by M C Beaton
Chapter Nine
LORD HARRY AND Isabella walked through the still-dark streets of London in the direction of Malmbrooke Square. All was quiet and still. Frost glittered hard and white on the pavements, and the parish oil lamps shone dimly through a thin veil of fog.
“How did you know where to find me?” asked Isabella. He was holding her arm, but it was comforting.
“I suspected Lord Rupert when I saw his horse up for sale at Tats. He had sold it to a squire in Exeter last June. I recognized that horse as the one that had been ridden by your assailant.”
“But why did you not warn me?” cried Isabella.
“Would you have listened? No. So I sent Biddle to find out more about this Lord Rupert. Drunk as he was when he returned—Biddle is usually drunk—he managed to tell me that Lord Rupert had ordered his carriage for five in the morning. It seemed to be nothing out of the way. He could have been starting off early for some race meeting. But you nodded to him at the opera, and I could not but help thinking it was some sort of prearranged signal.”
“He asked me to elope with him,” said Isabella. She added timidly, “You did make yourself out to be such a monster.”
“I can only apologize for having driven you to such lengths. You owe old Biddle a lot. I thought you were going with him willingly, but it was Biddle who pointed out that you had probably been tricked.”
“He certainly deserves a handsome award,” agreed Isabella. “But to get money to reward him, I would need to tell my parents everything….”
“I shall reward him for you. But I doubt if there is anything the old man wants other than getting drunk from dawn to dusk.”
“Could you bring him to me today so that I may thank him?” suggested Isabella.
“Certainly. I owe it to your parents to assure them that the end of our engagement is by mutual consent. I will ask to see you alone, and you may speak to Biddle then.”
Tears stood out in Isabella’s eyes. “I am so grateful to you,” she whispered.
“Enough of that,” he said harshly. “I do not deserve your thanks.”
“You will soon be going away again, you and Captain James. Now that you are rich, why do you not sell out?”
“The war is unfinished. We must go on.”
“And Lucy? She is so determined to go with her captain. I shall miss her sore.”
They walked on in silence. Then Isabella exclaimed, “My luggage! I left it behind.”
“I shall get it back to you without anyone knowing. Here we are. Enter quietly. Try to sleep and forget about the whole sorry affair.”
He stood looking down at her, tall and serious.
“What will you do with Lord Rupert?”
“Persuade him to leave the country. I beg of you, forget him or that he ever existed.” He raised her hand to his lips.
Isabella forget about the conventions, forgot that only a short time ago this was a man she loathed and despised. She threw her arms around him and hugged him close.
Then she released him and turned and fled indoors. He stood for a few moments, staring in wonder at the closed door, and then he went off to deal with Lord Rupert.
Lord Rupert, like most bullies, was a coward at heart. When Lord Harry said coldly he would kill him if he remained in England, Lord Rupert believed him. Lord Harry kept him tied up until he got a promise of a written agreement and then released him and waited until that agreement was written.
Then he took himself off to his parents’ town house with Biddle following, carrying Isabella’s luggage. “This be a bad business,” moaned Biddle.
“Nonsense. It is all settled,” said Lord Harry.
“I mean, here I am, an old poor frail creature, having to carry your lady’s traps.”
“Oh, give them here, you old reprobate. You are coming with me later today to call on Miss Chadbury so that means you are going to stay sober. I am going to lock you in your room.”
Biddle let out a squawk of outrage. But Lord Harry was determined, and so Biddle was thrust into the small cubby hole that served him as a bedchamber as soon as they returned. Lord Harry turned the key firmly in the door and put it in his pocket.
He went to his own room and found James sitting there, waiting for him.
“I heard you go out,” said James. “I looked at the time and remembered what Biddle had said about Fitzjohn. What happened?”
And so Lord Harry wearily sat down on the bed and told him everything. He did not think it necessary to swear him to secrecy, forgetting in his tiredness that James was too much in love with Lucy to keep anything back from her.
“I could call early,” said the captain, “and take Isabella’s bags with me. I could get them to her without being seen by her parents.”
“What of the servants?”
“The Chadbury servants are too correct to make any remark. But just in case, I will wrap everything up in pretty paper and ribbons and they will think I have been buying presents for your sister.”
Lord Harry yawned. “So all’s well that ends well. Be a good chap and run along and let me sleep.”
Captain James, carrying three huge beribboned parcels, which contained Isabella’s two hat boxes and one portmanteau, presented himself at the Chadbury’s town house. To his relief, he was told that Mr. and Mrs. Chadbury were still asleep but that his fiancée was in the drawing room. He made his way up the stairs, refusing to relinquish the parcels to a servant.
“Why, what is this?” cried Lucy, running forward to meet him.
“Not for you, my sweet,” said the captain. “Here, shut the door and damn the conventions. I have such a tale to tell you!”
