‘Never you mind,’ Nicholas said grimly, swearing under his breath as a coalman shot a load of coal noisily down a cellar chute making the wheelers shy. ‘No woman walking the streets unaccompanied is any better than she should be. And I am beginning to think that a fresh team and Cassandra Weston in combination are more than any man should have to deal with at once.’
‘Oh, Nicholas, is that the Banqueting Hall?’ Cassandra was too excited to be crushed by his irritation. ‘Slow down, please, I want to look at it.’ She was swept up by the exhilaration of being driven through London, seeing before her eyes all the sights she had read about.
‘Perhaps you would like me to stop and buy you a guidebook?’ he enquired politely.
‘I wish you would. Papa has Mr Pennant’s London. If I had thought, I would have brought it with me, for Papa swears by it as a guide.’
‘Cassandra, I have no intention of sightseeing, gawping at streetwalkers, visiting bonnet shops, calling on the Prince Regent or any of the other diversions you seem to have in mind. Now, you tiresome child, you will sit still and be quiet, or I will set you down on London Bridge and you may throw yourself in the Thames or walk home to Ware as you wish.’
They both subsided into smouldering silence. Cassandra waited until Nicholas had turned the team onto the bridge, before she ventured, ‘Do you regret bringing me?’
Chapter Three
‘I must have been mad,’ Nicholas said grimly.
Cassandra shot him a glare and sniffed defiantly.
Poor brat, he thought with a surge of unwelcome sympathy. She was fighting not to let him see she was almost on the verge of tears. She was tired, she was frightened and the sights of London were probably a welcome distraction.
‘Don’t sniff, child. I don’t allow Jem to sniff, and besides, your nose is getting pink.’ Nicholas smiled at her, his irritation suddenly gone, as they passed the new obelisk in St George’s Circus. ‘If you want to sightsee, how about that magnificent building on our left?’
‘What is it?’ Cassandra craned to look.
‘The King’s Bench Prison.’
She shuddered and averted her gaze from the grim walls, her appetite for sights disappearing no doubt vanishing. The team settled down to their work and soon the wide streets of Southwark were behind them, Greenwich and Blackheath with their palace and parkland were past and the horses were breasting the long pull of Shooters Hill at a steady trot.
‘Are there highwaymen?’ she asked, gazing at the thick wood which grew right down to the road edge and inching closer to him.
‘Probably. There are horse pistols in the holster beside you. If we’re attacked, it’s the groom’s job to fire them.’ He glanced down at her. ‘Don’t worry, I’m teasing you, we’re safe enough in daylight and there are other travellers on the road. Besides, the Mail is a far more tempting target. If you look out at the crossroads, you might see a corpse on the gibbet,’ he added slyly.
Cassandra was spared the sight which was probably a good thing. He could do without her throwing up her early breakfast. It was nearly two o’clock before they arrived at the Shoulder of Mutton in Dartford and he heard Cassandra’s stomach grumble as she climbed down from the high seat. She stood quietly to one side like a good servant, while he gave orders to the ostlers for the return of his team and looked over the horses which were to replace them for the next stage to Chatham.
‘There’s time for some bread and cheese and ale.’ Nicholas shouldered his way into the inn and found them a corner table. ‘I should get a private parlour with you here, but this will be good practice for you. Just remember to act like a boy, and drink your ale, don’t sip it.’
Cassandra copied the way he lifted his tankard and drank deeply, then shuddered as the bitter liquid ran down her throat. ‘It’s disgusting. How can men drink this for pleasure?’
Nicholas listened with half his attention. He turned, one arm across the back of the settle, and watched the arrival of the Dover coach which had just clattered into the yard and was disgorging its noisy cargo.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked uneasily.
‘Nothing, I hope, so long as no-one who knows me is on board and stops to talk. Drink up, we’d better get on our way.’
They pushed their way back through the group, an ill-assorted collection of all social classes from young blades to plainly dressed artisans, all stretching to relieve the stiffness caused by the coach’s rattling progress.
Beside him he felt rather than heard Cassie let her breath out in a sigh of relief as they regained the road without anyone hailing him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought that I might be an embarrassment to you if anyone discovers me.’
‘No-one will,’ he said, as much to reassure himself as her as he drove the new team well up to their bits down the old Roman road to Rochester.
The green countryside, with its rows of neatly trained hops marching up the slopes and the groups of oast houses, was pleasant enough to distract her until Rochester, it seemed. She craned around to look at the castle and the ships lying at anchor on the wide Medway, but Nicholas pushed the tired team on to Chatham for the next change.
They made good time, but still it was well past five before they entered Canterbury and he noticed that even Cassandra’s enthusiasm for sightseeing was blunted by tiredness. She passed the cathedral with scarcely more than a glance at the twin towers soaring over the narrow streets. They changed horses for the last time at Bridge.
The good weather that had favoured them all day had mellowed into a still, warm June evening and their
shadows were lengthening on the road before them as they drove, at last, down the long hill into Dover.
Nicholas flexed his shoulders, the thought of a hot bath beckoning like a siren’s song. So far so good. No-one had pointed or stared, no-one had appeared to have taken any notice of the slim youth beside him. It seemed they would get away with this insane masquerade after all.