Page 38 of Weave me a Rope
The earl and the marquess sent the servants and guards away and harangued Spen for hours. They even brought in a cleric and ordered him to perform the ceremony he was being paid for, but when Spen told the man he was being forced into the marriage against his will, the cleric refused.
“I’ll find someone who will do it,” the marquess told the earl after the cleric had gone away. The earl glared at Spen. “I will beat some sense into the boy,” he growled.
The marquess waved a dismissive hand. “You can try. Just don’t kill him. I need an heir.” He walked out of the room, leaving Spen alone with the earl.
“I will use your coercion as grounds for annulment as soon as I am of age,” Spen warned the earl, who called in a couple of burly men Spen hadn’t seen before. They each took one of his arms. Lady Daphne was correct. Her father hit hard.
Chapter Fifteen
At Ramsgate, therewas little to do except walk the beach when it was fine and play endless games of cards or chess with John when it was not. Cordelia’s sight continued to improve, but the doctor in Ramsgate agreed with the London specialist she must not do too much close work, including reading or sewing.
“Half an hour twice a day,” he said. “We can increase it after you have spent a whole week headache-free.” John, bless him, was happy to read to her in the evenings, and she could play tunes she had by heart on the pianoforte. It could have been worse, she supposed.
Uncle Josh had still not found where Spen was. John was full of plans to go looking, but Cordelia reminded him of Spen’s fears John could be used to pressure him into agreeing to the marriage.
Then Cordelia received a letter from Lady Daphne, the lady Spen’s father intended him to marry.
She tried to puzzle it out herself. Lady Daphne had a round hand, but the letters were slightly tipsy and Lady Daphne’s spelling made reading even more difficult. After a few frustrating minutes, Cordelia went looking for John.
He read it through, using a finger to follow the uneven lines. “I think she must have seen Spen,” he reported. “Here, I’ll read it out loud.”
“Dear Miss Milton, my father says I have to marry Lord Spenhurst. Lord Spenhurst says he will not marry me. He says he will only marry you. I think that is a good idea, but my father is very angry. People in London say you are blind. I hope you get better soon, but Lord Spenhurst says it does not matter. He will lead you and be your eyes. I thought you would like to know. Yours sincerely, Lady Daphne.”
“You’re right,” Cordelia decided. “She has seen Spen. In London? She mentions people in London, but Uncle Josh would know if Spen was in London.”
John was reading the letter again as if he could drag more meaning out of it with each rereading. “She has written the letter from Thorne Abbey,” he said. “That does not sound like London. We need to see her.”
Cordelia was more cautious. She had promised her uncle, after all, that she would leave the hunt to him. “We need to write to Uncle Josh and send him a copy of the letter. He will find a way to discover where Thorne Abbey is and to question Lady Daphne.”
Her letter to her uncle crossed another from him saying he had to go to Liverpool, but she wasn’t to worry. He hadn’t given up on finding Spen.
“We have to go ourselves,” John insisted. “But go where? How do we find Thorne Abbey?” John looked up the Earl of Yarverton in the library, but Thorne Abbey was not mentioned. “We have to find out. What if this lady can tell us where Spen is, but by the time we can question her, the marquess has moved him somewhere else?”
That might have already happened, Cordelia knew. She had already spent sleepless nights fretting that any delay might mean she lost her chance to rescue her beloved. But something about the name “Thorne Abbey” niggled at her. She had heard the name before, but she could not recall where.
Will Fielder arrived later that day with reports from her uncle’s investigation. The covering note from Uncle Josh was brief. Cordelia knew part of his business in Liverpool concerned the two peers, or possibly just the earl. Uncle Josh didn’t specify in writing what he was doing, but he did say all was going well.
The enclosed papers were in three bundles. One was about the earl and one about the marquess. What they owned, what they owed, and where their income came from, with analysis and commentary from her uncle’s lawyers and bookkeepers. The third was the marriage agreement he had already shown her, as well as a report on it from those same experts. As soon as she saw the agreement, Cordelia knew where she had heard the name Thorne Abbey. It was the Shropshire estate mentioned in the agreement.
It seemed like a sign from heaven. Fielder would take them to Shropshire, and he would keep them safe.
Leaving Ramsgate was easy enough. Aunt Eliza was laid low with a summer ague and keeping to her bed. Cordelia told her aunt Uncle Josh had sent the carriage for her and John, and they would be in London for a sennight. Perhaps two weeks. Aunt Eliza did not question it. Indeed, she expressed herself, pleased Cordelia would have something to amuse herself with while she was ill.
Persuading Fielder was no more difficult. His commitment was to Spen and therefore, to Cordelia. He was eager to find out what Lady Daphne could tell them.
Cordelia enlisted Gracie as chaperone for the five-day journey. Gracie said she would come, “…for I know I can’t stop you, Miss, but you must write to Mr. Milton and tell him what you are up to.” Cordelia agreed, for it was a good precaution. If it all went wrong, she could trust Uncle Josh to come to her rescue.
“I am going to write letters to Uncle Josh every day,” she told John and Gracie, “so he knows where to start if he has to look for us.”
Cordelia had cause to be grateful to Gracie in the next few days. On the first night, the innkeeper was insolent and dismissive, asking what a young female like her was doing with only a maid, a boy, and a few menservants, and relegating her party to a set of tiny rooms on the third floor. The lukewarm meal that was sent up for them to eat after Fielder had been down three times to ask for it was the last straw.
The next night, Gracie appointed herself as their spokesperson, with Fielder at her shoulder. Claiming to be the widowed mother of Cordelia and John, she demanded and received better service for herself, her children, and her servants. Even so, it was a long and exhausting trip, the only mitigating circumstance that Cordelia’s morning sickness appeared to have left her.
Once they reached Shrewsbury, Gracie enquired about rooms to let at the first inn they came to. She came back with the name and direction of a widow who let rooms by the week. “Very respectable, the innkeeper’s wife said. She normally only takes females, but I am told she might make an exception for a boy of Master John’s age.”
Soon, they were settled in the rooming house—Cordelia and Gracie sharing one room, John in another. Fielder and the coachman bedded down in the carriage, which they were allowed to park in an outbuilding of the once grand house. The rest of the men, three grooms, and four outriders, had rooms at the inn that had given them the widow’s direction.
The next day, Fielder and the other male servants spread out through Shrewsbury with orders to find Thorne Abbey. John went with them.
