The Viscount's Runaway Wife. Laura Martin

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      Just as he was about to skirt around the back of Montague House, the impressive building that housed the British Museum, he caught sight of a woman hurrying away from him down Montague Street. Her back was to him, but he felt his stomach clench in recognition. She was slender and clad in a brown woollen dress, skirts swishing about heavy and practical boots. The woman’s hair was pulled back into a bun that rested at the base of her neck, wispy dark blonde tendrils had escaped and were coiling over her shoulders. It could be the back of a thousand women, perhaps a housekeeper or a shopkeeper’s wife, but there was something about the way she carried herself, something about the way she walked.

      ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he murmured to himself as he felt his feet changing direction. In the months after his wife had disappeared he had fancied he’d seen her everywhere: strolling through Hyde Park, on the other side of a crowded ballroom, even in the face of a serving girl at the local tavern near his country estate. A year ago he’d barely known his wife, he was hardly likely to recognise her from just the back of her head now. It was just because his hopes had been raised by the butcher—that was why he thought he was seeing her here.

      Unable to listen to his own reason, Oliver picked up his pace. If he could just get in front of the woman, surreptitiously pause and turn to look at her, he would be able to satisfy himself that it wasn’t Lucy without frightening an innocent young woman. Trying not to draw attention to himself, he strode along the pavement, dodging the couples walking arm in arm and the groups of men deep in conversation.

      The woman in front of him crossed the street, heading away from the more salubrious area of Russell Square and towards St Giles. His hopes soared and he stepped out on to the road, racing for the pavement opposite. He was only four feet behind her now, almost close enough to reach out and touch her arm.

      Contemplating whether to call her name and see if she reacted, Oliver froze as the woman glanced back over her shoulder before crossing another road. At first she didn’t see him, instead focusing on the carriage that was meandering down the street, but then the movement from his direction must have caught her eye and she turned a fraction of an inch more. She stiffened, her hands bunching in the coarse wool of her skirts, her mouth opening in a silent exclamation of shock. Though he couldn’t see her face clearly, her reaction was enough to tell him he’d finally found her, he’d finally found his wife.

      ‘Lucy,’ he growled, lurching forward as she darted from the pavement and into the road. She had picked up her skirts and was running faster than was seemly for a wife of a viscount, but that shouldn’t surprise him. ‘Stop right there.’ He barked the order, just as he would to the men under his command during his time on the Peninsula. Lucy took no notice, instead vaulting over a pile of horse manure and rounding the corner with surprising speed.

      In a fair race on a different terrain Oliver would have had no trouble outpacing his wife, but here her smaller size worked to her advantage. She was able to weave through the other pedestrians quickly and by the time they’d reached the outer edge of St Giles’s slums Oliver had only gained a few feet.

      ‘Lady Sedgewick,’ Oliver bellowed, ‘I demand you stop running and face me.’

      His words had no impact whatsoever. Oliver slowed a little as he entered the narrower streets. Buildings rose on either side, shadowing the area below from the sun, and although the street ahead of him was deserted save for Lucy’s running figure he could feel eyes on him, hidden observers who could mean him no good.

      The sensible thing would be to turn back, to retreat to the wider, safer streets and wait for Lucy to emerge. Oliver dismissed the idea straight away; a year he’d been made to wait to confront his wife about her disappearance with their newborn son—he wasn’t going to let a bad reputation stop him now.

      ‘I’m coming for you, Lucy,’ he shouted as he darted forward, seeing the hem of his wife’s skirt swish around the corner, following her trail like a hound with the scent of a fox in his nostrils.

      He leapt over a man sprawling drunk in a doorway, muscled through a group of men arguing over a game of dice and ignored the catcalls from women far past their prime, but making a valiant effort to hide the fact beneath a thick layer of powder.

      Just as they exited the narrow streets into a courtyard Oliver lunged forward and caught Lucy by the arm.

      ‘Will you stop?’ he barked, holding her gently but firmly by the arm. She wriggled, her eyes refusing to meet his, until he pinned her against a wall.

      ‘Is this man bothering you, miss?’ A quiet voice came from somewhere behind Oliver. He glanced over his shoulder to see a grubby middle-aged man approaching. Lucy’s defender only had about half his teeth and those he did retain were a varying shade of brown. He was dressed in an assortment of dirt-coloured clothes and Oliver could smell the years of ingrained grime. All this he observed in an instant, before his eyes came to rest on the small knife cradled in the man’s palm.

      Looking back at his wife, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I bothering you?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes,’ she spat, wriggling again, fire and passion flaring in her eyes.

      ‘I think you should step away from Miss Caroline.’

      ‘Miss Caroline?’ Oliver laughed harshly. ‘That’s the name you’re going by now?’

      Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man with the knife step even closer and watched Lucy’s face as she contemplated whether to let him attack her husband. Eventually, after too long a pause for Oliver’s liking, she sighed.

      ‘Please don’t exert yourself on my account, Bert.’

      ‘Are you sure, Miss Caroline? Won’t be more than a moment’s work to stick him and roll him into the river.’

      ‘Although quite an effort to transport me there,’ Oliver murmured. ‘The river must be at least fifteen minutes away.’

      ‘That’s what the good Lord invented wheelbarrows for.’

      ‘I’m sure that’s the exact purpose he had in mind.’

      ‘I’ll be just over here—shout if you change your mind,’ Bert said, doffing his cap to Lucy.

      ‘What do you want?’ Lucy rasped as Bert meandered away.

      Oliver blinked in surprise. All the times he’d imagined their reunion he’d pictured her contrite or ashamed or remorseful. He hadn’t ever imagined his quiet, dutiful wife to be annoyed and confrontational.

      ‘Do you really need to ask me that?’

      She looked at him then, with the large brown eyes he’d remembered even when all her other features had begun to fade in his mind.

      ‘I want to know where my son is and what you’ve been doing all this time.’ He said it harshly, a year of anger and bitterness pushed into one sentence, but he never meant to make Lucy cry. She burst into tears, big racking sobs that pierced a tiny hole in his armour and headed straight for his heart.

      * * *

      Sniffling, Lucy tried to bring herself under control. She hadn’t meant to cry, hadn’t wanted to show such weakness in front of her husband, but at the mention of their son she’d been unable to hold back the tears. Even though it had been over a year since her son’s death, she still couldn’t think of him without СКАЧАТЬ