Lord Darlington's Darling

by Gayle Buck

  “What a monster!” exclaimed Abby with impassioned revulsion. As Lady Bethany flinched, she said more moderately, “I cannot believe he loves you as he says he does.”

  “No, I have already come to that melancholy conclusion,” said Lady Bethany with a pitiful smile. Tears swam in her eyes, and she shook her head again. “I am neatly trapped, Abby. I dare not flout Richard, or he will make it his business to ruin my reputation with what he can tell about me—us. It would be the death of Mama, and as for Sylvan—” Her voice became suspended.

  Abby put an arm around Lady Bethany’s waist and hugged her. Her interview with marquess rose compellingly in her mind. “Yes, Sylvan. I completely understand.”

  They were silent for several minutes, each occupied with their unhappy reflections. The air was clammy and the mist was beginning to grow heavier. As one and without consultation, the two women turned and started slowly back toward the waiting carriages.

  Abby kept telling herself that she must say something. She had to think of something that would stop Lady Bethany from making what she felt unequivocally to be the mistake of her life. “Isn’t there anyone you can go to and confide in?” she asked. “A relation or a family friend who could help you?”

  “There is no one. All of my grandparents are deceased, as is my godmother. My eldest sister is married and the other is staying with our aunt. I did think that I might ask Mama to take me to visit one of them. But it would not do,” said Lady Bethany, shaking her head in misery. “I could not bury myself forever in the country. Besides, Richard has made it clear he will not wait long to have me.”

  The bald statement was certainly depressing. Abby absorbed it unwillingly. Then she voiced what she had not been able to puzzle out. “If Mr. Farnham does not love you, as you have guessed, why is he so set to wed you? Surely he does not want an unwilling wife!”

  “I have been over it a hundred times, Abby,” said Lady Bethany quietly. With a pitiful attempt at a smile, she said, “It seems Richard is in financial difficulties. Sylvan once told me that he is a gazetted fortune hunter. I did not believe him, of course! Richard is accepted everywhere, everywhere except into the company of heiresses. Now his gaming and his lavish habits of pleasure have run him completely aground. I have put it together from bits and pieces I have heard over the past months, you see. But I was too stupid to believe it.”

  “But how can you help with his—” Abby did not complete her query, recognizing almost too late how it would sound.

  However, Lady Bethany did not fail to misunderstand her. She gave a laugh that ended in a sob. “My godmother died a year ago. She left me a very nice portion. I am not an heiress, of course, but the next best thing to someone like Richard Farnham!”

  “Oh, my dear,” said Abby helplessly.

  They were nearing the Darlington carriage. Lady Bethany suddenly seized Abby’s arm. “You will not betray me, Abby? You will not tell anyone?”

  “Bethany, how can you extract such a promise from me?” protested Abby. “I care too deeply about you to let you go tamely to such a fate!”

  “To the devil, do you mean?” asked Lady Bethany with a wild laugh. She controlled her rising hysteria with an effort. “Abby, I know that you saw Sylvan when you left your note for me.”

  Abby swept a quick glance at her friend’s tense, white face.

  “You and Sylvan are friends, perhaps more than friends,” said Lady Bethany quickly. “You must promise me, Abby! You will not betray me to anyone, especially to Sylvan!”

  Abby shook her head, unwilling to pledge her word of honor. Though she could not see her way to confiding in anyone, she instinctively recoiled from binding herself by such a vow. “No! Do not require it of me!”

  Lady Bethany’s fingers bit into her arm. Her panting voice was slightly shrill. “Abby, promise me!”

  Reluctantly, with utmost misgivings, Abby slowly nodded. It tore her apart to see her friend’s acute distress. “I give you my word, Lady Bethany.”

  “Thank you!” Lady Bethany let go of Abby’s arm. A sob broke from her. “Now I must go!”

  Abby threw her own arms around her friend. Tears mingled with rain ran down her face. “My dearest friend! How much I wish I could help you!”

  “You have, Abby! I cannot tell you how much.” said Lady Bethany with a break in her voice.

