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were hardly made of
sand, but they certainly qualified as wilderness to Montford, who had little love
of pastoral life. He had to suppress a shudder every time he looked out the
window and saw beyond him nothing but endless stretches of farmland and timber
forests, interspersed by the occasional cow or sheep. It all looked unbearably
rustic … and dirty .
    By noon, it was clear that they were lost, and he ordered
his driver to stop in the nearest village to ask directions. The village, which
looked to have more ovine occupants than human, proved to be little help to
them. Clearly, the human occupants of the village were as little impressed by
the ducal crest upon his carriage as the livestock, and unwilling to offer much
assistance. The directions they finally wrenched out of one man, who had just
tumbled out of the village tavern three sheets to the wind, were spoken in a
thick Northern brogue that was as unintelligible as Chinese to Montford’s ears.
    Newcomb, his driver, more exhausted from the journey than
Montford – as drivers could not sleep – sent the man on his way
with a few shillings, and turned to Montford, who leaned out of the carriage
window, weak from the traveling sickness.
    Coombes cowered back in his seat, handkerchief covering his
sensitive nose, eyes widened on the fragrant patch of mud in which the driver
stood.
    “What the devil did he say?” Montford demanded.
    “Haven’t a clue, Your Grace. But he made some gestures with
his hands I think I can make some sense of.” Newcomb’s brow furrowed. “That or
he was insulting me.”
    “Let’s pray it is the former.”
    “East, I think he meant,” Newcomb said, shrugging in the
manner of one who was simply too weary to care much where they were going any
longer. Then he climbed back on the perch and whipped the team to a trot,
putting them on a muddy road that looked like every other muddy road they had
taken in Yorkshire.
    A few minutes later, Montford made Newcomb pull over so
that he could lean out of the window and retch for the fifty-first time in
forty-eight hours, even though there was nothing in his stomach.
    When Montford managed to pull himself back in the carriage,
Coombes stared at Montford’s less-than immaculate cravat with a faintly
accusing expression.
    “Don’t say anything,” Montford growled.   “We may restore ourselves to rights when
we arrive.”
    Coombes looked extremely doubtful about that. “But Your
Grace,” he said in a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard by the carriage
walls, “I don’t think they bathe this
far north.”
    Montford bit back a retort to this ridiculous statement,
but it was a ridiculous statement that reflected Montford’s own fears. Who knew
what dreadful fate awaited them at Rylestone Hall? Outside privies? Garderobes?
He shuddered.
    He half expected to find poor Stevenage done in, or at the
very least mired in the thick Yorkshire mud, put there by a vengeful Honeywell.
    He was beginning to doubt his own judgment in undergoing
this journey alone with naught but Newcomb and Coombes, but he always traveled
light when he had to, thinking the fewer who were privy to his weak stomach the
better. Newcomb was a solid enough man – an ex-boxer from Liverpool, and
extremely loyal to Montford. Montford didn’t doubt Coombes’ loyalty either, but
unless it had to do with waistcoats, cologne, or bootblack, the man was
completely at sea.
    Montford had expected to sweep into Rylestone Hall and have
everyone under its roof kowtowing to his will. Even the Prince Regent tended to
follow his directives. But in this case he was not so sure. The further they
journeyed, the further removed he felt from the civilized world. Rylestone Hall
was more remote than he had assumed, certainly more remote than any of his
other estates – besides the one on the Isle of Mull he had no intention of ever visiting.
    It would take days to reach something even resembling a
city. And if it was so difficult for him to