will your father approve of this?”
It was a sentence that the man had said to him a few times over the years. He and Philip usually concluded that his father would not appreciate whatever he was considering. Yet, this time, after having had the conversation with his father and sister about his closeness to Lady Daisy, he couldn’t help feeling that his father would not wish him to lose her.
“My father will happily greet the daughter of his old friend as his daughter-in-law,” Philip announced, clutching Daisy closely to his side and embracing her even as he felt the coachman still watching them. “You will take us to the inn, and you will have a room for the night.”
Chapter 29