  The two clung together for an instant longer, then broke apart.

  “You will send me word?” demanded Abby. “You will tell me when it is to be so that I can say goodbye?”

  It was Lady Bethany’s turn for reluctance, but she capitulated with a nod. “Yes, I shall.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Abby left her rendezvous with Lady Bethany with the small consolation that there must still be time before her friend’s elopement was to take place. Otherwise Lady Bethany would not have agreed to send a message to her when the date arrived. If there was one thing Abby was certain about, it was that Lady Bethany would not lie to her about such a thing.

  She did not know what could be done, but until the elopement actually took place, there was still hope. Abby hoped and prayed for divine intervention, for she could not perceive any other avenue of escape for Lady Bethany.

  If she could not persuade Lady Bethany to go to Lady Darlington or Lord Darlington, Abby wondered if there was not some appeal that could be made to Mr. Farnham. Her sense of logic boggled at the unlikely possibility, for Mr. Farnham had already proven himself devoid of chivalric instincts. His character was too base to respond to any appeal for mercy and compassion, she felt.

  However, she recalled how Mr. Farnham had reacted on the occasion he given the music to her and she had told him that Lord Darlington knew of his and Lady Bethany’s clandestine entanglement. Mr. Farnham had been angered, perhaps even a little afraid. Well, of course he had been! Otherwise, he would surely not have pressed the conclusion in so vile a fashion. Abby had a shrewd notion that Mr. Farnham’s financial difficulties must have come to a head. He’d had to make sure of Lady Bethany before she was brought to heel by the marquess.

  She turned that over and over in her mind, but did not perceive how she might use it.

  Abby spent that day and the next going through the motions. She smiled and chatted and danced and socialized, until she felt she must scream with vexation. All of those smiling, pleasure-seeking personages, and not one could she trust with Lady Bethany’s secret.

  As for Lord Darlington, he was as attentive as ever but Abby felt a discomfort in his presence which she had never before. Her own guilty conscience persuaded her that in his questioning gaze and his somber expression, she was regarded with disapproval and suspicion. The pleasure of basking in his favor seemed to be at an end, for she could not believe that he still regarded her with affection. The marquess had not again kissed her or reiterated those charming things he had once said to her. It never occurred to her that her own nervous manner and small signs of withdrawal might have set him at a distance.

  Lord Fielding came to call. When Abby was informed, she responded with hardly any feeling. Her mind was so taken up with her present troubles that her former anxiety about Lord Fielding had faded.

  She received him in a cool, friendly fashion and nodded to her sister’s arch suggestion that Lord Fielding be given a short, private audience. As Abby looked at Lord Fielding, she wondered quite dispassionately if it would be so very bad to be married to him. He was handsome in a classical sense, only the too close setting of his eyes marring an otherwise good face. He dressed with taste, if not with flair, his superfine coat well tailored, his pantaloons the perfect biscuit color, his Hessians shiny with polish. He was overly tall, but that could be overlooked. As for his conversation, it was always lengthy and held a note of self-importance, but she supposed she could become immured to that. In short, Abby found little to recommend Lord Fielding, but nothing really to give her repugnance. The biggest point in his favor was that he had been faithful in his pursuit of her. Abby felt that must s
urely mean he was sincerely attached to her and would do his best to make her comfortable.

  Since Lord Fielding was at that moment expounding upon those same lines, Abby listened with polite attentiveness.

  “I assure you, Miss Fairchilde, you will have no cares once you accept my suit. 1 shall see to your every comfort and need. I will be your champion and your buffer in a harsh world,” said Lord Fielding, puffing out his chest.

  Abby’s interest was aroused. She asked suddenly, “Tell me, Lord Fielding, what would you do if a young lady with whom you were acquainted found herself in a compromising position?”

  Lord Fielding was taken aback. His expression confused, he faltered, “I fail to understand you, Miss Fairchilde.”

  Warming to her theme, Abby said, “If you knew that a young lady was contemplating the step of elopement and there was no family member to advise her against it, what would you do?”