And so Lucy, sitting on his lap, was told the tale of Isabella between kisses. “Well, it is all Harry’s fault,” said Lucy when he had finished. “He could have made her love him.”
“I sometimes wonder if he has any idea how to court a lady,” said the captain. There was a noise from upstairs, and Lucy leapt from his lap. “My parents will be here shortly. I had better take these parcels to Isabella’s room.”
Isabella struggled awake as Lucy crashed in and dropped the parcels on the floor with a cry of, “I know all!”
“Does the whole of London know?”
“No,” said Lucy, sitting on the end of the bed. “James told me all about it, but he will not talk of it to anyone other than me, and I won’t tell anyone. Why did you not tell me you were afraid of men?”
“It was such a horrible experience, Lucy, not fit for your ears.”
“Pooh,” said Lucy. “You have led too sheltered a life, Isabella!”
“And you have not?”
“Well, no, for my parents are very lax, and I was allowed to run wild without a servant to accompany … My dear Isabella, come the harvest festival, you have never seen such scenes of debauchery. I crept out to watch, but there was really nothing to it, rather like watching the beasts mating in the field, a lot more undignified but not alarming in the least.”
“Oh, Lucy,” Isabella was half laughing, half crying, “what a fool I am.”
The Chadburys were preparing to go out to consult the Tremaynes about the end of the engagement when Lord Harry was announced.
They looked at each other in consternation. “It would be rude not to receive him. Perhaps we had better tell him what we are about,” said Mr. Chadbury.
They received him in the drawing room. Lord Harry was accompanied by Biddle, a surly and furious Biddle, for he had been forcibly bathed and attired in clean linen. He felt a pale shadow of a man and kept swearing that they had washed all the strength out of him.
“Harry, my boy,” said Mr. Chadbury awkwardly, “we are about to go to your parents. I am afraid Isabella does not want this marriage, and so we think it would be better if you cried off.”
“Gladly,” said Lord Harry with a smile. “But allow me some time with Isabella. At least I should be allowed to put her mind at rest as I have caused her so much distress.”
Mrs. Chad
bury heaved a sigh of relief. “Spoken like a gentleman. Of course you may see her. We will go to tell your parents the news.”
The Chadburys waited until Isabella made her entrance. Mrs. Chadbury stared in amazement as Isabella dimpled at Lord Harry and gave him her best curtsy. All her sympathy for her daughter fled. Isabella was flirting again.
When they had left, Lord Harry said with a glint of humor in his eyes, “Here is the horrible Biddle, who has done us such fine service. Biddle, the reason you are here is because we wish to show our gratitude to you.”
“Gratitude!” shrieked Biddle. “ ‘Gratitude,’ he says, and he gets me in the bath and washes me all over. Disgusting. You’re spawn o’ the devil, Harry!”
“Biddle!” exclaimed Isabella sharply. “Watch your tongue and do not address your master in that familiar manner.”
“He can’t help it,” said Lord Harry amiably. “He was born a rebel. Well, you old reprobate. What is your reward to be? I suppose you want enough money to drink yourself to death.”
Biddle sat down suddenly, and Isabella bit back an angry exclamation. The castle servants had been left to do much as they pleased for too long. No servant should dare to sit down in the presence of his betters.
“Anything?” asked Biddle, hugging his knees.
“Within reason, yes,” said Lord Harry, half amused, half exasperated.
“ ‘Merica,” said Biddle suddenly.
“America? Oh, not more of your maunderings, old man. I know you have never been out of England.”
“Send me,” said Biddle. “I want for to go to ‘Merica.”
“You’re old and you might die before you ever saw it.”
“Not if I had the best accommodation on board ship,” said Biddle eagerly. His old eyes were shining.
“Why do you want to go to the colonies?” asked Isabella curiously.
“Because they ain’t the colonies no more. Ain’t no lords and ladies there. I can be free!”
“I’ faith,” drawled Lord Harry, “one would think we had kept you in chains. Very well, Biddle, America it is.”
Biddle darted to the bell rope and gave it a hearty tug, and when the footman appeared, Biddle ordered champagne.
“There’s no doing anything with you,” sighed Lord Harry. “Go and have your champagne in the servants hall.”
Biddle scuttled off.
“Good servant, that,” said Lord Harry. “One of the best.”
“But so impertinent and usually so evil smelling,” remarked Isabella.
“He has a good heart, Isabella, and I would rather have that about me than a mincing posturing valet who knew how to shine my boots like glass.”
“But you cannot just send someone so old off to the other side of the world just like that. He will need introductions.”
“A cousin of ours has a plantation in Virginia. Biddle can retire there. So your parents know nothing of your adventures?”
“No, but Lucy does.”
“Damn, James! I beg your pardon, but I did not expect him to tattle all over town.”
“Only to Lucy,” said Isabella. “He loves her, so naturally he told her. I would like to make one request.”
