by Carola Dunn
Leading the bay, he walked beside her. “Too faint? I see no… What the deuce?”
Maera bounded into sight, her ragged tail held high. Admittedly she was not a prepossessing vision, her shaggy coat matted with mud, but her teeth were bared in a friendly grin. There was no need for Lord Clifford to shout and wave his whip as if she were a man-eating tiger. Nell grabbed his arm.
“It’s Maera. She has come back to show me the way.”
“That creature is yours? Good gad!”
“I don’t care for pugs,” she snapped. “No pug would have tried to defend me against the highwayman, nor followed Vulcan and Vesta all this way in the rain.”
“Highwayman!” Astonishingly, he grinned at her. “No, I can’t imagine a pug outfacing a highwayman. I don’t care for them either.”
“Pugs or highwaymen?”
“Neither.” Maera came up to sniff at him and he fondled her floppy ears, wet as they were. His boots and riding breeches must bear the familiar odour of Grenadier, for she accepted him without hesitation. “You mean to tell me you were held up by a highwayman?”
“At first I thought him a footpad.” As they followed Maera, Nell told him the story, omitting to mention the little ivory-handled pistol Papa had had Manton make for her. On the whole Lord Clifford was bearing up admirably under all the shocks the day had dealt him. Perhaps a confession of feminine frailty might further soothe him and encourage him to lend his aid. “I was quite frightened,” she admitted.
“You deserved to be,” he said censoriously. “I was under the impression that you were an unexceptionable, gently bred, well-behaved female. Had I guessed that you drive—unescorted—a dog-cart and pair about the countryside and that you keep a monstrous mongrel as a pet, I’d have thought twice before proposing marriage.”
“I wish you had! It would have saved us both a great deal of trouble. I might add that I prefer Beethoven to Haydn, I enjoy long walks better than short strolls, I read the Classics and Byron and Hume and Voltaire, I hold definite political opinions, I visit the poor in person—”
“You do?” He stopped to stare at her.
“—And my hair is red,” she concluded, pulling off her ruined bonnet, no difficult matter as its ribbon had been sacrificed to mark the way. She dropped it in a puddle.
“I have no objection to red hair,” he said stiffly.
“How kind of you!”
“It’s coming down.”
Nell ran her hand through her hair. The last few hairpins fell out and dripping locks descended about her shoulders. “What does it matter, considering the state I’m in?” Defiance fading, dispirited, she looked down at her damply clinging, mud-bespattered gown. The hem was miry brown to above her ankles.
Lord Clifford had followed her gaze. He flushed and quickly looked up. “You must be excessively uncomfortable. It’s—”
“Don’t you dare tell me it’s my own fault!”
“I was going to say, it’s a pity this lane seems unlikely to lead us to a respectable inn where we might hire a vehicle.”
Instantly her momentary flash of guilt at her ungraciousness vanished. “So you can take me home in disgrace and drag me to the altar.”
“There’s no question of dragging you anywhere,” he said, stiffer than ever. “If you wish, I shall escort you to your friend’s residence in Hungerford, though I admit my first thought when I set out in pursuit was to avoid the ignominy of being jilted at the altar.”
But now, of course, after viewing her bedragglement and learning of her peculiarities, he was congratulating himself on a lucky escape. It was just what Nell wanted, yet her spirits sank lower than ever.
At least the rain was lightening, the clouds thinning.
“I cannot go anywhere until I have found Vulcan and Vesta,” she said. “Pray do not feel bound to accompany me. Maera and I will do very well.”
“Don’t be idiotish. I cannot in honour abandon you now.” His asperity unexpectedly changed to compassion. “You must be very tired, and this lane is becoming no more than a cart-track. Will you not take my arm? If only I had thought to bring a side-saddle, you might ride Grenadier.”
“I daresay I could manage him without.” At his shocked glance, she added hastily, “But perhaps not. I have not ridden bareback or astride these ten years and more.” To make amends, she took his arm, finding it a strong support, well-muscled beneath the damp brown cloth. “You must be tired, too, after journeying from Town.”