  She looked at him expectantly, hardly daring to hope. Perhaps Lord Fielding, who was obviously a practical gentleman, would come up with some particle of advice with which she could help Lady Bethany.

  Lord Fielding stared at her for several long moments. At last he shook his head. He said heavily, “I trust we are hypothetically speaking, Miss Fairchilde, for I should not like to think anyone of our acquaintance was contemplating such a drastic step as elopement. Such a course of action would be fatal.”

  “Of course it would be fatal. We are in complete agreement,” said Abby, skating over the rest of his statement. “But what would you do to save the young lady from herself, so to speak?”

  Again, Lord Fielding regarded her in an unblinking manner. With a gathering frown on his face, he said, “I perceive that you are not speaking hypothetically, Miss Fairchilde. That you, in fact, know some young female who is so heedless of her reputation that she must thrust herself and her family into ignominious scandal.”

  He took her hands into his clasp. “Miss Fairchilde, I most earnestly entreat you to have nothing more to do with this young woman. It can lead only to scandal. You will not wish to be a part of it, I am persuaded.”

  “Then, you advise me to do nothing?” asked Abby, unaccountably and sharply disappointed.

  As she looked at him, she realized her foolishness. She shouldn’t have depended upon Lord Fielding to come up with an answer, of course. She saw now it had been an idiotic hope from the start.

  “More than that, Miss Fairchilde,” said Lord Fielding firmly. “I advise you to wash your hands of the affair, at once. You must withdraw from this dangerous acquaintance.”

  Abby regarded her faithful suitor in gathering dismay and a singular horror. She had actually been entertaining thoughts of accepting the gentleman’s suit, all because she had lost what she felt to be her only true chance of happiness with Lord Darlington.

  Now she was stunned by the revelation that her own lack of resolution was amply reflected in Lord Fielding’s character.

  She realized she could not ally herself with a man who did not have the backbone to stand up for what was right. Such a marriage would be doomed from the very beginning.

  Abby disengaged her hands from Lord Fielding’s grasp and stood up. Facing him with a calm borne of unalterable decision, she said civilly, “My lord, this will be the last time I receive you alone. I have made up my mind irrevocably. I shall not wed you, now or ever.”

  Lord Fielding had stood up, too. He was staring down at her with astonishment. “Miss Fairchilde!”

  Abby threw up her hand. “Pray do not, my lord. Now you must excuse me, for I have something of importance I must attend and which I have put off too long.” She swept to the door and left the drawing room.

  Filled with purpose and resolution, Abby went into the library and began composing a note. It was swiftly written. She addressed it and pulled the bell for a servant. She waited impatiently, pacing a little, not wanting to dwell on the consequences of what she was doing. When a footman entered, she asked that the note be taken around at once.

  The footman glanced down at the address on the note, and his impassive expression cracked slightly with surprise.

  “Have you a problem with my instructions?” asked Abby in an imperious manner.

  The footman drew himself up. “No, miss. I shall see to the delivery myself.”

  “Pray wait for a reply,” said Abby quickly.

  The footman nodded his understanding, his face wooden. He withdrew from the library, the note in his hand.

  Abby twisted her hands together, beginning to shake inside. The die was truly cast now. It was but to wait to see if Mr. Farnham would take the gambit. The less she thought about what she had done, the better it would be. She might lose her nerve otherwise.

  Abby exited the library and started toward the front stairs. She assumed Lord Fielding had left the town house, so she had no fears of meeting him in the front entryway. However, she did not reckon on her sister.

  Mrs. Crocker appeared in the doorway of the drawing room. Her face was set in shocked lines. “Abby! Whatever have you done? Lord Fielding has just left, considerably discomposed. Pray come in here and tell me what you said to him.”

  “I am sorry, Melissa, but I do not care to discuss the matter with you just now,” said Abby. She continued up the stairs, her skirt gathered up in one hand so that she would not trip in her swift passage.

