“Shall you indeed?” he asked, still on his knee. “Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t suppose you will have the fortune if you marry to disoblige your parents. Most likely they will cut you off without a penny.”
“Papa would not do that!” she cried but her tone was defiant rather than certain. She knew quite well that Papa would not approve of her marrying a man who was considerably less than a gentleman, a man not only with no title but one who was obliged to earn his own living for, although her papa did so too, his line of business – partly no doubt because it was so successful – was somehow almost socially acceptable; a man who earned a living by teaching music was quite beyond the pale for an heiress.
“I am not good enough for you,” Signor Pontielli said despairingly, reading her expression. He dropped her hand and rose to his feet. “I am no more than a servant.”
“What were your parents?” she asked. She was not particularly interested but felt that some remark was required to dilute some of the bitterness of his tone.
“My papa played the violin in an orchestra in Rome. He did not come from a grand family although it was a respectable one. His father owned a farm in the south of the country but Papa did not care for farming and told me that he did not want to spoil his hands. His father apparently cursed the day he had consented to violin lessons; it was only that my aunt, my papa’s sister, was so musical that my grandmother begged that she should be allowed to learn to play the violin. Of course, when the teacher came to the house, my father hung about during lessons and picked up the instrument when his sister laid it down. It was not long before he played a great deal better than she did and was begging his parents to be allowed to join an orchestra. They dismissed the teacher and forbade my father to play another note, but he ran away and joined the orchestra in spite of them. My mama was English; I was brought up as a small child in Rome but my father died when I was quite a little boy and my mother returned to England with me. We lived with my grandparents in Devon. That grandfather too had a farm but my mother, remembering my father and mourning him, permitted me to learn the violin and soon saw that I had inherited something of his talent. They are all dead now and I have been a teacher for some years, although there was a time when I too played in an orchestra.”
“Why did you stop doing so?”
“When my grandfather died he left the farm in Devon to me and I returned to manage it; I felt I owed him that because he had always been kind to me and had paid for my music lessons. But I did not practise enough and, when I tried once more to join an orchestra later, I was unsuccessful: I had lost some of my ability and was no longer so young or full of promise. After that, I took up teaching, mostly of the pianoforte, because that is what ladies wish their daughters to learn. I play the violin for my own pleasure.”
“That is sad,” she said. “Do you still own the farm?”
“Yes. I have put a manager in to attend to it when I am away. I go back briefly whenever I have a holiday. It makes enough money to keep running but not enough to provide much of an income and I cannot live without music.”
“Could you not play in the evenings if you went back to the farm?”
“Yes, but it is not enough and I would be playing all by myself; I need to both play and listen.”
“Yes,” she said doubtfully, “but I cannot imagine that hearing others play as I do – and I am certain the majority of your pupils are not precisely talented – would give you a great deal of pleasure.”
“It gives me enormous joy when I see someone discover the magic of music – as I think you have a little. Then I feel that I have passed on something of what it means to me.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, for Susan was not a mendacious girl and she knew that the emotion she had felt when she heard Signor Pontielli playing his violin was not so much on account of the sound he made as because of the vast increment in his beauty when he was concentrating wholly on something which meant a great deal to him.
“Will you play for me now?”
“If that is what you would like, I should be delighted,” he replied, clearly pleased, and immediately darted back to the overturned tree trunk on which he had left his violin.
She followed more slowly, unsure how to deal with what had just occurred between them and reluctant to hurt his feelings by failing to appreciate whatever he was going to play. His declaration had come as a complete surprise; his kisses had been nothing short of stupefying but she knew in her heart that whatever love he had declared for her was nothing but a pale shadow of his love for his instrument and the sounds that he could draw from it. She could understand none of the powerful emotions he had displayed for she was only a very young girl and she knew that he, probably twice as old as she, inhabited a different world. She had begun to wish that she had not stepped into it for she was, in truth, afraid of what she had unleashed.
He did not begin until she reached his side, when he invited her to sit upon the log. She wished that he would move a little further away for to have a man stand barely a yard from her knees and begin to saw away at an instrument which was almost as beautiful, in its way, as he, and to be the sole recipient of his heart’s outpourings was, she discovered, a singularly uncomfortable position in which to find herself. She did not know whether she was supposed to gaze upon his rapt face or to focus upon the hand which held the bow or the one which pressed the strings at the top. All three caused her acute embarrassment. His face, the eyelids lowered and the long, thick eyelashes quivering with emotion along his cheeks, bore a look of ecstasy to which she instinctively wished she were not privy.
She knew that she was witnessing the baring of a soul which was a great deal older and more experienced than hers and that she was, in addition, incapable of meeting it or responding to it in the manner which it clearly demanded.
She dropped her gaze from the quivering eyelids to his lips, closed but also trembling. She suspected that he was unaware of her and was in fact looking inward, dwelling, in what seemed to her a positively unhealthy manner, somewhere inside his own soul. Susan had been brought up to restrain her emotions, indeed she had been discouraged from even entertaining the idea of such things; this constraint had been largely unsuccessful for she was prey to a wide range of powerful feelings, most of which she did not understand and which frequently caused her to behave in what she knew her mother considered a hoydenish fashion.
