by Joan Smith
"He'll be coming along any time now,” Arnold warned her, peering over his shoulder again in trepidation. “I think I’d better get along back to Ashbourne. We won’t want him to see us together.”
“Afraid of him, Arnold?”
“Yes! That is—I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea, that there’s anything between us.”
“Oh no, we wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea!” she shot back. “It wouldn’t do for him to think you had been making up to me behind his back, saying you wished I were free to marry you!”
Arnold looked about the empty road in absolute terror, lest the trees hide a listener. “You know that’s impossible, Belle. He’ll never let you go. He’s as jealous as a bear. There was never anything between us. I mean—we always knew you were married.”
“I never hid it from you, certainly!”
“I mean Miss Mickles—”
“You mean, Arnold, but are ashamed to say, that you’ve changed your mind about me because you’re afraid of Avondale.”
“I’m not afraid of anybody! It’s just that he’s your husband, and a duke, and besides, he’s a lot bigger than I am."
“You’d better run back to Ashbourne and hide, then.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he admitted shamelessly. “I’m going back to Amesbury. You don’t want to come with me, do you?” It was clear as day he didn’t want her to go, and she was strongly tempted to say she did want to. How should she get home else?
“You can’t go without me!”
“I’m leaving today,” he insisted.
“The ball is tonight. You can’t leave before that. What excuse will you give?”
“I don’t know. I can say Mama wants me back.”
“Oh Arnold, you baby.”
“Dash it, Belle, he’s looking for an excuse to ram my teeth down my throat, and he ain’t going to find one. Now are you coming or not?”
“Everyone will know you didn’t get any letter from your mother. You’ll be a laughingstock.”
“Well,” he said, rethinking his predicament, “I ain’t going to let him see me hanging around you anyway.” He had his team whipped up and dashed back to Ashbourne.
Disgusted with him, Belle turned around and followed his cloud of dust back to Ashbourne too, to try to talk him out of leaving. She almost wished Oliver would beat him up. It would serve him right. All his bravado at Amesbury about showing Avondale a thing or two. He was scared stiff, and well he might be, she thought with a little smile. It was entirely possible that all Oliver’s bad luck might be vented on more than inanimate objects this time.
Chapter Eleven
With such an unsatisfactory bit of a ride, Belle planned to go out again after luncheon, and remained in her riding habit. Oliver did not return in the hour specified, and as she had no notion of being discovered sitting around doing nothing as though she were waiting for him when he finally got back, she decided to go for a walk to pass the time before luncheon. She set off through the park, wanting solitude, but as the drive from the main road was a meandering one, designed to give various views of the house as it snaked along, she suddenly found herself on the drive. She had been walking for upwards of half an hour and decided to follow the driveway home. She heard wheels approaching from behind, and as she turned she recognized Lady Dempster’s carriage bolting toward her. The harpy had it stopped with a gleeful face that announced even before her words that she had some gossip to impart.
“My dear, you have a generous husband!” was her opening remark, delivered through the window of her carriage. She knew she had been badly used by the Avondales. It had eventually got through to her that they had been making fun of her, and she was eager to repay the debt.
“Aren’t I lucky?” Belle asked, still determined not to mind what this woman said or did.
“I don’t know about that. That depends on the direction of his charity. A thousand pounds to Mrs. Traveller is more generosity than I would consider lucky if he were my husband.”
“A good thing he’s not your husband then,” Belle replied sharply, but the blow was severe. A thousand pounds! More, much more than would have been required, even if there had been a duel and a trip abroad required. But there had been no duel. It was just pocket money for Honey. It wasn’t only herself that was showered with his things. She thought his particular garish taste might be more suited to Mrs. Traveller than herself. That bonnet she had watched him throw into the fire, for instance. Surely that creation had inadvertently been handed to the wrong woman.
“A pity he isn’t. I think I could handle him a little better than you do.”
“Do you think so, ma’am? I think you overestimate yourself,” she answered, and turned to walk away.
“I think you underestimate Mrs. Traveller,” Lady Dempster called after her fleeing form, and called up to her driver to get on home. If Arnold Henderson was not with Belle, his presence must be accounted for.
Mrs. Dempster’s coach was soon whipping past Belle, with its occupant bestowing a smirk on the pedestrian as she went by. Belle had decided she would go and find Arnold and tell him she would leave with him, at once. She wouldn’t go to the ball, to be laughed at by everyone when Lady Dempster had spread her story about. There were some limits to what humankind could stand, after all.
She had gone no more than a dozen yards when she heard more wheels coming behind her. She hoped it would be the Delfords, but knew in her heart it was Avondale. Fate couldn’t withhold one single blow. It would be him. She knew it perfectly well, and when the wheels slowed as the carriage approached her, she turned around to see him descend smiling from the carriage to hurry after her on foot.
“Would you like a drive back to the house?” he asked.
“No, I’m in a mood for walking,” she answered.
Oliver had hardly known what to make of Belle’s performance at breakfast, but he knew this particular mood was not auspicious for his welfare.
“I’ll walk with you, then. Sorry I’m so late getting back. I don’t bank in this little village, and had some trouble getting money. I told you about the duel—that the Travellers must go abroad.”
