action to garner this violent a response. “Let me go back to my room.”
“Can’t do it. Journey. Have to go on a journey.”
“Journey?” She stumbled as he started down the second flight of stairs. “The only journey we’ll be going on is to the graveyard. You’re going to kill us both.”
“Nonsense. I’m very surefooted when I’m foxed.” His words were slightly slurred. “Ask Gregor.”
“Yes, let’s do ask Gregor. I’m sure-”
He was shaking his head. “Gregor interferes.” He threw open the front door. “So I locked him in his room. Not that it will keep him for long.”
“Then let’s go talk to Dorothy.”
“I’ve already talked to Dorothy. She wasn’t pleased, but she knows where we’re going. Had to tell her. Not fitting for a guardian- You’re confined to your room by a fever.” He jerked her down the front steps toward a waiting carriage. “And I need no excuse. Everyone knows I have no sense of what is proper in a host.”
“If I’m going on a journey, I need to get dressed,” she said. Perhaps if he permitted her to go back to her chamber, she could lock herself in the room. “Let me go back to my room. It will only take-”
He shook his head. “No time.” He put his finger to his lips. “Have to leave in the dead of night so no one knows. Not fitting…” He threw open the door of the carriage and half lifted, half pushed her onto the seat and then followed and settled himself opposite her. “Go, George,” he shouted.
The carriage started with a lurch, and the next moment they were careening down the road at a breakneck pace. “Tell him to slow down.”
He shook his head. “Promised Dorothy I’d have you back in two days. Have to hurry.”
“Two days!”
“George can do it.” Jordan settled himself in the corner of the seat and leaned his head against the wall of the carriage. “Fine hand with horses…”
“Take me back to the castle. I don’t want to-”
He was asleep. She couldn’t believe it. The drunken idiot was asleep!
She reached over and shook him.
No response.
“Jordan!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
He sighed gently.
She stuck her head out the window. By what name had he called the coachman? “George, take me back to the castle.”
The man didn’t answer. It shouldn’t have surprised her, she thought angrily. She was a stranger here at Cambaron, and he was no doubt accustomed to Jordan abducting women. It was probably a weekly occurrence.
There was nothing to do but wait until Jordan woke up and sobriety made him see reason. She leaned back on the squabs of the seat. How could he sleep when they were being jounced so hard, her teeth were rattling?
She shivered as a gust of wind blew in the window, piercing the fabric of her thin cotton nightgown. She quickly put on her blue wool robe. Good heavens, she was barefoot, she realized with exasperation. The fool hadn’t even let her grab her shoes. Somehow this small inconvenience was the last straw.
She could not wait until he woke.
Jordan did not stir until midafternoon the next day, and by that time she was ready to throttle him.
He took one look at her expression and closed his eyes again. “Oh my God.”
“Take me back to Cambaron,” she said, enunciating every word through her teeth. “At once.”
“Soon,” he murmured.
“Soon!” she repeated. “You take me from my bed in the middle of the night. You drag me barefoot and unclothed into this monstrously uncomfortable carriage and then fall into a drunken stupor. I don’t have an unbruised portion on my body because you gave orders to the coachman that he must-”
“Be still.” His eyes had opened again, and he was glaring at her. “My head aches abominably, and your voice is pecking at it like a vulture.”
“Good.” She smiled viciously. “And I will continue to peck and rend you until you tell the coachman to turn around and go back.”
He shook his head.
“You can’t do this. I won’t be subject to your drunken whims.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cushions.
He was paying no attention to her, she realized. She wanted to push him out of the carriage. “Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer directly. “Soon.”
“Why?”
“It seemed a good idea at the time.” He opened one eye and regarded her balefully. “Christ, that nightgown is even worse than that other hideous garment Dorothy draped you in.”
“Then you should have let me dress.”
“I was in a hurry.” The eye closed again. “I think.”
“
“You will not tell me what to do.” His lids opened, and suddenly there was no hint of drunkenness about him. “I have a raging headache, my mouth feels as if I’d slept with my boot in it, and I’m in extreme bad temper. We have a destination, and we aren’t turning back until we reach it.” His eyes closed. “Now I’m going to go to sleep again. I suggest you do the same.”
She stared at him, fuming.
In an incredibly short time she realized he was asleep again.
They stopped twice at posting houses to change horses and refresh themselves but were back on the road in less than an hour each time.
Day became evening.
Evening became night.
Marianna dozed but could not sleep deeply due to the bouncing of the fast-moving carriage along the rutted road.
Jordan appeared to have no such problem. He slept as easily and deeply as a babe in a cradle. She would kill him, she decided. Or at least find a way to punish him horribly at the earliest opportunity.
It was near dawn when she became aware that the carriage was now traveling over cobblestones. She glanced out the window and saw the shadowy form of houses. As the light grew stronger, she could see this was a goodly sized town. “Where are we? London?”
Jordan roused and glanced out the window. “No, but we’re right on time.” He stretched. “Good man, George.”
“Where are we?”
“Soon.”
If he said that one more time, she would not wait until they returned to Cambaron to murder him.
The carriage stopped, and George jumped down and opened the door.
Jordan got out and lifted Marianna to the street. The stones felt damp and cool beneath her bare feet. “Now will you-” Her gaze traveled up the cathedral spire. There could be no mistake. She knew where she was.
“The Minster,” she whispered. “Sweet Mary, we’re in York.”
He nodded. “The Lady Chapel of York Minster, to be exact.” He looked at the now fully risen sun. “Come along. It’s time.”
She took an eager step forward and then looked down at her robe and bare feet. “I’m not dressed. They won’t let me in.”
“They’ll let you in.” His lips set grimly. “I’ll see to it.”
Dazedly, she let him lead her into the dim chapel. She knew what she was going to see. Papa had seen it once, and her mother and grandmother had often talked of making a pilgrimage to view it.
Glory.
She stopped before the Great East Window.
