Willa walked out into a beautiful late summer day and exchanged the empty apple basket for the battered cloth bag in the orchard.
Cullen had reluctantly accepted the offer of his Aunt Elspeth’s elegant carriage. He’d argued he could travel more quickly by horseback. She’d argued that he could at least offer his bride a more elegant way to marry than arriving by rented hack, or on foot, to the church for her wedding.
Both his aunt and Fergus had also been adamant that he would accompany Cullen as a witness for the clan. Cullen hadn’t even pledged his troth yet, and already he felt like a noose was tightening at his throat before the inevitable drop to oblivion.
He was about to marry a woman, posing as a man, whom he barely knew. Of course, he’d known Wills Morton for weeks. When he ticked off in his mind the things he did know, he realized his future bride was stubborn, never shy about telling him he was wrong, and, oh yes, she was a hell of a surgeon’s assistant when blood and gore were flowing.
“Your Aunt Elspeth was right.”
“What?” Cullen snapped out of his thoughts.
“Ye should be thankful she made me come along to drive this rig. Else ye’d have driven off the road into the brook back there.”
“What?”
“The clan sends ye to Edinburgh for a proper education, and that’s all ye can say? ‘What?’”
“I’m sorry, Fergus. It’s just…”
“Just that ye’re about to be leg-shackled to a creature ye know less about than one of yer patients?”
“No. I mean maybe, well, yes.” He leaned down and brushed a clod of mud from one of his Hessians. “Marriage has never been something I’ve thought about. I mean, I thought I’d just stay in the King’s Navy and keep patching up injured men, treating their clap…”
Fergus nearly dropped the reins to Aunt Elspeth’s high-spirited grays. “Ye do like the gels, don’t ye?”
Cullen flashed his clansman an ugly frown.
“Of course ye do. Never mind I brought up the possibility. Ye’re a sailor.” Fergus gave the grays a slight flick of the whip. “I see now. She’s got a face as homely as one of the grays?”
“No.” Cullen practically shouted. And then a hot flush spread up his neck to his face. “That is, I suppose. I really don’t know. I’ve only known the lass as a lad, young Wills.” He pulled at the cravat choking his breathing atop the spotless, new white shirt his aunt had insisted he wear, since they wouldn’t stop until he ran down the elusive Miss Morton.
“Well, he must be a pretty boy at least, then,” Fergus supplied helpfully.
“I don’t normally decide whether or not a lad is ‘pretty.’” He shook his head, hard. No matter what he said or did, this swirl of nonsense would not have a happy ending.
Fergus grinned and urged the grays into a faster canter.
Willa still had enough money to board the post stage in Peterfield, and that was where she headed after fleeing the Partlow house. However, the way her brain sped from one thought to the next, and her hand holding the worn carpet bag shook like a stray bit of wheat in the wind made her slow to a stop in front of the tea shop.
A steaming pot of tea and a small tray of tarts reminded her of who she was. She was the daughter of a well-respected Royal Navy surgeon, and a competent physician’s assistant in her own right.
She took a long sip of the hot, black tea and made a mental list of her current assets and liabilities. On the plus side of the ledger: She’d escaped the fast deteriorating situation while at the mercy of Dr. Partlow, and her father’s solicitor in London, now her guardian, had been contacted by Captain Still. As soon as she found a permanent position, she would send the solicitor her address so that he could provide her with the disposition of her father’s estate. Dr. Morton had made detailed arrangements for her care in the eventuality of his death.
On the minus side: She was living in a half-world, straddling two identities. She’d always suspected Captain Still had been aware of her gender as well as a few of the Arethusa’s sailors who worked with them in the surgery, but as for the rest of the world, who knew?
She had a bit of the ready to tide her over, but not enough to establish a domicile on her own until the estate was settled. She had to find a position, and soon. She considered taking a room in a Peterfield boarding house as a temporary solution, but feared Dr. “Hands-Like-an-Octopus” might discover her lodgings and insist she return to his protection. And with whom would the people of Peterfield side? She could not allow that question to be raised.
As Willa Morton, her options were few. But as Wills…
Chapter Six
Cullen and Fergus took turns at the ribbons and drove on through the night until they were close to the outskirts of Portsmouth. Cullen breathed in the salt air. The harbor stretched out below, ships’ masts as thick as a nest of porcupines. This…this was where he belonged.
They’d stopped at coaching inns twice to change horses. Aunt Elspeth’s fine grays were being cosseted at Godalming’s White Hart Inn and would be retrieved by Fergus on his trip back. Cullen’s innards lurched, as if the carriage had dropped into a deep hole. His hands were clammy, and he reached into his saddlebag lying at his feet. He gripped the piece of parchment he’d procured, with the help of his aunt and Fergus, from Doctor’s Commons. Was it only a month ago his captain and closest friend in the world, Arnaud Bellingham, had done