“I hope I am not such a poor—look, here comes your dog again. Maera, is she? And Vesta and Vulcan—I’d have guessed you to be familiar with classical literature even had you not told me.”
Nell sighed. “Phyllis calls me a bluestocking, an honour to which I have never aspired. Well, Maera, where to next? The cart-track is turning into a bridle-path, I vow.”
“You’re sure she knows where she… Ah, never doubt a dog!”
They stopped. Ahead, the hedge on their left gave way to a whitewashed, windowless wall topped with a thatch roof. At its far end, a five-barred gate led into a muddy yard behind a small, square building, also whitewashed and thatched. Two stories high, this sported two rows of small, square windows and fronted upon a lane not much wider than the bridle-path. Smoke rose from one of the chimneys, suggesting a kitchen fire. Nell realised she was hungry.
Maera sat at their feet panting, her happy grin wider than ever. “We’ve arrived,” she seemed to say.
“Vesta and Vulcan must be here,” Nell cried. “Come on.”
Lord Clifford held her back. “Wait. We cannot just march into a strange farm and accuse the residents of highway robbery.”
“Oh, stop fretting over propriety!”
“It’s not a matter of propriety,” he said, offended, “it’s a matter of safety. I am not armed. Good lord!” He stared at her as the clouds parted and the evening sun shone on them. “You are alarmingly flushed. My dear Lady Eleanor, have you a fever? I fear you are unwell.”
“I’m not delirious, if that’s what you wish to imply. My face does feel hot,” she conceded, “but I took off my bonnet for a while and I believe I am a little sunburned.” Incautiously she raised her hand to her cheek. “Ouch!”
He didn’t read her a lecture on the fruits of failure to observe due decorum. Instead he said practically, though with an odious laugh in his voice, “A compress of cold tea is the best remedy I know for sunburn. Come, let us seek aid. In case they should prove innocent, we shall claim to have had a carriage accident. While the lady of the house is ministering to your face, I shall investigate the stables.”
“If we had a carriage accident, why are you leading a riding horse?”
“A good point. I’ll hide t he saddle and reins under the hedge and leave just a strap to lead him by.”
With swift efficiency, he stripped Grenadier of his accoutrements and, stepping over a bank of nettles, thrust them deep into the base of the hawthorns. His hat fell off and a thorn left a bloody track down his cheek, but he stepped back to the path looking pleased with himself. Maera watched with interest.
“There, I don’t think anyone will find them.”
“Nor shall we, without a marker. I shall sacrifice the last scrap of lace on my petticoat, which is already quite ruined. Pray turn your back, sir.”
He obeyed, but as she raised the filthy hem of her skirt he said in a stifled tone, “I fear your garment may not be the only thing ruined. It is too late to reach your home or your friend at a respectable hour.”
“If you mean that I shall have to marry you after all, you are out in your reckoning.” Not that she was any longer totally averse to the prospect. However, since he had changed his mind about her suitability for the exalted position of his wife, she refused to be married solely for the sake of her reputation. “For my sake, Miss Lindisfarne will be willing to swear I reached Hungerford hours ago, and no one in this godforsaken spot can possibly recognise either of us.”
The sound of stitches ripping and birds
twittering in the bushes filled the weighty pause before Lord Clifford responded. “Nonetheless, I shall tell the people here we are man and wife.” The back of his neck was dull red. “I have your…the betrothal ring in my pocket. You can wear it backwards to hide the stone.”
“If you wish,” she said, subdued. “Here is the marker. Will you tie it in the hedge?”
He turned and in exchange for the scrap of lace he handed her the small package she had left for him. Unopened, she saw. For the first time she imagined his feelings on arriving at Brantwood and finding himself cast off without warning.
“I’m sorry,” she said remorsefully as he stepped back across the nettles to the hedge. “It was an utterly horrid thing to do.”
“It came as a bit of a shock.” He tied the lace to a twig with unnecessary care. “I was unaware of having offended you.”
“You didn’t offend me, not precisely. That is, it was not anything you did, it was what you didn’t do. Oh, I am making a mull of this! I simply realised that I didn’t know whether there was a person inside the perfect gentleman.”
