His expression was intent, but he was not looking at her. “We must simply wait to be married,” he murmured. “We cannot go to London, of course. We shall have to live very quietly in the country, and—”
“Wait!” Diana was aghast. “Gerald, you promised me we should be married at once. Indeed, I never could have”—she choked on the word “eloped”—“left home otherwise.”
Meeting her eyes, Gerald saw unshakable determination, and the collapse of all his careful plans. One thing his rather unconventional life had taught him was to read others’ intentions. Diana would not be swayed by argument, however logical.
Why had she withheld this crucial piece of information? he wondered. This was all her fault. In fact, she had neatly trapped him into compromising her. But if she thought that the proprieties weighed with him, she was mistaken. The chit deserved whatever she got.
He looked up, and met her worried gaze. The naked appeal in her dark eyes stopped the flood of recrimination on his tongue, but it did not change his mind. Hunching a shoulder defensively, he rose. “I should see about the horses. You had better get dressed.”
“Yes, I will,” replied Diana eagerly, relief making her weak. “I won’t be a minute.”
Gerald nodded curtly, and went out.
But when Diana descended the narrow stair a half hour later, her small valise in her hand, there was no sign of Gerald Carshin. There were only a truculent innkeeper proffering a bill, two sniggering postboys, and a round-eyed chambermaid wiping her hands in her apron.
Diana refused to believe Gerald was gone. Even when it was pointed out that a horse was missing from the stable, along with the gentleman’s valise from the hired chaise, Diana shook her head stubbornly. She sat down in the private parlor to await Gerald’s return, concentrating all her faculties on appearing unconcerned. But as the minutes ticked past, her certainty slowly ebbed, and after a while she was trembling under the realization that she had been abandoned far from her home.
Papa had been right. He had said that Gerald wanted nothing but her money. She had thought that his willingness to marry her at seventeen proved otherwise, but she saw now that this wasn’t so. Gerald had simply not understood. Hadn’t she told him all the terms of her mother’s will? She thought she had, but her memory of their early meetings was blurred by a romantically golden haze.
It hardly mattered now, in any case. Gerald was gone, and she must think what to do. With shaking fingers Diana opened her reticule and counted the money she had managed to scrape together. Four pounds and seven shillings. It would never be enough to pay the postboys and the inn. She could give them what she had, but where would she go afterward, penniless?
Tears started then, for her present plight and for the ruin of all her hopes and plans. Diana put her face in her hands and sobbed.
It was thus that the innkeeper found her sometime later. He strode into the parlor with an impatient frown, but it faded when he saw Diana’s misery. “Here, now,” he said, “don’t take on so.” His words had no discernible effect, and he began to look uneasy. “Wait here a moment until I fetch my wife,” he added, backing quickly to the door. Diana paid no heed. She scarcely heard.
A short time later a small plump woman bustled into the room and stood before Diana with her hands on her hips. Her husband peered around the door, but the older woman motioned brusquely for him to shut it, leaving them alone. “Now, miss,” she said then, “crying will do you no good, though I can’t say as I blame you for it. An elopement, was it?”
Diana cried harder.
The woman nodded. “And your young man has changed his mind seemingly. Well, you’ve made a bad mistake, no denying that.”
Still, the only response was sobs.
“Have you any money at all?”
Diana struggled to control herself. She must make an effort to honor her obligations, however she felt. “F-four pounds,” she managed finally, holding out the reticule.
The innkeeper’s wife took it and examined the contents. “Tch. The blackguard! He might have left you something more.”
“He only cared about getting my money,” murmured Diana brokenly.
The other’s eyes sharpened. “Indeed? Well, miss, my advice is to put him right out of your mind. He’s no good.”
Diana gazed at the carpet.
“You should go back to your family,” added the woman. “They’ll stand by you and help scotch the scandal. You haven’t been away so very long, I wager.”
Diana shuddered at the thought of her father. She couldn’t go back to face his contempt. Yet where else could she go?
“Tom and me could advance you some money. Not for a private chaise, mind, but for the stage. You could send it back when you’re home again.”
“W-would you?” She was amazed.
Something in the girl’s tear-drenched brown eyes made the landlady reach out and pat her shoulder. “You’ll be all right once you’re among your own people again,” she said. “But you’d best get ready. The stage comes at ten.”
In an unthinking daze, Diana paid the postboys and dismissed them, gathered her meager luggage, and mounted the stage when it arrived. A young man sitting opposite tried to get up a conversation, but Diana didn’t even hear him. Her mind was spinning with the events of the past few days. As the miles went by, she recounted them again and again. Why had she not seen Gerald’s true colors sooner? Why had she allowed him to cajole her into an elopement? What was to become of her now? She was surely ruined forever through her own foolishness. How could she look anyone in the eye again after what she had done?
Wrapped in these gloomy reflections, Diana was oblivious until the stage set her down at an inn near her home in Yorkshire. And once there, she stood outside the inn’s door, her small valise beside her, afraid to reveal her presence.
“Yes, miss, may I help you?” asked a voice, and the innkeeper appeared in the doorway.
Diana tried to speak, and failed.
“Did you want dinner?” he added impatiently. She could hear sounds from the taproom beyond. “Are you waiting for someone to fetch you? Will you come in?”
“No,” she answered, her voice very low. “I…I am all right. Thank you.” She would walk home, she decided. The house was four miles away, but all other alternatives seemed worse.
“Wait a moment. Aren’t you the Gresham girl?” The man came out to survey her, and Diana flinched. “I’ve seen you with your father. They managed to get word to you, then, did they? There was some talk that Mrs. Samuels didn’t know where you’d gone.”
Diana frowned. Mrs. Samuels was their housekeeper. What did she have to do with anything?