Folly's Reward by Jean R. Ewing

flaring torches and the scurrying grooms. A problem of some import, which had been nagging at him for the last two hours, became charmingly clamorous in its immediacy. He had no money, no credit, and no influence. How the devil was he going to pay for a seat on the coach?
    Yet he was damned if he was going to allow Miss Prudence Drake to disappear on her mysterious errand alone. Did she really expect him to believe that she had no serious reason for creeping away from the Manse and fleeing south with a five-year-old boy?
    Hal glanced back over his shoulder. The blond head of the child snuggled into Prudence’s plain brown coat. Dear Lord, but she wore damned ugly clothes! He would like to see her in a decent gown. He had a sudden vision of her in sheer ivory silk, her hair dressed with pearls to soften the severe bones of her face.
    It came to him with an odd sense of shock that such a thought seemed quite natural, as if he came from a world where ladies often wore ball gowns and no expense need be spared. But he had nothing to offer her and, God save him, as he studied her sleeping face, his real desire was to undress her. At which shameful thought, Hal saw Prudence sigh, open her eyes, and look about.
    “Oh, heavens, we’re here. Wake up, Bobby!”
    The child clung sleepily to her arm as she attempted to extricate herself.
    “Come, young man,” Hal said, lifting the boy effortlessly into his arms. “We are going on a journey.”
    He slung Bobby onto his hip and walked into the office of the Cock and Ninepins.
    “I need three tickets on the Carlisle coach, sir,” he said to the man behind the desk. “Inside seats, if you please.”
    The man looked up with distinct hostility at this cavalier request from a vagabond. “Inside’s all bought up, my lad.”
    “Nevertheless, I have a young child here, as you see, and a lady. We shall require inside seats.”
    “That is,” Prudence said behind him, “I require two seats inside. The gentleman may make separate arrangements.”
    “I am very sorry, ma’am,” the man said. “I have no inside seats at all. You should have purchased them ahead.”
    “Then would you have seats on the roof, sir?” Hal asked politely.
    His voice carried a great deal of natural authority, but the man looked him up and down—at the reefer jacket, the scuffed trousers—and offered no humble obeisance at all.
    “As it is, there’s no room on the roof, either.” Someone called, and he got up and brushed past the little group. “You can stay here with your wife and bairn until tomorrow. There are outside seats available tomorrow.”
    Prudence caught the man by the arm. “Pray, sir. Can you not make some accommodation, at least for myself and the child, if this gentleman stays behind? I can pay in gold.”
    She began to take out her purse in order to show him, but Hal grasped her hand and forced it back into her pocket.
    “For God’s sake, angel! Pray do not flash gold about in the public office!”
    She shook herself free and looked pleadingly at the controller of tickets to Carlisle. But the man shook his head and gave her a genuine smile.
    “I’m sorry, lass. The flyer is all booked and loading now. Not even the king’s crown would get you a seat this morning. And you should not be taking the bairn away from his father, now, should you? Especially when he wants to come.”
    Grinning at his own wit, he walked away.
    Prudence collapsed onto a bench as Hal laughed down at her.
    “Wife and bairn?” he said. “Now, that has a lovely ring to it. Here, Goodwife, take our wee son for a moment, while I find you a way to get to England.”
    Hal set Bobby down beside her. Prudence pulled the child onto her lap.
    “I don’t think,” she said as severely as she could, “that such a flagrant misunderstanding of our relationship is cause for levity.”
    “But I would like it very much if Hal were my new papa,” Bobby said.
    Hal bent and took Bobby’s small hand in his. “Alas, Bobby,