Read Online Folly's Reward by Jean R. Ewing - Free Book Online Page B

back. Her longing pooled in her heart, desperate, filled with wonder.
    “Your hair is shining in the sun like the magic strands of silk that bound the jester to his lute,” he murmured against her mouth. “With your hair down, you are someone else. Be that person while you may, angel. ‘Let us go, while we are in our prime / And take the harmless folly of the time!’ You may be as angry with me as you like afterward. After all, when we get to Carlisle, I won’t be employed any longer, will I?”
    His touch disappeared. Prudence opened her eyes to see him striding away toward the horses. She sank to the ground and squatted there for a moment with her hand over her mouth.
    Oh, dear Lord! She was nothing better than a hussy. She hadn’t objected, or pushed him away, or closed her mouth. Miss Prudence Drake had stood there like a ninny, seduced by a fairy tale, and had her senses sweetly ravished.
    She forced herself to stand. Squaring her shoulders, she pulled replacement pins out of her pocket. Rapidly she put up her hair.
    The carriage horses looked at her over their nosebags as Prudence climbed back into the chaise next to the sleeping child. A few moments later, she heard Hal untie the horses, put the feedbags away, and climb onto the box.
    In the next hour they had dropped down into the valley and passed through the long village of Thornhill. They would reach Dumfries in two hours. By the time they came into Annan, it would be dark. Before midnight they would reach Carlisle, where there would be innumerable coaches to England, and she could say good-bye to Hal forever.
    Prudence felt the force of that future with a strange desolation, as tears slipped silently down her cheeks.
    * * *
    The chaise lurched to halt. She awoke to a confusion of shouts and curses. Bobby startled beside her and cried out.
    Hal’s voice, soothing, yet authoritative, countered the sounds of several men and a woman, screaming and wailing.
    Hal came to the door and looked in.
    “I am very sorry, Miss Drake,” he said formally. “There has been a small accident. No one is hurt, but the road is blocked. We may have to stop here for some time.”
    She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Where are we?”
    He turned away for a moment and made inquiries.
    “Two hours from our destination,” he said after a moment. “We lack but fourteen miles or so to Carlisle. Longtown and romantic Lochinvar are lost in the murky dark ahead of us. We are stranded at Graitney.”
    Prudence peered from the coach window, her arm around Bobby. The child stared wide-eyed into the night. They seemed to be in the main street of a small village. Beyond a straggle of houses, the countryside stretched away into a flat, barren darkness.
    Several men ran up with torches. The road ahead was blocked by a large wagon, which was entangled with an overturned carriage. The occupants, a young girl and a man at least ten years her senior, were standing in the road arguing.
    “I shan’t marry you at all!” the girl cried. “Look what you’ve done! You’ve run us into a great haywain, dumped me into the road, and spoiled my pelisse.”
    “By God, Sarah,” the man returned. “If all you can mind is your damned pelisse, I’ll be glad to let you go home to your father without a wedding, and that’s the Lord’s own truth.”
    The girl began to wail in great wrenching sobs.
    “I believe,” Hal said with a swallowed smile. “That we are witnessing the ruins of an elopement. I am given to understand that it is less than a mile to the border. But whatever we may think about the young lady’s dashed hopes, her swain has crashed his carriage against that large wagon and we cannot pass. Shall we go into the inn and refresh ourselves while we await developments?”
    Prudence took Bobby by the hand and climbed from the chaise. A boy ran out from the inn and took charge of their carriage. She allowed Hal to give her his arm, and they walked together into Graitney Hall, the only