She allowed this to be true, and in the space of a mile had pulled Lord Robert’s cloak more tightly around herself. By three miles, and in spite of all her resolve against it, she sank back against Lord Robert’s chest. He placed his left arm firmly around her middle, and occasionally uttered little encouragements or warnings to Caesar, who seemed not to have noticed he had taken on an extra passenger and continued on in his docile way.
As they neared the outskirts of Hampton, Mary roused herself. “Sir, I beg you to put me on the ground now.”
“You may beg, but that does not mean I will.”
“Oh, but I so dread being seen! I do not want to be the subject of…”
“Of impertinent comments, or to be forced to answer any uncomfortable questions.”
“Precisely.” She cast her head around and looked anxiously up at him. “You do not know how it is here.”
Lord Robert pulled his great horse to an abrupt halt. “Mary Fanley,” he said sternly, “like it or not, you are inescapably cast in the role of damsel in distress, and I am determined to act as your protector. Now, allow me to go about it!”
“Certainly, sir, I beg your pardon,” she murmured with her great brown eyes having grown a little wider.
“Very well. I will try to overlook it,” he said with a grave face and a twinkle in his eyes. “Now, suppose we come across someone. Show me how you will look.”
With her faced still turned to look up him, she looked precisely how she would look if they should actually meet someone — that is to say, she looked utterly stricken.
“I see. That will never do. You have committed no sin, my girl. Now, give me a proud look, one that tells me you are always used to riding in the lap of a gentleman.”
Mary Fanley made a weak attempt.
“I am sure you can do better. Lift your chin,” he reached around and lifted it for her, “now look down your nose.” He traced his finger down her nose and pointed out to the imaginary person. “And now say very condescendingly, ‘How do you do?’ Pretend you are me, go ahead.”
Mary gave him a half smile, and then she lifted her chin even higher and arched her brows, saying “How do you do?” in the haughtiest voice she could command.
“Perfect.” he grinned. “Now then, we are off.”
They circumnavigated both Hampton and Greenly Village, and, as the light began to fail, he approached the stretch of road where they would turn off to the Manor house. Rather than keep to the road, however, the Marquis urged Caesar into the ditch, through a space in the hedgerows, and across the field.
Mary stirred. “Should we not have gone on to the gate house?”
“I have never known a gatekeeper who was not a shocking tale bearer.”
She leaned back into him and said, “Of course you are right, sir. I beg your pardon. It is just so terribly late.”
“All will be well if you will but allow me to make it so,” he reassured her, coming at last through the spinney and onto the Greenly Manor road. There he stopped, dismounted and reached up for her. By instinct, she allowed herself to be swung down off the great horse. “Now, Mary, you will sit right here and not move, mind. I will leave my cloak.”
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to double back and pass through the gate house. Is it possible your gatekeeper might not have seen you pass the gates this morning?”
“It is possible as I did not see him.”
“Then he is like every other gatekeeper,” Denley said grinning, “useless but for gossip.” He leapt up to his saddle and said very sternly, “If I return to this spot and find you gone, I will run you down, missy.”
She immediately sat down on a log and wrapped his cloak around her.
“Good girl,” he chuckled.
Mary sat in a forlorn little huddle and admitted to herself that she rather liked being thrown up onto a horse and told just what to do. She dreaded the moment when she would have to actually explain to Lord Robert what she was doing so far abroad; he had surely noticed her distraction, her watery eyes and lamentably damp nose. That he had not demanded to be told her business earned him her temporary gratitude. The time he was away she spent in searching for some kind of a tale to tell him. Nothing came to her that did not sound utterly absurd or make her out to be a simple hoyden.
Before she could think further on the subject, the Marquis arrived in a cloud of dust.
“Caesar despises running,” he grinned, dismounting, “but he accommodated me. I am glad to see I do not have to run him further in pursuit of you.”
“Indeed, I dared not move.”
