They picked up speed the moment they took the final turn leaving the town. Obediently, Sara put a hand on her bonnet to help secure it to her head. The carriage tooled along, the shoes tied to the back knocking noisily. She frowned, staring at Roger’s hat flapping the wind, despite its location.
Why was she so worried about a bonnet? She had another. With another glint in her eyes and rebellious smile, Sara brought her hand down and untied her bonnet. Immediately the wind picked it up and whisked it out of her hand. Looking back at its trajectory behind the carriage, she gave a gleeful laugh and tilted her head back toward the sun, feeling the wind start to pull at her coif. She quickly pulled out her new diamond hairpins and placed them in her reticule, loathe to lose those.
When they pulled onto the lane for Windent Hall she sobered. Whatever was she going to say to the man? This was the one who did not come to her wedding to rescue her. Of course, in hindsight, she did not need rescuing after all, but that was not the issue. What could she possibly say to a man who had made it so abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with her? Was she simply setting herself up for further heartache and humiliation?
Rogers reined in the horses some distance from the house, slowing first to a trot and then a walk. Sara shifted to the opposite bench and tapped him on the back. “Why are you slowing?”
“There’s a rider up ahead on the lane, miss,” Rogers replied over his shoulder.
Sara peered around him and sure enough, a rider was approaching at a fair gallop. There was hardly enough room for the two conveyances; the man would have to slow down if he wanted to pass safely.
Rogers pulled to a stop. “He hasn’t slowed down yet. This may be hairy.”
Sara bit her lip. There was being adventurous and then there was being deliberately unsafe. She had no wish to injure herself, Rogers or the horses, let alone the approaching man. Who would be traveling at such a frantic pace on a narrow country lane?
“Can you pull over at all?” she asked.
“No miss, not without getting the carriage caught in the bushes.”
“What shall we do?”
“I think he’s finally starting to slow.”
Sara glanced at the rider again, his physique finally becoming familiar and recognizable. She had so rarely seen Nathan on horseback that she had failed to realize it was him. She stood up in the carriage, giving him a better view of herself so he could not fail to recognize her.
He reined to a stop, his horse prancing in a circle at the sudden change in speed. Nathan stared at her. “What has happened?” he demanded. “Has someone assaulted you?”
Sara put a hand to her hair, realizing that her ruined coif combined with her flushed face and excited breathing could be construed as a distress. “I am fine,” she said. “I have come to see you. I need to tell you something.”
He glanced angrily around the carriage. “Where is your husband?”
“Charles is at the church.”
That sentence punched him in the solar plexus. Nathan couldn’t breathe. He was too late. She had married the Goddamn Bloody Vicar. He had spent too much time dithering like an old woman about going to the church and now he had lost his chance.
His heart ached at the sight of her, flushed and heaving, her glorious red curls abounding around her face. She was to be his torture, his penance for the rest of his life, knowing that she would forever be out of reach. He knew she would never consent to being his mistress, not while married to another, just as deeply as he knew he would never ask her. The only question he wanted to ask was moot now, for she had already granted that wish to another.
“What is it?” he bit out, both curious and nauseous at what she might have to say.
“I am going to Scotland.”
That was not what he had expected. “I beg your pardon?”
“I am going to Scotland.”
“He is taking you there on a wedding trip, is he?”
“Who?”
Was she deliberately torturing him? “Your adoring husband.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Oh!” She smiled at him mischievously. “I suppose I forgot about that.”
Nathan grunted at her. “Not married an hour and already forgetting about the man? I shall inform the rakes of London; Taft and its church will become a popular spot.”