“Yes, you told me. How much did it cost you, Oliver?”
He hardly hesitated an instant. That damned hedgebird of a Henderson had seen him give Honey a wad of bills, and Lady Dempster had been nosing around the bank, but he had no way of knowing she had kept the clerk talking till she got a look at the bill he held from Avondale, with the sum scribbled on it. “A hundred pounds,” he said.
“Is that all? I thought it would take ten times that much.”
“No, they are only going to Ireland. It doesn’t cost that much.” It was coincidence. It must be coincidence, mentioning ten times the hundred, exactly the sum given. She couldn’t possibly know. But she was awfully angry about something. It was his being late—that was it. He tried to apologize again for his tardiness.
“I’m really sorry I missed our ride, but we can ride after lunch. I see you haven’t changed from your habit. Or have you ridden at all?”
“Yes, I went for a ride this morning.”
“Where did you go?”
“I rode out and met Arnold.”
“I see,” he answered testily, and wished to say a good deal more. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he added in accents of repressed violence. The hedgebird had told her about the wad of bills. That’s what she was upset about.
“You have mentioned your dislike of my seeing him in public, but then when you pay off your woman in the middle of a public village yourself, you can hardly object to my having an innocent conversation by the roadside, can you?”
“He told you!”
“Oh, yes, he tells me everything. We are on very intimate terms, but not such intimate terms as allow him to pay my bills.”
Avondale stopped walking. A liverish hue suffused his face, and his jaws squared into determined angles. We are on very intimate terms . . . .
“I’m
going to settle that bastard’s hash once and for all,” he declared. He waved forward his carriage, which had been following them at a walk, and jumped in, telling the driver to “spring them.” The team bolted forward, and Belle was left standing alone in the road, staring after him, helpless. He would go after Arnold and kill him. She lifted up her skirts and ran after the carriage as fast as she could, but had no hope of overtaking a bang-up team of four matched bays.
Arnold, after considering in the safety of his room the impossibility of deserting Belle, had slunk off to the rose garden to await her return, and to urge her once again to come with him that afternoon. He had had a letter from Mama at last, and no one need know it contained only strictures regarding excessive drinking, and thanking his hostess, and such routine commands. He had decided to say she had a cold. Surely an only son would not be expected to enjoy himself at a party when his mama had a cold!
He was there in the garden when Avondale’s carriage swept past, and over the top of the yew hedge his head had been recognized. Lady Dempster had been let off at the front door, but as she had seen in the distance a carriage approaching, which was soon recognized as Avondale’s, she hung around to tease him about the thousand pounds. She got around the corner to the rose garden just in time to see the encounter. To see Avondale leap from the moving carriage and dash forward toward Henderson. To see Arnold with terror in his eyes turn and try to make it through the French doors. To see Avondale reach out a long arm and grab him by the scruff of the neck and turn him around, his toes just dangling on the ground.
Belle came panting up too late to see Oliver’s jump from the carriage. By the time she arrived on the scene, it had progressed too far for her to control her husband’s temper. It had got beyond her control or his own. She could only stand and stare.
“See here, Avondale!” Henderson croaked, and Oliver let him drop.
He landed on his feet and staggered against the glass doors.
“Get away from that glass door, you sniveling son of a bitch,” Avondale growled at him, and pulled him with one arm out onto the grass, where he landed a hard blow at his chin. Henderson was ridiculously easy to fell. He never stood up from the one blow. Avondale had still enough violence left that he wanted to hit him another dozen times, and reached down to drag him to his feet again.
“Stop it! Stop it, Oliver!” Belle shouted, and tried to run forward, but Lady Dempster was desirous of more entertainment, and held her back.
Avondale had to vent his anger in useless words. “I don’t want to see you hanging around my wife. If I hear of you speaking to her again, I’ll break your spine. Get up and fight, you goddam whelp!”
Arnold lifted his head from the grass, but at these threats thought it wise to become unconscious, and let the head fall again with a little thud.
“Famous! Bravo, Avondale!” Lady Dempster cackled, clapping her gloved hands noiselessly. The thousand pounds slipped her mind in her joy at such a spectacle as the lofty Duke of Avondale cursing and brawling like a chairman.
He glared at her. “Another installment. Stick around, lady. I’m not done yet.”
“He is!” she laughed, and ran forward to tender Henderson mercy.
Belle too took a step toward Arnold, but Avondale grabbed her arm.
“Leave him. If that mutt means anything to you, leave him alone, or I’ll kill him.”
“Oliver—what are you doing?” she gasped.
“What does it look like?”
“You’ve killed him.”
“Not yet, but if you keep it up, I will. Go on in. Lady Dempster will look after him.”
“I can’t leave him!” She stared at Henderson, then at Oliver, wondering if she dared to disobey him.
“Go inside!” he commanded.
In this mood, she thought it best to do as he said, and walked slowly around to the front, looking back over her shoulder to ascertain that Oliver didn’t resume beating Arnold. She saw him turn and walk away, back toward the stables, and felt it safe to go indoors. Oliver had run mad. She hadn’t thought he would really knock Arnold out. She had envisaged a few threats, insults—but not this brutish behavior. And with Lady Dempster there to see and tell the whole.