“Good! Now, come here.” He lifted her very easily and threw her up into the saddle. Once she was firmly seated, he took out a small jewelled knife from his pocket. “Give me your right foot, Mary,” he directed.
She shyly held out her foot, which he took firmly in his hand while he pried off her heel with his knife. She let go a small gasp of surprise.
“You were walking?” he prompted.
She ogled him momentarily before she replied with hesitation, “…to the far west boundary of the estate?”
“Quite so.” He examined handiwork with a frown. “I do hope these were not your best shoes,” he said ironically.
She blushed and proclaimed them to be her meanest, everyday pair.
“Good. Now, your heel…”
“Came off?”
He nodded and looked up at her. “And you were…”
“…considerably slowed,” she replied tentatively.
“You were all but lamed,” he corrected severely, “and your progress was…”
“Oh, laboured, sir, very laboured.”
He smiled up at her. “And now you are…”
She smiled back. “And now I am a little tired,” she proclaimed truthfully.
“No, you are quite done up,” he corrected again.
“Oh, I cannot be too bad!” she protested. “There will be such a fuss and I will be needed everywhere once I have calmed my father.”
“You will be as bad as I say you are, Rabbit,” he answered. “Now, hush.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
They rode up to the front of Greenly Manor, where a groom ran out to meet them. “Is that the miss?” he shouted.
“Of course it is,” Lord Robert replied severely. “Take my horse and see to it that he gets extra care, will you?”
The flustered boy rushed to the reins. “Is he all right, sir?”
“Perfectly. I am fond of him, that is all, and I would like him coddled,” Lord Robert replied loftily. He then reached up for Mary, who fell readily into his arms. He found that he did not dislike the sensation in the least, but he could not dwell on it overlong, for the door to the manor house flew open and Mrs. Darlington ran down the steps.
“Miss Mary! Miss Mary!” she cried. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? What could have happened to you? We have been in such a pucker! Oh, I was sure you’d broken your ankle and were lying in a ditch. I said to your papa…”
“Miss Fanley is uninjured,” Lord Robert interrupted, in a commanding tone, “but I do not like her being kept out in this wind. She is halfway to catching a chill.”
Mrs. Darlington flew to her nursling, flung her arms around her and bustled her into the main hall. “Your father is upstairs putting on his coat, about to mount a party to search for you. You had better go up and see to him!”
Just as Mary was about to fling herself up the stairs, Lord Robert stayed her with a firm hand. “My good woman,” he said firmly to the housekeeper, “Miss Fanley will do no such thing. She was walking rather far from here and lost the heel of her shoe, and now I am afraid she is quite done up. Send for her abigail immediately, and see that she has plenty of hot water, and perhaps a warm plaster for her right foot.”
Mrs. Darlington looked aghast and began to move as she was told. “I will personally see to Mr. Fanley — and, Mrs. Darlington,” he called after her, “see that your cook sends dinner up to Mi
ss Fanley in her room within the hour.”
“You are in a coddling mood,” Mary whispered to him.
He looked at her and said in a low voice, “This is less a charade than you think, Rabbit. When you look in your mirror, you will see a very distressed young lady who is chilled to the bone, famished and worn to a thread. Now, be off with you, and leave the servants to do their jobs.”
Tired as she was, she still managed to thrust out her lower lip and give him a mulish glare before being ushered into the arms of her maid.
He had spoken no less than the truth; Mary Fanley saw clearly in the mirror that she was overwrought and exhausted. For once in her life she allowed herself to be stripped, washed and helped into her nightclothes like an infant. When a tray arrived with her dinner, she cried a few tears of relief thinking of all the things she had been spared from handling in her condition, and she devoured her meal in a somewhat unladylike way.
When she had gotten to the end of the meal, her maid brought in a pot of tea and warm milk. “Lord Robert asked me to bring this special, Miss, and he asks if he might step in for a moment?”
“Oh,” Mary said in a little confusion, “indeed, Cora, let him come in.”