  Mrs. Crocker walked quickly to the bottom of the stairs, looking up after her. She spoke sharply. “Abby! Come down this instant! I wish to talk to you!”

  Abby paid no attention but ran up faster.

  From his study, Mr. Crocker heard his wife’s furious demand and came into the entryway. ‘‘Here, what’s this?”

  Mrs. Crocker turned to him at once. “Peter! Abby has sent Lord Fielding away. We must do something! Make her come down at once!”

  Mr. Crocker threw a glance upward and caught a glimpse of his sister-in-law’s set face as she rounded the landing. “No, let her go, Melissa. We shall talk later.”

  “But, Peter—!” Mr. Crocker drew his wife inexorably away, lowering his voice as he murmured something to her.

  Abby had overheard it all, and she was immeasurably grateful to her brother-in-law. There was nothing she desired less than a strained tête-à-tête with her sister. There were things she must do and she needed time to make her plans.

  It seemed only a few minutes before the maid brought up a sealed missive for her. Only her name was scrawled on the front, with no indication of whom it was from, but Abby had no doubts. She waited until the maid had left her before she slit open the wax and unfolded the sheet. Her hands were trembling, and she made an effort to hold them still. She swiftly perused the note. Just as she had thought, it was from Mr. Farnham, and his reply was precisely what she had hoped it would be.

  With foreboding and a sinking heart, Abby consigned the note to the flames of the fire in her bedroom. Watching the paper blacken and shrivel before it burst into flame, she shuddered. She hoped she had enough resolution to carry through with her desperate plan—which she did.

  Pleading the headache again, she managed to remain at home that evening while her brother-in-law and sister went to a dinner party without her. She went upstairs to say an affectionate good night to her mother and aunt, making certain to tell them that she meant to retire early to bed. Abby clung to her mother for an instant longer than usual, but then broke away so as not to give cause for suspicion.

  Returning to her own room, Abby went quickly to work. She had already given her maid the night off. It was the work of just moments to pack a valise with a few necessities, for she did not know how long she would be gone.

  She had already penned the necessary letters that afternoon. After much time and several attempts, she had been halfway satisfied with her correspondence. Now tears threatened to choke her as she reread them.

  Abby drew a deep, shuddering breath, trying to compose herself. Now was not the time to waver. She had to be firm in resolution.

  Sh
e hid the valise behind her bed before pulling the bell. When an upper maid came in summons, she gave one of the missives into her hand. “Pray see that this is delivered to Lady Bethany in the morning.” She was surprised by the calmness of her voice.

  “Yes, miss.” The maid was incurious and exited the room.

  Abby clasped and unclasped her hands, actually amazed that the servant had not sensed how hard her heart was pounding.

  Abby waited until she heard the activities of the house lessening. Then she stole down the stairs, her valise in hand and a cloak pulled over her shoulders. She went swiftly into her brother-in-law’s study and laid her last note upon his desk. Then she opened a particular drawer, where she knew Mr. Crocker kept a certain case.

  Abby hesitated. Then she swiftly unlocked the case. Inside, two dueling pistols were nestled on black velvet. She picked one up and looked at it uncertainly. She knew little about such things, but enough, she thought. Afraid of being discovered, she slipped the pistol into the pocket of her cloak. It felt heavy and bumped against her thigh when she moved, but it was a comforting presence.

  Abby put away the case and went to the door of the study. Peeping out, she waited until the butler had left the entry hall, leaving it deserted. Valise in hand, she ran swiftly to the front door. Praying that the hinges would not squeal, she pulled open the heavy door and slipped out.

  Abby ran down the front steps and turned down the walkway. Within seconds the night swallowed her, and the warm light of the town house dimmed behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Abby had no intention of walking any great distance at night. She hurried to the corner where she might find a hackney. Her heart was pounding, and she was frightened. She had a bad moment when an obviously drunken gentleman staggering down the walkway toward her suddenly turned into her path. “Where are you going, my beauty?” he inquired thickly.

  “To Hades and back!” she responded, sidestepping quickly.