She met Kay in the hall, and told her in a disjointed fashion enough to get her into the study to receive Henderson’s body. Kay quite agreed with him that it was wise to leave, as soon as possible, and helped him hide out in the study till his valet got his cases packed, and had the carriage sneaked out at the far side of the house, not along the driveway, but over her lawn, with the horses and wheels doing some considerable damage, but not so much as she feared Avondale might do if he saw Arnold leaving. She assured Arnold that she would make sure Belle got home—she could use her own carriage if necessary.
“I’m not running away, you know,” he informed his hostess.
“Oh, no!”
“I had a letter from Mama this morning. She has got a cold, and I can’t leave her alone.”
“No, much better to get home right away.”
“Someone must be there to take care of her. To see the doctor is called, and the possets prepared. Her woman is no good at a posset. No good at all.”
“I’m sure you make an excellent posset, Arnold.”
“And with the mood Avondale’s in, it might be better if I go. I wouldn’t want to spoil your party.”
Kay thought it had been effectively spoiled already, but didn’t offer a single demur to his opinion. “You had better run along, and for goodness’ sake, Arnold, don’t go telling around Amesbury what happened.”
Arnold had no notion of broadcasting his disgrace, and agreed to a pact of silence with no trouble at all. If Miss Mickles ever heard, she’d turn him off. Though really, he considered, God hadn’t kept His half of the bargain at all. He didn’t really have to offer for Miss Mickles.
With his chin swathed in a warm cloth, and slinking down so that his head did not project above the window, Arnold was sneaked away from Ashbourne while the hostess took her guests to the opposite side of the building to show them her collection of figurines, and to mention casually that Mr. Henderson had had a letter from home telling him his mama was very ill—a heart seizure, she believed—and he had to leave them.
Only Lady Dempster’s laughing black eyes were there to refute her. Belle expressed polite concern, and Avondale said he hoped it was not too serious. For nearly a quarter of an hour she conned her guests, till she turned her back to see to lunch, and Lady Dempster began making her rounds.
Chapter Twelve
Lady Hathaway had gone to considerable pains to lay on a very nice luncheon. Her French chef, Pierre, was a wizard with an herb omelette, and she had personally selected fresh herbs from her border for him. There were prawns in wax baskets, cold cuts, and a raised partridge pie, but with all this she had only slim hopes the meal would be a success. Belle had gone to her room prostrate when everyone began looking at her and whispering; Lady Dempster was in a frenzy of spreading the tale. She might as well have served cold gruel for all the note anyone took of the food. Belle didn’t come to the table at all; Oliver came and sat with his old marble face of yore. Had it not been for Mr. Lucas with fresh news from Doncaster it would have been really a very bad meal indeed, but he had some tales of the races that interested the gentlemen. It came out in the course of the meal that George Traveller had been at Doncaster, and Oliver looked with a guilty start at this. After lunch he approached Kay.
“Did Belle talk to Lucas before I got back?”
“Yes, she was here with me when he arrived.”
“Did he happen to mention about Traveller being at Doncaster?”
“Yes, he told us, for I mentioned about Honey being here, you know. What a stunt to pull on his poor wife. I was afraid you’d come back with her again. Is she at the inn? She must be put off.”
“She’s gone to Doncaster to meet him.”
“She knew he was there all the time! Why, the lying hussy.”
“You really can’t blame her—he not leaving her a penny. But she wasn’t in a snit, was she?”
“I mean Belle. I told her . . .” He shook his head and frowned.
“What did you tell her?”
“A wagonload of lies, and she knows it. That’s why she was needling me about the money, and Henderson.”
“What is it with you two, Oliver? I never saw such a pair for never understanding each other. I think you go me and Alfred one better. Don’t you ever talk like ordinary people?”
“No, we just argue. It’s my fault. Partly my fault, but she’s a clam too. She never tells me anything. Kay, what am I to do?”
Kay hunched her shoulders philosophically. “She’s still here. He’s gone—Henderson—and she’s gone—Mrs. Traveller. You’ve sneaked your way right next door to her, and if you can’t make something of all that, you’re not the man I take you for.”
“I shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have hit him. He’s smaller than I am. And Dempster there . . . I’ve ruined your nice party, Kay. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Never mind that. It wasn’t much of a party anyway. I can always have another. If it gets you two together it’s worth it.”
“We’ll never get together. I’ve really lost her now.”
“Don’t be such a gudgeon, Oliver. She’ll be tickled pink you beat up Arnold Henderson. Very flattering that you were so jealous. I know I would be.”
“You’re not her. She’s different. My God, she’s different.”
“She’s human, I suppose.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think she has a heart.” He threw up his hands and made some sound, not quite a laugh or word, but a sound of despair.
“I don’t know why you should say such a thing. She has plenty of heart. What she doesn’t have is experience. She’s young, unsure of herself.”
“No, I used to think it was that, part of it. At first, but not anymore. You saw the way she acted at breakfast. She’s not unsure of herself.”