Miss Winthorpe's Elopement by Christine Merrill Read Free Book Online Page B

business. My father loved it dearly, and the books as well. And reading them, of course. He and Mother named us from the classics. My brother’s name is Hector. Father always said that education was a great equaliser.’
    ‘It is fortunate that a lack of education does not work in the same way. I was sent down from Oxford. It has had little effect on my status.’
    They fell silent, again. She longed to ask why he had been forced to leave Oxford, but did not wish to seem impertinent. Was he like her brother had been, unimpressed by her desire for scholarship?
    If so, he was biding his time before making the fact known. He’d had ample opportunity in the last few days to point out her foolishness over the translation. But he had said nothing yet.
    ‘Marriage is also a great equaliser,’ he said, to no one in particular.
    Did he mean to refer to her sudden rise in society? If so, it was most unfair of him. She looked at him sharply. ‘Apparently so. For once we reach the bank, your fortune shall be the equal of mine.’
    She noted the flash of surprise in his eyes, as though she had struck him. And she waited with some trepidation for the response.
    Then his face cleared, and he laughed. And suddenly she was sharing the carriage with the man she thought she had married. ‘ Touché . I expect I will hear similar sentiments once my friends get wind of our happy union, but I had not expected to hear them from my own wife. I recommend, madam, that you save some of that sharp tongue to respond to those that wish to offer you false compliments on your most fortunate marriage.’
    People would talk.
    Well, of course they would. Why had she not realised the fact? And they would talk in a way that they never would have had she married the drunken nobody she was seeking. She was a duchess.
    She would be noticed. And people would laugh.
    A hand touched her, and she jumped, and realised that she had forgotten she was not alone in the carriage. She looked up into the face of her new husband, and read the concern on his face.
    ‘Are you all right?’ He said it very deliberately, as though he expected her to misunderstand. ‘For a moment, you looked quite ill.’
    ‘It is nothing. We have been travelling for some time, and the trip…’ She let her words drift away, allowing him to make what he would of them.
    ‘Shall I tell the driver to stop?’
    ‘No, really. I will be fine.’
    ‘Perhaps if we switch seats—a change of direction might help.’ He took her hands and pulled her up off her bench, rising and pivoting gracefully in the tight space of the rocking carriage, to take her place and give her his. Then he pulled the shade on the window so that the moving scenery did not addle her gaze.
    ‘Thank you.’ She did still feel somewhat faint at the realisation of what she had done by marrying, and the impact it might have on the rest of her life. The distant and strange idea occurred to her that her husband was being most helpful and understanding about the whole thing. And that it might be nice to sit beside him, andrest her head against his shoulder for a time, until the world stopped spinning around her.
    Which was a ludicrous idea. He was solicitous, but he had done nothing to make her think she was welcome to climb into his coat pocket. She looked at him again, even more beautiful in his concern for her, and closed her eyes against the realisation that they were a ridiculous study in contrast. A casual observer could not help but comment on it.
    If he noticed the clamminess of her hand, which he still held, he did not comment, but reached out with his other hand as well, to rub some warmth back into the fingers. ‘We will be in the city soon. You will feel much better, I am sure, once we have had some refreshment and a change of clothes.’
    She certainly hoped so, for she doubted that she could feel any worse.

Chapter Five
    W hen she opened her eyes a while later, the carriage was pulling up in front of a row of