“Your servant, ma’am!”
“I would like you to give me that quizzing glass of yours.”
He unhitched it from around his neck and came and got down on one knee in front of her and held it up, his eyes laughing. “Here it is. Why do you want it?”
“I never want to see you stare at me through it again,” said Isabella with a laugh.
“There are flecks of gold in your eyes when you laugh,” he said softly. “Did you know that? And did you know your mouth becomes soft and tender and made for kissing? Do you remember our kiss, Isabella?”
She put a hand on his shoulder as he knelt before her. “Do not tease me, Harry. Do not mock me.”
“I could no longer tease you or mock you if I tried.” He dropped the quizzing glass to the floor and put both hands gently on either side of her face and kissed her softly on the mouth.
Fire seemed to course down from his lips through Isabella’s body to her toes, bounce and soar up again, a fountain of fire and passion that burned against his mouth, melting all the years of ice.
At last he said huskily, “I should have done this from the first. Are you afraid of me?”
“No,” she said. “No, not at all. Oh, Harry, we should not be doing this. I … I … mean it is not as if we are engaged any longer.”
He swept her down onto the floor, gathered her in his arms, and kissed her breathless. Then, holding her by both wrists, he stretched her arms above her head. “I am going to keep you here until you promise to marry me. Say, ‘Yes, Harry.’ ”
“Yes, Harry.”
“And I will take you to Spain with me, and everyone will be shocked and say, ‘What a brute that man is to take the fair Isabella into death and danger,’ but I will have you by me at night no matter where to have as I please until the day I die. By God, I love you!”
His kissed her so savagely that Isabella cried out and then kissed him back just as passionately.
Lucy, who had been sitting eagerly in the hall for Captain James to arrive, heard that cry just as her fiancé walked in the door.
“It must be Fitzjohn,” cried the captain, rushing for the stairs with Lucy tumbling after him.
The couple stood transfixed in the drawing room doorway. Isabella Chadbury was rolling and groaning on the floor under the onslaught of Lord Harry’s passion. Her once perfect gown was about her waist, and he was kissing her breasts.
Captain James gently drew Lucy away, a furiously blushing Lucy.
“Well!” exclaimed Lucy as the captain helped her into his carriage. “Whoever thought Isabella Chadbury could be so naughty!”
Mr. and Mrs. Chadbury were never to forget that day. Having secured the Tremaynes agreement to the termination of their daughter’s engagement, they returned to find her sitting in the drawing room with a hurriedly put together look about her. Her hair was tousled, her mouth was bruised, and the tapes of her gown looked as if they had been quickly tied by an inexpert hand. Then the couple rose as they entered and dreamily announced they were going ahead with the marriage and that Isabella was to go to Spain.
Then there were all the sudden and hurried preparations for the wedding. Isabella, who had numbly gone through all the fittings for that wedding gown, suddenly deciding it wasn’t nearly pretty enough and demanding changes.
The days flew past until the exhausted Chadburys found themselves at the double wedding, Lucy to her captain, and Lord Harry to their daughter.
Mr. Chadbury comforted his tearful wife as the couples drove off, heading for the wars. “I don’t think we ever knew Isabella,” sobbed Mrs. Chadbury. “It is a mercy she is safely married. So wanton. Every time I took my eyes of that couple, their hands were all over each other.”
“Well, it’s a happy wedding,” remarked the countess. “Champagne is what you need, Sophia. Very soothing thing champagne!”
It was a relatively short war for Isabella. A year after her marriage, Napoleon abdicated and was sent to Elba to remain in exile. She and Lucy were thankful it was all over. They had not felt like heroines and had been frightened on many occasions and dirty and unwashed on many more. Now they were with their husbands in Paris, in a comfortable hotel, bathed and rested and dressed in clean clothes.
Lucy had gone out early riding with the captain, and Isabella was enjoying a late and leisurely breakfast with her husband. She was too thin, and her face was tanned and her dress simple, but she had all the easy manner of a woman who loves her husband and knows she is loved. Lord Harry looked at her affectionately over the top of his newspaper. He was glad she was safe. He often now wondered at his madness in taking her with him. The world was safe again, for that monster of a Corsican was on Elba and could not possibly escape. Isabella was reading a pile of letters that had caught up with them in Paris.
“W
hat is the news?” asked Lord Harry.
“My parents are well, and everything seems much the same. I have a letter from your mother. She tells both of us that we must travel to Tregar Castle as soon as we can because it is changed beyond belief. She says they are very grand.”
“Nothing about Biddle? He’s probably dead.”
“Let me see,” murmured Lucy. “Perhaps there is something further on in the letter.” She read in silence for a few moments, and then a look of surprise dawned on her face. “Why here it is. You will never believe this. Biddle is married! Your cousin wrote to your mother. Biddle is living in a cottage on your cousin’s estate and has taken a wife.”