“I have always striven to be a gentleman, though I’d scarcely claim perfection.” The dry statement failed to hide his hurt. He avoided her eye as he returned to the path. “Shall we go?”
“Yes.” The ring was back on her finger, reversed and hidden beneath her glove. “Maera, heel.”
“She won’t run off to hunt for your horses and give the game away? You may be recognised, but the longer they remain in ignorance of our surmise the better.”
“Not if I tell her to stay. I’d best describe Vulcan and Vesta so you will recognise them.”
“I’m scarcely likely to find a profusion of blood cattle in this ‘godforsaken spot.’ Still, tell me.”
The brief recitation of facts restored her equanimity. Turning the front corner of the house, they saw an inn sign over the front door: a lighted candle in a candlestick. The place was too small to be considered more than a hedge-tavern, though it appeared remarkably clean and prosperous for a hostelry on such a narrow, ill-travelled lane.
“It doesn’t look like a haunt of highwaymen,” Nell said dubiously, observing window-boxes overflowing with scarlet geraniums.
Lord Clifford read the crooked lettering on the door lintel and his lips quirked. “You really must learn to trust your dog. What did you say the highwayman’s name was?”
“He called himself Nimble Jack.”
“And here we have The Candlestick, proprietor Wm. Quick. Straight from Mother Goose, don’t you think?”
“‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.’ I’d not have expected you to recall a nursery rhyme.”
He coloured. “I sometimes read to my nephew,” he excused himself, as if it were something to be ashamed of. Hurriedly he continued, “No doubt Jack’s depredations account for the general air of affluence. Now, don’t give the least sign that we are suspicious, and with luck they will do their utmost to avoid arousing our suspicions. Are you ready?”
Silenced by sudden qualms, Nell nodded. He tied Grenadier’s bridle to a post and ushered her through the open door, directly into a low-ceilinged taproom, uninhabited.
“House, ho!” cried Lord Clifford, knocking with his whip on a table.
A short, stout woman in a spotless pink gingham apron came through a door behind the bar counter. The sight of the newcomers flustered her and she stammered, “Begging your pardon, sir, but the Candlestick don’t cater to the quality.” Then she glanced at Nell and added, “Nor draggle-tails neither. And, heavens above, here’s a nasty dirty creature come in after you. Out, you monster, out I say!” She seized a broom and waved it at Maera.
“That is my Greek harpy-hound,” said the viscount frostily, “an extremely valuable animal. And this is my wife.”
“Oh lor, sir, madam, I didn’t mean no harm, I’m sure,” babbled the woman, dropping the broom and curtsying as Nell suppressed a slightly hysterical fit of the giggles. “But ‘tis the truth, I’ve got nothing fit for gentry-folk, nor dinner nor lodging.”
“Whatever you have must suffice. We have suffered an accident to our carriage and my wife can go no farther this day.”
The landlady at once became motherly. “Tut, the poor dear. Of course you shan’t stir another inch, madam. Just sit here and rest your bones, dearie, for there won’t be a soul in afore dark, tossing the hay after the rain as they be, ‘gainst the mildew. The girl only comes in days, but I’ll make up the bed in the back room myself, comfy as you please, and there’s a nice, toothsome rabbit pie browning in the oven this minute. And you’ll be wishing for a dish of tea, I don’t doubt. The kettle’s always on the hob.”
“Thank you—Mrs Quick, is it?” said Nell faintly dropping into the chair Lord Clifford held for her. “A cup of tea would be heaven.”
“And don’t forget a compress of tea for your face, my dear. If it will not be too much trouble, Mrs Quick? To compound my wife’s misfortunes, she has unwisely exposed her face to the sun.”
“My bonnet came to grief in the accident,” Nell hastened to explain, “and the sun was horridly hot. Cold tea is the best remedy for sunburn. I have it on the best medical authority.”
‘You were also soaked by the rain, Eleanor,” said Lord Clifford solicitously, not blinking at being referred to as a medical authority. “Do you wish for a fire?”