He entered immediately upon being allowed in and looked around the room. “Cora, “I think Miss Fanley should have a better fire. Will you see to it?”
“Instantly, sir,” she said, and flew unthinkingly out of the room.
Lord Robert turned and looked at Mary, who sat apprehensively in her bed, with her lace cap a little ajar. “Shockingly improper,” he winked, “but I risk the parson’s mousetrap only for a moment.”
He approached and reached out his hand, which she took shyly. Her reply however, was not so timid as her handshake. “You had best have a care, Lord Robert. No doubt my father’s blunderbuss was loaded for the search party.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not think Mr. Fanley will shoot me in your bedchamber. When last I left him, he was at his ease in the library, where we will have our dinner together shortly.”
“Had he gone quite distracted?” she asked in dread, sitting forward as if she would leap from her bed.
“Quite.” He pushed her very gently back against her pillow. “But once he heard that you were not murdered by poachers he was much relieved. After two glasses of burgundy he was much less distressed by the incident with your shoe, and as of now, he is on his way to forgetting it altogether.”
“Oh, Robert, I thank you with all my heart,” she said, unthinkingly forgetting to mind his title. She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
“That is gratitude I have hardly earned, Rabbit. Now, in the morning you may leave your room to come to breakfast. But I warn you not to go off into your incessant doing or I will have them fetch the doctor to bleed that lame foot.”
“That would be very cruel,” she said sleepily, “and I would have no choice but to tell my papa that you compromised me by visiting me alone in my room.”
“So he could shoot me with his blunderbuss.”
Mary yawned. “Yes, but perhaps he will do it in the yard to spare my rug.”
He chuckled and kissed her hand lightly before he tucked it into the bedclothes and bid her goodnight.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Morning came, and Mary had little trouble pretending that she was worse for wear. Her escapade, unknown to anyone, had begun right after Will left for Newcastle. She had strode out to the fields and tramped a number of woods before she had even reached the road to Hampton. The walk had been one of extreme length and undisguised anguish. She had wept her eyes out, imagined all her pin money lost on a single wager and pictured Will leaping to his death off some bridge rather than coming home to face his father. There would be no good outcome, she knew. Will Fanley had proven himself to be the greenest card player imaginable, and she sensed intuitively that bad luck, once entrained, did not leave without the satisfaction of total ruination.
These dire reflections were bad enough, but it was her guilty conscience that plagued her heart out. She never told Will she had her mother’s settlement. He was too expensive and prone to impulse, and by default had been led to believe that the family’s means were modest at best. Certainly he would resist this desperate measure. But if she could bring herself to be willing to waste her expectations, she knew she had the power to could convince him to take it to settle the business with Mr. Neville. And while this solution seemed rational, she dared not offer it for fear Will would do just what he was doing. He would throw it away in some scheme!
She had wandered in despair, with her head down and her arms clasped around her, marching to some unknown but horrible future. Many hours without food or drink or rest had elapsed, and many miles had gone by.
This was the state in which the Marquis of Denley had found her! She let out a little gasp of horror as the memory replaced the drowsiness of waking. What followed was a morbid dread of meeting him in the full light of day, and a growing resignation that he would have to be faced sooner than later.
Cora helped her into her new sprigged muslin gown gathered just beneath the bosom with a wide olive coloured ribbon. She asked that her hair be dressed high as well, rather than pulled into a knot at the back of her neck, as was her usual style. Once done, and with soft slippers on her wounded feet, Mary looked at herself and saw that an ivory dress and a head full of curls did little to hide the hollow worry in her eyes.
“You look very fine, miss,” Cora declared.
This was precisely the sentiment uttered by her father when she tentatively opened the door to the breakfast parlour.
“You look very fine this morning, Mary!”
She peered reluctantly into the room to see if perhaps the Marquis of Denley was still abed, only to see him rise immediately and come to help her to a seat. Her pale cheeks warmed a little, and she greeted him with an embarrassed murmur. “Good morning, my lord.”