Suddenly, while she was striving to ignore her discomfort and at the same time wracking her brains for a suitable comment, which she knew she would be obliged to make at the end of the recital, he played a screaming discord and flung down the instrument.
“You do not like it!” he cried accusingly.
“No, I do not!” she replied, stung, jumping up. “It is painful to listen to. I do not understand music, I am no musician, I cannot …”
“Painful?” he shouted, his face flushing with anger. “You find my playing painful?”
“Yes. It is as though you are pressing continually upon a nerve and – and I do not like it. It is not,” she added, feeling his boiling presence standing so close to her as a threat, not so much to her as to himself, and wishing to alleviate any hurt she might have caused, “that you do not play well; I did not mean that, only that I cannot listen without feeling almost assaulted by it. I am sorry! I am too ignorant and stupid to appreciate your skill – it makes me uncomfortable.”
“If that is how you feel I shall not subject you to it again,” he said, closing his trembling lips as though determined not to say another word on the subject either.
Chapter 18
Mary, taken aback and initially inhibited in her response by the fact that she was carrying a bunch of flowers in one hand and her reticule in the other, stumbled and struggled like a butterfly snapped up by a large bird.
Her assailant, who had performed just this action countless times before, had no difficulty in subduing her. His first action, undertaken simultaneously with fastening his lips
on hers, had been to take firm hold of her shoulders. As she strained to move her face away from his, he took the precaution of wrapping his arms around her flailing limbs, pressing his body against hers and – in short – entirely overpowering her.
She was shorter, slimmer and weaker than he and had, moreover, been taken entirely by surprise; she had about as much chance of freeing herself as the butterfly would have had from the bird. She was well and truly taken. But even he had to breathe from time to time and, since his manner of kissing precluded doing so at the same time, he was obliged at last to remove his mouth from hers to take a breath.
“Let me go at once!” Mary cried inelegantly but with such unmistakable fury that he loosed his arms slightly – not enough for her to escape but sufficient to enable him to lean back away from her and look into her face. His was flushed, his features appearing almost distorted by what had begun as a jape but had ended, due no doubt to her taking such exception to his behaviour, in an almost excessive degree of passion – part simple desire, but largely annoyance that the butterfly had had the temerity to resist his advances.
“Well, what a little spitfire! Who’d have thought it to look at you? Although,” he added thoughtfully a moment later, “as a matter of fact, now I look at you more closely, I see that you are a spitfire, indeed a veritable tiger. I was deceived by the role you play and the clothes you wear but, strip them away – as I am much inclined to do – and a proper she-devil emerges.”
“You,” she said with dignity, “are an oaf and a scoundrel. No doubt you think it amusing to kiss a helpless female – indeed, I don’t doubt you supposed yourself to be doing me a favour - but I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. How dare you accuse me of being a she-devil when you assault me in such a manner? It is you who is the devil. Pray remove your hands immediately and be on your way. Your horse is growing impatient,” she added with icy contempt.
“He’ll do as he’s bid,” Mr Armitage said, glancing briefly at the animal, which gave Mary the chance to drop the flowers and swing her reticule at his sulky mouth.
She scored a hit before he grasped her wrist, twisted it and caused her to drop the little bag, which fell amongst the scattered flowers.
“Would you like me to take you home?” he asked sarcastically. “We can ride together.”
His arms were still loosely around her; now he dropped one, encircled her with the other and lifted her clean off her feet, intending no doubt to fling her on to the horse. Mary, not at all certain that he would deliver her to Lady Leland’s house without assaulting her further, fought strenuously to avoid being picked up, but she did not carry a great deal of weight; Mr Armitage was probably twice as heavy as she and, in spite of the dissipation which was beginning to undermine his strength, still a well-muscled and powerful man. She did not stand a chance, particularly since he showed no reluctance to hurt her in the process of overpowering her.
“For Heaven’s sake!” he exclaimed, “you are almost more trouble than I can be bothered with and yet I own there is something curiously fascinating about you, not least your attempts to preserve an honour which I am fairly certain you do not in fact possess!”
This accusation drove Mary to even greater fury; she fought like the cat he had called her, scratching his face in the process, but it was all to no avail; he overpowered her, not without some discomfort on his part, but nevertheless without too much difficulty, picked her up, flung her across his horse’s withers and, holding her there with one hand, jumped into the saddle.
She, fixed to the animal by only one of his hands, thought at first that this was her chance to wriggle free, but the weight of his hand upon the small of her back as he mounted was so great that she could do nothing but wave her arms and legs around, pinned now like a butterfly in a display box.
Mr Armitage set his heels into the sides of his horse and took off with speed, thundering along the road in the direction of Lady Leland’s house. Mary, who could see very little except the road unpeeling dizzyingly before her eyes, was not altogether certain of the direction but was fairly sure he had not wheeled his horse before setting off.
