by Mary Nichols
‘I have no time for practice, I shall have to rely on luck.’
‘Luck will not be enough. If you are determined to win, then you will need more help than that. What is it they say? All’s fair in love and war.’
‘This is not war.’ He paused slightly before going on. ‘Nor love, come to that.’
The dream Maryanne had been holding on to finally faded to nothing. Once again she was faced with her own foolishness; once again she was in a predicament of her own making. Why had she not stayed close to Mark? Why had she allowed herself to be carried into this house? How many people had seen it happen? How many people would learn about it in the next few days? How could she face Lord Danbury, who trusted her to behave as a lady should, and Mark, who had only that morning proposed to her? She opened her eyes and turned towards the speakers.
Adam was standing by the hearth, staring morosely into the empty grate. Beside him stood Lady Markham, wearing a blue silk burnous with the hood thrown back. She heard Maryanne stir and turned towards her.
‘There, my dear, awake at last.’
‘Yes. I don’t know why I fell asleep like that.’
‘I’m afraid we put something in your drink,’ Adam said. ‘Not to harm you, just to keep you here.’
‘Keep me? Am I a prisoner?’
‘Lord, no!’ He laughed, but she did not smile. The words ‘nor love’ burned themselves into her brain so that everything he did and said took on a more sinister aspect and even his laughter seemed no longer genuine. ‘Jeannie was afraid you would do something foolish like trying to find your erstwhile escort.’
‘What is foolish about that?’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Lady Markham put in. ‘Just think. You cannot go through the streets alone and on foot, looking for someone who might be anywhere, even discounting the scandal of arriving home looking like that.’ She indicated Maryanne’s borrowed clothes. ‘But Mark will be very worried.’
‘And feeling guilty too, I hope,’ Adam said. ‘He should not have taken you into the crowd and he certainly should not have let you out of his sight.’
‘We were celebrating our engagement,’ she said. If he had denied love, then she must let him know she did not care; she had other fish to fry.
‘Engagement?’
‘Yes. He proposed this morning and I accepted.’
‘Mon Dieu!’ He began poking with a hessian-booted foot at the logs which lay in the grate.
‘Is there anything wrong in that?’ she demanded.
He faced her. ‘Nothing at all. My felicitations, ma’am. When is the ceremony to be?’
‘We haven’t decided yet.’ Why did she feel no elation, no joy, no swifter beating of her heart at the prospect? ‘You are the first to be told.’
He bowed stiffly. ‘I am honoured.’ He turned to Lady Markham. ‘We had better do something about salvaging Miss Paynter’s reputation before the Honourable Mark changes his mind and I have to marry her in his place.’
‘I wouldn’t agree to marry you however compromised I had been,’ Maryanne retorted. ‘So you may relieve yourself of that worry.’
‘Come, my dear, you are a little distraught,’ Lady Markham said, taking Maryanne’s arm. ‘And small wonder. Let’s leave this grumpy man to his own devices. I’ve come to take you home with me.’
‘It’s very kind of you, but I must go back to Danbury House, everyone will be worried.’
Beth Markham gave a little sniff as if she didn’t believe it. ‘No, they won’t, for I sent a message that you are with me and won’t be returning until tomorrow. I asked them to send your maid with some fresh clothes. You can’t return to Danbury House looking like that.’
‘Tomorrow, but why?’ She was acutely aware of Adam standing with his back to the fireplace, watching her, but she dared not look at him in case he saw the bleakness in her eyes.
‘You need to get over your ordeal, my dear, and, besides, it would be better for you to be seen returning home with me than with...’
Maryanne began to laugh shakily. ‘How kind of you to worry about my reputation, but I think it might well be too late.’
‘Of course it isn’t, my dear. It was unwise of Mr Danbury to take you into the common crowd, but there was nothing disreputable about it, though, if my husband had not been among the group welcoming Wellington and seen you lost and hurt, who knows what might have happened?’
‘Your husband?’ Maryanne queried, looking from Lady Markham to Adam, whose face betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. ‘He saw me?’
