Page 3 of Kidnapping Cordelia

Delia turned her head with some difficulty, her neck aching after so long spent in one position. She nodded, though she strongly doubted her ability to keep anything down, but if she could get inside the inn, she might have the chance to call for help.

“I’ll have something brought out to you,” Enoch replied, dashing her plans.

“I need to use the necessary,” she said urgently, and though she hoped that too might give her an opportunity, she was suddenly aware it was no more than the truth.

Enoch's grimace and frustrated look of impatience suggested that he thought she should be above such ordinary bodily needs. “Fine,” he said tersely. “But I warn you, Delia, you had better not cause trouble.”

“That’s Lady Cordelia to you,” she said coldly. “I rescind any right for you to call me Delia, that is a privilege given to my close friends and family.”

“And your husband,” he added with an equally frigid smile.

“Which you shall never be,” she retorted.

His lips compressed into a hard line. “Do you wish to relieve yourself or not, Delia?”

Delia’s clenched her fists with frustration, but she really did so she just gave a taut nod.

Enoch returned a thin smile before stepping down from the carriage and offering her his hand. Delia took it and said nothing as he escorted her to the privy. “I’ll be just outside,” he told her.

“Well, really,” Delia protested. “Can I not have a moment of privacy?”

“Yes, you can close the door,” he snapped irritably. “Now hurry. We’ve still a long way to go.”

Delia shot him a look of utter loathing before entering the privy and taking care of her most pressing requirements. Once done, she took a moment to gather her wits, and to wonder if perhaps she had been foolish. A change of tack might be in order. Enoch had never credited her with much of a brain, not that he was alone in that. As someone who preferred to daydream rather than take part in a formal dinner party, her distracted air often gave people the impression she was dim. Her preference for talking to animals – any animals whether alive, stuffed or painted – did not help much either.

As promised, she found Enoch waiting outside.

Doing her best to look dejected and repentant, Delia cast him a despondent look from under her lashes. “Please, Enoch, might we go inside? I’m m-most dreadfully cold. I promise to be good, and… and I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you. Only… Only you did frighten me so. It’s all been so very trying, and that horrid ether has made my head ache wretchedly.”

Enoch returned a suspicious glance, considering her words, which Delia was dismayed to discover had more truth behind them than she liked. “I am sorry for having frightened you,” he said, frowning. There really was something resembling remorse in his expression too, reminding her for a fleeting moment of the boy she had once called her friend. “You left me no choice, of course. A man must take drastic action sometimes, you see, my dear. It was for your own good, you must understand that. I’ve always known you’d marry me eventually, but—”

“You did?” Delia interrupted, so astonished by this piece of impudence she almost forgot she was being meek and subservient.

“Of course I did. You need a firm hand, Delia. Someone to curb these foolish flights of fancy you have and keep your feet on the ground before you do or say something foolish enough to damage yourself. Your brother has indulged you and let you get away with murder, not that he could do otherwise,” he said with an air of condescension, giving Delia a kindly smile. “He is blind, and a good Christian must remember to show compassion and understanding for that fact. I cannot blame the man for failing you when he is not a whole man at all.”

Delia bit her lip to contain the explosion of words crowding on her tongue. Wrexham was ten times the man Enoch Goodfellow was and would still be if he were deaf, dumb, and blind.

“You are too kind, Mr Goodfellow,” she managed, though the words almost choked her. “And I hope you can show a mite more kindness and understanding and allow me to go inside for a little while. Just for a bite to eat by the fire. I won’t keep you for above ten minutes, I promise, and then I shall be quiet and cause no more trouble.”

He laughed softly. “No more playacting and make believe,” he told her, shaking his head and smiling like she was silly little girl. “I’m not so foolish as that and you are not a kidnapped princess waiting for a heroic highwayman to rescue her. However, I shall let you go inside, if you give me your word of honour you will behave yourself.”

Delia glared at him, her cheeks blazing with mortification.

“Your word upon it, Delia,” he said sternly, sounding so much like her father it was extremely disturbing.

Delia swallowed hard and returned his gaze. “I give you my word,” she said, hiding her crossed fingers in the folds of her cloak.

“Very well. I confess I should like to eat a meal whilst sitting still myself. Come along, my dear.” He offered her his arm, smiling at her indulgently.

As there was little alternative, Delia took his arm and allowed him to guide her inside the coaching inn.

It did not surprise her to discover that it took Enoch some time to gain the innkeeper’s attention. For all his aping of her father’s mannerisms, he did not have the aura of a powerful man, one that commanded attention with ease. He was not a prepossessing specimen and, though he could bully Delia if he drugged her and used physical force, she knew the other boys had bullied him at school. She had pitied him greatly for that and had been extra kind to him when he had returned home for the holidays. Even then, however, she had understood why he was bullied, but though she had tried to make him see that he would make more friends if he stopped trying to be something he wasn’t, he never would listen. Instead, he had become the kind of man people overlooked, or avoided, in order to escape his prosy ways and dull conversation.

The innkeeper, by contrast, was a large, ruddy man, currently overrun by the amount of traffic and demands for breakfast, many of which came from more insistent voices than Enoch’s.

One such voice boomed over their heads, making Delia jump as a man pushed past Enoch.

“You, there. A pint and a sirloin and don’t tarry. I’ve no desire to hang about in this damned backwater.”