Mary Nichols - The Reluctant Escort

‘Then I will prove it. I shall come back with you. We may well meet them on the way.’

‘Not so long ago you were of the opinion we would run into greater trouble going back than going forward.’

‘I am sure you are clever enough to avoid anyone searching for you if you go carefully, and I am not afraid of a little adventure.’

‘No, that I had noted. And not above inciting a man to crime either.’

‘Oh, that,’ she said airily. ‘I was bamming. But you must allow that you are troubled about Mr Upjohn.’

He sighed heavily, admitting she was right. He was worried and his conscience was troubling him. Frank must be in trouble or else Martha was proving difficult. But if that were the case Frank would have come on without her.

If it were not for Molly he would not have hesitated, but if it were not for her he would not have been in this predicament in the first place. He was not at all sure he liked being so accountable for another human being, and one who was so artless. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We will go back, but only as far as the Crosskeys. He may be there.’

He rose from the table, leaving Molly to scramble under it in search of her shoes which she had kicked off.

‘Now what?’ he asked in exasperation.

‘Nothing. I am simply looking for my shoes. They were tight and…Oh, there they are.’ She bent to retrieve them and squeezed her white-stockinged feet back into them, to his unfeigned amusement. ‘It will be a relief to go back to my riding boots.’

She went up to their rooms to change while he gave orders for Molly’s new trunk to be kept for them when it arrived, and then they set off on horseback, retracing the route they had covered that morning, meeting a little traffic—a coach or two, several loaded haycarts, people on horseback and on foot—but not the curricle.

‘Where are we going now?’ she asked him when he’d returned from questioning the innkeeper at the Crosskeys and been told his friend had not returned there.

‘To his home. We’ll find out if he reached it.’

‘How far is that?’

‘An hour’s ride. Are you tired? Do you want to rest?’

‘No. I can keep up, never fear.’

They had been riding for perhaps an hour and were passing through a wooded area, when they came upon the curricle. It was tipped on its side in the ditch beside the road and there was evidence of a struggle, but of Frank or Martha there was no sign. Nor could they find the horse, though they stopped and searched the area.

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