“I have left my reticule in the road. Pray turn around and let me pick it up,” she begged, swivelling her head as best she could in the direction of her abductor’s leg.
It did not seem that he heard her; in any event, he ignored her plea and increased his speed from a canter to a full gallop. Mary hardly knew whether she hoped that they might meet a conveyance of some kind, which would surely necessitate his slowing a trifle and might cause the coachman to wonder at and, with any luck, enquire about a woman laid like a bundle across a horse, or whether simply to resign herself to being involved in a horrid accident, during the course of which she was afraid that she would at the least be dreadfully injured, very likely killed.
She thought of laying hold of the leg nearest to her arm and trying to wrestle it out of the stirrup or inflict some pain upon it which would cause its owner to stop but she could see, out of the corner of her eye, that it was quite a substantial limb, well equipped with muscle and, since she could not move any part of her body apart from her arms, only one of which was within reach of it, decided that such an effort would prove futile. She must rely upon the fact that Mr Armitage was born a gentleman, had so far done nothing more than kiss her and, in spite of his threats, was unlikely to hurt her on purpose; he would, she trusted, arrive at Lady Leland’s gates and help her to alight, where he would no doubt kiss her again, make some disagreeable jest and leave her to walk up the drive by herself.
During the tussle which preceded the headlong gallop, Mary’s bonnet had fallen off her head, although not off her person altogether; it remained attached by the ribbons around her neck but was by now bobbing irritatingly beneath her chin, intermittently floating in front of her eyes and obscuring her vision. It was this fact, revealing as it did the quantities of bright curls swinging from her upside down head which eventually resulted in her being rescued.
She could hear little above the pounding of Mr Armitage’s horse upon the road but, after what seemed like an age but could not reasonably have been more than about five minutes, she thought she could distinguish another set of hooves approaching, this time accompanied by the sound of wheels. Her head was facing the road and she saw at last the hooves of a pair of bays rushing towards her and a moment later heard a cry from the driver, requesting Mr Armitage to pull over to allow the pair to pass.
Mr Armitage, perceiving no doubt that there was indeed a certain amount of danger in his meeting a vehicle at such speed, reined in his horse slightly, with a curse directed at the other driver. He swerved towards the edge of the road as the other man reached the same point on the highway. He did not lift the hand which pinned his prisoner to the animal, but said, partially beneath his breath and not unkindly, “Hold on, Miss Best; I’ll not let you fall.”
“Am I to be grateful?” she asked, her tones hoarsened by the position of her head.
“I should think so,” he replied.
“Hey! Who is that woman across your horse? Is there something the matter with her?” enquired a familiar voice as the driver of the other vehicle came alongside.
“She enjoys travelling like this; she conceives it to be romantic,” Mr Armitage responded, laughing in a manner which implied that his burden was a woman of ill repute who took some sort of perverse pleasure in being restrained.
“I do not! This scoundrel has abducted me! Pray come to my aid once more, Lord Marklye!” Mary shouted, raising her head as far as it would go.
“I thought I recognised those curls,” his lordship observed. “I shall have to request you to stop and release Miss Best, sir; she is a friend of mine.”
“No doubt; she is a friend of mine too,” Mr Armitage said with horrid innuendo but he drew his horse to a stop, clearly deciding that relinquishing Mary would be less trouble than engaging in a prolonged argument with his lordship.
“She will travel
more comfortably in my curricle,” his lordship pointed out, tossing the reins to his groom and jumping down. “You may safely release her; I will engage to catch her,” he continued and Mary felt the heavy hand lift from her back.
She slid down backwards, her face towards the horse on which she had been imprisoned, and felt Lord Marklye’s hands on her waist. He held her firmly and steadied her as her feet reached the ground. She, finding her legs embarrassingly wobbly, leaned back against him but kept her head bent, her disordered hair obscuring her face almost entirely.
“Who are you, sir?” his lordship enquired sternly, looking up at Mr Armitage, who remained upon his horse.
“He is Mr Armitage,” Mary said, lifting her head and tossing her hair back with such force that it hit his lordship’s throat. “He is the son of a friend of Lady Leland’s. Mr Armitage, Lord Marklye.”
“How do you do, my lord,” John Armitage said lightly. “Can I trust you to restore Miss Best safely to her employer? I met her collapsed upon the road and was taking her home in the safest way possible. I think she must have suffered a fainting fit or some such and I wished to make certain that she did not fall and hurt herself further. I thought it best to convey her to safety as soon as possible.”
“Indeed. I will engage to restore her to Lady Leland, Mr Armitage. Will you trust yourself to me, Miss Best?”
“Yes, oh yes, indeed; I am certain I should be more comfortable in your curricle, my lord.” Mary struggled once more to stand firmly upon her own legs and, with a little further steadying from his lordship, succeeded. She could not, however, bring herself to thank her abductor for his kindness in gathering her up off the roadside.
“Come, take my arm, Miss Best; I shall not let you fall, I promise,” his lordship said, bowing somewhat curtly to Mr Armitage.
Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence Page 16