‘No, but that is what we shall say. It was Markham who rescued you and sent for me, and you were in no state to continue home to Danbury House; in fact you had collapsed and can remember nothing of how you came to be with me.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Remember that and all will be well.’
‘And Mr Saint-Pierre’s part in it?’
‘We will leave him out of it, shall we? He is in enough trouble with Mark Danbury as it is.’ She turned to Adam. ‘Remember what I said about that race.’
‘I wish it didn’t have to happen,’ Maryanne said miserably. ‘I’m sure someone will be hurt.’
‘Would you rather we fought a duel?’ Adam asked.
‘No, of course not, but I don’t see why you have to do either.’
Lady Markham smiled. ‘Oh, the men must test each other’s mettle now and again, and racing a pair of horses in harness is rather less dangerous than some of the antics they get up to. And, in any case, I rather think that the real contest is between Mark and the Duke of Wiltshire. Mr Saint-Pierre was only asked to join them after it had been arranged, so do not let your conscience trouble you. Am I not right, Adam?’
‘Yes. Miss Paynter need not flatter herself that it has anything to do with her.’ He spoke flatly, his voice cool and controlled.
Beth laughed and tapped his arm with her parasol. ‘Now that was a very ungallant remark, sir, even if it is true.’ She turned to Maryanne. ‘I have a closed carriage outside, so come, let us smuggle you to Bedford Row, before your family come calling to see how you are. I want you tucked up in bed by then.’ She began hustling Maryanne towards the door.
Maryanne turned to Adam, her coolness matching his. ‘I must thank you for your help.’ He bowed in acknowledgement and she went on, ‘I would also like to thank Mr Rudge for allowing such a disreputable character into his house, and Madame Clavier for looking after me.’
‘Robert has gone out,’ Adam said. ‘And Jeannie is in the hall with your clothes done up in a parcel.’
‘Come along, my dear.’ Lady Markham was all efficient bustle again. ‘Doubtless you will be seeing Mr Rudge again, and Adam too, at the race.’
Maryanne allowed herself a glance at him. He was looking grim as if that idea displeased him. She desperately wanted to make him smile, to return to the easy relationship they had had before, but the man who stood by the hearth and bowed stiffly to her was a proud stranger. ‘I preferred Jack Daw,’ she said. ‘He was an altogether more cheerful character.’ Then, without waiting for a reply, she followed Lady Markham out to her carriage.
She stayed two days at Bedford Row, cosseted like an invalid. James came to see her, bringing Rose and a basket of clothes. He told her how worried they had all been and that Mark had spent hours searching for her. They were all so relieved to hear she had been found and very grateful to her ladyship for looking after her. He made Maryanne feel guilty; she was not ill and although she had been very distressed at the time she had soon recovered. ‘I feel a fraud,’ she told Beth Markham when he had left. ‘He has done so much for me.’
Lady Markham laughed. ‘You must be a little selfish now and again, my dear, or they will walk all over you. Mark must be taught a lesson, because he doesn’t value you as a prospective husband should.’
‘Oh, I had forgotten I told you that. You won’t repeat it, will you?’
‘Why not? The world already knows, the announcement is in the Thunderer today.’
The teacup in
Maryanne’s hand shook as she set it carefully down on its saucer. So Mark had taken her prevarication for consent and published their engagement, and Adam would think that was what she had wanted. Now what was she to do?
‘What is the matter, child? You have gone white as a sheet.’
‘Nothing.’ She made a sound that was meant to be a laugh but was almost a sob. Was there no end to her foolishness? ‘I thought that after I went missing he might change his mind.’
Lady Markham searched her face and Maryanne knew she had not deceived that astute lady. ‘You mean you hoped he would.’
‘No... Yes... I don’t know. Mr Saint-Pierre said I could not be in love with Mark if I couldn’t make up my mind. Was he right, do you think?’
Beth Markham smiled. ‘You must follow your heart, not your head, in these matters.’
Follow her heart. How could she do that when her heart was plainly misleading her?