“No, I am quite warm. I believe I shall soon dry without.”
“Then cosset yourself while I go and stable the horse.”
The landlady blenched. “Oh, no, sir I’m sure it’s not fitting for you to be seeing to such things. Quick’ll take care of your horse in a winking. William!” She hurried to the door by which she had entered, and Nell and her spurious husband exchanged significant glances. “William? Drat, where is the man!”
“That’s quite all right, Mrs Quick. I’ve no objection to looking after Grenadier myself.” The viscount turned towards the front door.
“William!” bawled Mrs Quick.
A short, wiry man in a leather apron and jerkin appeared in an open doorway on the far side of the taproom. “I were down the cellar, Madge,” he said mildly. “Don’t take on so. What...” He saw the strangers and stopped with his mouth open.
“It’s the gentleman’s horse, William. Take it round the stable and mind you take good care of it. Quick knows horses, sir,” she anxiously assured the viscount as the landlord scuttled out. “A jockey he were once on a time, and won enough purses to set up in business. He’ll do all that’s needful. Why don’t you sit you down with your lady wife and take a glass of wine?”
“Thank you, I’ll try your home-brewed.” Resigned, Lord Clifford sat down opposite Nell. She shot him a fulminating look. Was he so easily persuaded to abandon poor Vulcan and Vesta? “If I go now,” he whispered under cover of the drawing of ale, “I’ll be met with a pistol. I’m afraid we’ll have to stay at least a part of the night and I’ll search when all’s quiet.”
She nodded, mollified. It really was excessively gallant of him to come to her aid, especially after the shocking way she had treated him. He wasn’t at all the insensible block, the shell of cold perfection, she had supposed. In fact, she rather suspected he might even possess a sense of humour.
Taking off her driving gloves, she contemplated the lying band of gold on her finger with a certain degree of wistfulness. She should have known the brother Juliet adored couldn’t be entirely lacking in human qualities.
* * * *
As the landlady set a brimful tankard before him and bustled off to make tea, Ben also was thinking of Juliet. She’d be astonished to see him now, but not half so astonished as he was at his own behaviour.
He was suffering from a fit of madness from which he would presently recover. Since Derrington handed him Lady Eleanor’s letter and the ring, the world had a nightmarish cast—no, that wasn’t quite right—a dreamlike intangibility which freed him from the demands of convention. Sternly suppressed emotions w
ere bubbling to the surface. In a peculiar and alarming way, he felt more alive than he remembered feeling since childhood.
Was this what life with Lady Eleanor would be like? He regarded her as she sat opposite him, sea-green eyes lowered—not, he was sure, in modesty. Her hair, beginning to dry, spread in a tangled coppery cloak about her shoulders. Would she let him brush it for her? The thought sent a wave of warmth through him.
But they hadn’t a hairbrush between them. They shouldn’t be here at all, planning to at least begin the night in the same chamber. It was all her fault. She was impossible!
And anyway, she didn’t want him.
He had let himself become embroiled in this ridiculous quest for her precious horses. They should have gone straight to the nearest magistrate. Certainly he should not have let her join him in an escapade dangerous to both her reputation and possibly their lives. At the time, there had seemed to be no alternative, or rather, it had seemed quite natural.
It was her escapade, he reminded himself. Moreover, he doubted he could have stopped her, short of resorting to physical violence. She was impossible. He ought to thank heaven he had found out before tying himself to her for life.
In the meantime, the best he could do was to accept whatever this dream had to offer and take what enjoyment from it he might. The demands of reality would return all too soon.
Maera’s heavy head appeared on his knee and she gazed up at him with an appeal in her brown eyes.
“Water for my…” What had he called her? “…For my harpy hound,” he requested as Mrs Quick brought the tea. Lady Eleanor’s little snort was undoubtedly a suppressed giggle. Her eyes met his, bright with amusement. “And a bowl of scraps,” he added firmly.
Promising to see what she could find, the landlady departed.
“How fortunate that your harpy hound does not require a special diet,” said Lady Eleanor, pouring her tea.