He bowed, and retreated to the buffet where he filled a plate and nonchalantly brought it to where she sat. “You were saying, sir?” he said to her father while removing her napkin from the table and placing it on her lap.
Mr. Fanley did not notice these attentions at all. “I was asking after Bromley, and you were telling me of Somersetshire. Mary, Robert is telling me that our pigs at Greenly are much finer than they are in the south.”
“Indeed, sir?” she asked, weakly.
“They are infinitely cleaner,” Denley clarified with a telltale lift of his right brow.
This caused Mary to choke on a crumb. Lord Robert, turning an amused eye on her, calmly poured coffee into her cup, and watched as she sipped in mortified silence.
“Cleaner?” her Papa asked, much astonished. “I had never thought about it, but now that you mention it, I daresay our pigs are not quite so foul as I’ve seen elsewhere. And the estate sir? How did you find it?”
“Shockingly disregarded, sir, and I am heartily sorry to tell you about it. I know you can never be pleased when you hear any tale of shameful neglect.”
“Shameful you say?” Mr. Fanley looked perversely pleased. “I knew it! I knew Bromley would never apply himself. Did you find him much overindulged? I had always thought him a very selfish person. And the woman he married, well, I will not say much about her, except that she was likely to be a great chain around his neck.”
Robert placed his eyes briefly on Mary Fanley, as she aimlessly plied a tiny piece of bread with a little butter. She would not look up at him, and he rather wished that she would, so he could get a better measure of her thoughts.
Mr. Fanley took no notice of his miserable child, but he did think to say, “I say, Robert, did I happen to mention that my son is home from school?”
Mary’s eyes instantly flew open, and she looked momentarily stricken. Her knife hit her plate suddenly, and she held the morsel of bread she was labouring to eat in a paralyzed grip.
Lord Robert perceived her distress and the source of it, and he pursued it.
“The younger Mr. Fanley is here?” he asked with interest. “Is he yet to come down to breakfast? I look forward to meeting him, sir.”
“Oh, he was here for much of the time you have been gone. But yesterday, he travelled down to Newcastle to see the horse market. I expect him back tomorrow, is that not right, Mary?”
Mary’s voice wavered slightly, but she managed to say that she did not rightly know when he would return, but that it would certainly be sooner than later.
“Quite right.” Mr. Fanley turned to Denley. “Now sir, I entreat you to come with me to the granary in Stall. We will see what sort of thievery they are set on for our yields this year. Mary, we’ll not be home before dark, but I will never miss a dinner on account of that bunch of hagglers.”
Mary, thinking she would be spared a reckoning with Lord Robert, managed a smile and a short reply. But the Marquis interjected with his regrets. “I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but I am obliged to dedicate myself to writing a tedious letter for my uncle, and it will not wait.”
Mr. Fanley tried to interest his guest in shirking his responsibility, but Lord Robert could not be moved. Only a promise that they would sit at their leisure in the evening, when Robert would “willingly hear every detail of the grain market” that Mr. Fanley could think to share with him, comforted the gentleman enough that he could leave happily.
Immediately upon her father’s departure from the room, Mary stood to escape herself.
“Stay seated if you will, Miss Fanley,” Lord Robert directed. “I have a good deal I’d like to say to you this morning.”
She sank down into her chair, but managed a faint protest. “But your correspondence, sir. I am sure you will need the writing desk in the salon and a spell of undisturbed quiet.”
He got out of his chair and took a seat much closer to her, but angled such that he could scrutinize her face. “No doubt you would like me elsewhere,” he said coolly.
At this moment, Mrs. Darlington came bustling into the room. After greeting Lord Robert and Miss Fanley, she said, “Please excuse me, sir, but I must ask Miss Fanley about tonight’s dinner. And there is the matter of the young master’s room: I am of a mind to air his sheets, but if he is to come back early it will be very bad for him to arrive with his room all out of order.”
Grace Gibson Page 9