‘It’s Adam, isn’t it?’ Beth asked softly. ‘I grant he is a handsome beast, but he has no time for women, you know.’
Maryanne’s spirit returned. ‘You do surprise me.’
She stopped when she realised she was about to blurt out that Adam had kissed her, and more than once. Lady Markham, kind as she was, was not averse to gossip, and for the family’s sake she must say nothing of that.
‘He has other things on his mind just now.’
‘Curricle races?’
Lady Markham laughed. ‘Not only that.’ She paused. ‘He is very concerned for the plight of the French aristocrats who want to return to their estates now Louis has been restored to the throne. They want to pick up their lives again, but their homes are in ruins, their lands confiscated and many of them are heavily in debt, dependent on their English hosts. Adam is trying to help them. There are others, of course, who would stop him; they do not want to see a return to the old regime of rich and poor.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘After all the years of war, they are all poor, peasants and aristocrats alike. France is in a mess.’
‘Is that why he is in England?’
‘Partly, though I believe he intends to return to France soon.’
‘When will he go?’ Her heart felt like lead. It was no good deceiving herself; she wanted him to stay, she wanted him to stay for her sake. But she was engaged to marry Mark and there was no way out of that without a scandal. Perhaps it would have been better if everyone knew where she had been those few hours when she was ‘lost’; Mark would have called off the engagement, there would have been no announcement and Adam would have felt duty bound to marry her. Duty bound! Was that what she wanted? No! No! If he did not love her, then she must put him from her mind and try to pretend she had never met him.
‘I don’t know. Not until after the race. But I hear the Dowager Duchess is not well again and the Duke has returned to Castle Cedars, so the race has been postponed yet again.’
‘Perhaps it will never happen.’
‘Oh, it will take place, I’ll lay odds on it; there is too much money at stake to abandon it.’
‘How foolish men are!’
‘Indeed, yes.’ She smiled cheerfully at Maryanne. ‘But what would we do without them?’
Maryanne did not consider that question required an answer and turned to gaze out of the window. ‘I think I should return home.’
‘Tomorrow,’ her ladyship said firmly. ‘I have said you need at least two days to recover, and I want everyone to see you; there must not be the least doubt in anyone’s mind where you have been staying. I mean to take you back in style.’
Lady Markham was as good as her word. The carriage that took them both to Danbury House was painted in a pale pink, with elegant lines of a deeper shade of the same colour. The rims of its wheels were black, but the spokes were of a deep pink, and even the horses had pink plumes. On the high box sat a Negro boy in pink satin livery with a huge black turban. Lady Markham, followed by a bemused Maryanne, sailed from the house to get into it, a vision in pink satin and net. ‘I had it done especially for the celebrations,’ she said, patting the seat beside her and nodding her head so that the long feather in her hat bounced up and down. ‘What do you think of it?’
‘It is very - er - striking,’ Maryanne said, as they moved off up the street at a pace slow enough to ensure that everyone saw them.
Her ladyship laughed. ‘I’ll lay odds that this time next week there will be any number of pink carriages in the park.’
‘Then yours will no longer stand out.’
‘Oh, then I shall change it for another. I like to set the fashion, not follow it.’
If her ladyship’s plan had been to make sure that they were stared at, she certainly succeeded. Everyone turned to look as the barouche went by, and some laughed while others called out a ribald comment, to which Beth Markham had a ready reply. Maryanne felt like a goldfish in a bowl. ‘If you have something worth seeing, then flaunt it,’ her ladyship said. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it is ugly or beautiful; there is nothing worse than being ignored.’ She laughed. ‘I, too, have a reputation to preserve.’
‘How did you meet Mr Saint-Pierre?’ Maryanne asked. She could not imagine Adam being attracted to such flamboyance.
‘Robert Rudge introduced us. Adam came to England looking for his father’s lawyer, but old Joseph was dead and Robert had taken on the practice. He realised Adam needed an entrée into society and he thought of me.’ She laughed. ‘He has been an apt pupil, but then, with his breeding, it is hardly surprising.’
‘His breeding?’
Her ladyship, caught out in an indiscretion, laughed in an embarrassed way. ‘I believe his father was a wine grower, a landowner of some importance.’
‘What else do you know of him?’
‘I gather everything was lost during the Reign of Terror except a little money that Monsieur Saint-Pierre had smuggled to London. More than that I cannot tell you.’
‘What has Mr Saint-Pierre got against the Danbury family?’
‘Nothing that I know of.’ Her ladyship reached up and tapped the young Negro with her fan. ‘You may whip the cattle up a bit, Dandy, we have dawdled enough.’
Maryanne was almost jolted from her seat as the horses seemed to take to the air, and they fairly flew over the ground, weaving in and out of the traffic like a flashing pink comet. They slowed to a walk again as they entered Piccadilly and drew up outside Danbury House.
‘Now, don’t forget your story,’ her ladyship admonished as the front door was opened by a footman. ‘And please, for my sake, do not look too robustly healthy.’
Caroline and Mrs Ryfield were alone in the house and Lady Markham stayed only long enough to pay her respects. Maryanne dreaded her going, knowing she would be subjected to a cross-examination as soon as the extraordinary carriage had rolled away. She tried to forestall it by asking, ‘Where is Mark?’
‘He is out,’ Caroline told her. ‘Did you expect him to wait in, kicking his heels, until you decide to come home?’
‘Lady Markham’s physician recommended two days in bed for me and she would not hear of me leaving.’
‘How cosy for you!’ the younger woman said. ‘Comfortably in bed while Mark scoured the city, imagining all sorts of fate for you, each worse than the last, though why he bothers with you I do not know. If you got yourself trampled underfoot, you have no one but yourself to blame.’
‘I fainted in the crush,’ Maryanne said, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘Fortunately Lord Markham saw me being carried from the crowd and had me taken to the home of a friend while he sent for his wife.’ It was as near the truth as she could make it without denying the story that Lady Markham had told. ‘His housekeeper lent me some clothes, my own were badly torn. I shall have to return them.’ At least taking the gown back would give her an opportunity to talk to Jeannie again and she might learn more about Captain Shoecar from her.
‘Tell me this friend’s name. We must thank him properly.’
‘I don’t know it. I was not there ver
y long and, besides, I had fainted...’
‘Then how will you return the clothes?’
Maryanne was nonplussed; she was not used to telling untruths and it was easy for Caroline to see that she was hiding something. Oh, why did it all have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t she tell everyone that Adam had rescued her? But no one, especially Caroline, would believe they had been in the same place at the same time quite by chance. She found herself wondering if the secrecy was more for his benefit than to protect her reputation and, if that was so, was she helping to cover up something evil or illegal?
‘Well?’ Caroline’s voice broke in on her thoughts.
‘I shall have to ask Lady Markham his direction, shan’t I? she replied tartly. ‘Now I’m going to my room. Please send for me when Mark returns.’
It was cool in her room because the window was open and a light breeze played with the curtains, throwing a pattern of shadow across the wall. A bird which had been perching on the window-sill flew up and into one of the trees in the garden. She ran to the window and saw it perching on a branch, regarding her with its head on one side. In its beak it held something shining. ‘A jackdaw,’ she said aloud. ‘The little thief!’ Jackdaw. Jack Daw. Shoecar. Choucas. She began to laugh. Oh, what a joke, and all at her expense, she was sure. Choucas was the French word for jackdaw. She stopped laughing suddenly. Jackdaws were known for their thieving. Was that how he got his name? Was he no more than a common thief?
She sank into a chair by the window and watched the bird fly away. It was free as the air, free as he was; she was the only one in captivity, captive of her own stupidity. Now it was too late, she realised why she had been reluctant to accept Mark. She loved Jack Daw, who had stolen her heart, stolen it with nothing more substantial than a kiss. Was that grounds enough to imagine herself in love? After all, what did she know of the man? Nothing except that he had brown eyes that could be tender one minute, cold the next, that he could make her laugh, but could also make her cry, that his mother had been English, that he was involved in some way with the French émigrés and he didn’t like the Danburys.