“It is what I feel like doing,” Rocana answered.
“Don’t you dare!” Nanny said. “You’ve got to have your wits about you! Remember, the further you gets before he discovers who you are, the better it’ll be for my baby.”
“I have not forgotten that,” Rocana said with a smile. “But I am not looking forward to the moment when he accuses me of being a liar and, I daresay, a crook!”
As she spoke she realised that Nanny was not listening, but was intent only on helping Caroline, who filled her whole world.
Rocana suddenly felt sorry for the old woman left alone to bear the brunt of the Duchess’s inevitable rage.
Then she remembered that Nanny could leave and go to Caroline’s new home, while, if she had been discovered, she would have had to stay and endure recriminations and accusations for the rest of her life.
There was another knock on the door.
“His Lordship’s in the hall, my Lady,” a footman announced, “and says his horses’re restless!”
Rocana gave a little laugh.
“And that is more important than anything else!” she whispered to Nanny.
“Her Ladyship’s just coming,” Nanny called out to the footman. “Please suggest to his Lordship he gets into the phaeton. Her Ladyship has no wish to be upset by long farewells.”
The footman looked surprised, but sped down the stairs to give Nanny’s message.
Again Rocana waited until she was quite certain that impatient and doubtless irritated at the delay, the Marquis would be having difficulty in controlling his horses.
She saw this was in fact the case when she reached the top of the stairs and saw her uncle and aunt were in the doorway, while the rest of the guests had grouped themselves on the steps outside.
As she descended, she saw that the Marquis, undoubtedly by this time out of patience, had already climbed into the phaeton and the grooms were at the heads of the leading horses which were very restless.
Rocana reached the hall, then went to her uncle’s side.
He bent his head in an effort to kiss her beneath her bonnet and, holding a handkerchief to her eyes, she turned towards her aunt.
“Goodbye, my dear,” the Duchess said, “and stop crying! There is no need for it.”
Rocana made no effort to reply, but merely hurried down the steps amid a shower of rose petals and rice.
Somebody helped her into the phaeton and, with a cheer from the guests assembled on the steps, the grooms stepped back from the horses’ heads and they were off.
The Marquis crossed the bridge over the lake and drove down the drive at a speed which sent the dust billowing out behind them like a cloud.
Rocana settled herself comfortably, thinking as she did so that it was lucky it was such fine weather and they did not have to be confined to a closed carriage.
She knew that would have brought forward the inevitable moment when the Marquis would discover that he had married a stranger.
Then, as they passed through the huge ornamented gates and out onto the dusty highway, she thought with a sudden lift of her heart that she had done it!
It seemed unbelievable, but nobody had suspected for one moment that she was not Caroline!
Now the morning was drawing on and it could still be some time before the Marquis realised the truth and doubtless learnt that Caroline was with Patrick. Even then nobody would have the slightest idea where they could be found.
It gave Rocana such a sensation of triumph that she felt as if she had suddenly come to life and that everything around her was fresh and green.
The sun was in fact shining and, while it was a very lucky sign for Caroline’s wedding day, she hoped also a little of the luck would rub off onto her.
She was, however, aware that the last fence still lay ahead of her and it was likely to be not only difficult but perhaps dangerous.
For the moment there was no risk that the Marquis would look at her closely and they had driven for quite a long way before he said,
“I suppose I should apologise to you for insisting on everything having to take place in such haste. It would actually have been far easier if your mother had agreed to my suggestion that we should be married yesterday.”
“I am quite – content as things – are,” Rocana answered softly, hoping he would not recognise that her voice was different from her cousin’s.
“I wonder if that’s true,” the Marquis said dryly. “I thought all women wanted to be married with a large number of bridesmaids and a huge reception afterwards.”
“That is what they may – expect,” Rocana replied, “but I always thought it could – prove very disappointing.”
“Disappointing?” the Marquis asked curiously.
“I think one would always be conscious that the majority of the women in the congregation, when one married somebody like you, would be either jealous or – envious.”
She was speaking as she might have spoken to her father when they tried to cap each other’s remarks and if possible to be amusing.
The Marquis did not reply for a moment.
Then he said,
“I never thought of it before from a woman’s point of view. From my own, I dislike shaking hands for hours on end and listening to a lot of inane speeches apart from having to make one oneself.”
Rocana laughed.
“But surely that adjective could not apply to your Lordship?”
She thought as she spoke that she sounded a little sarcastic and was aware that the Marquis turned his head for a moment to look at her.
Fortunately her bonnet made it impossible for him to see her face and she told herself that she should be more careful.
But some little devil sitting on her shoulder whispered that, as there was undoubtedly going to be a flaming row sooner or later, she had nothing more to fear.
Since she had been at The Castle, she had never been allowed to have an intelligent conversation with anybody, so she had missed the times when she and her mother had talked together on many serious subjects.
But more than anything else she had missed the times when she laughed with her father and they duelled with each other in words.
Because she had known he disliked stupid women and had always said how much they bored him, she would try to think of subjects she knew interested him.
She would then start a conversation just because she was aware that they would both have a great deal to say to each other about it.
With the Marquis she felt that at least she could be provocative and she remarked,
“As we are neither of us likely to be married again, we may as well make the best of it or perhaps that is the wrong expression – where you are – concerned.”
She was aware that once again the Marquis was surprised.
“Why should you think that?” he asked.
“Because I heard when I was in London that you had no wish to be married, and were known as ‘The Elusive Marquis’!”
For a moment there was silence.
Then he laughed.
“I had not heard that before,”
That was not surprising, Rocana thought, as she had only just invented the phrase herself.
“Do you think it is a truthful assessment of what you were and what you want to be?”
Again she knew that he looked at her before he replied,
“I admit to nothing of the sort! When I asked you to marry me, I was of course anxious that you should do so.”
“I am very flattered,” Rocana said, “but I suggest it was not the ‘love at first sight’ over which the poets eulogise.”
She paused and added,
“I think it was Marlowe who wrote, Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?
The Marquis seemed to be concentrating on his horses and after a moment she went on,
“We met first at Almack’s and, when we were dancing together’ I had the feeling you were – resenting wasting your time with a – debutante.”
She remembered that was what Caroline had told her, and she thought if she was embarrassing the Marquis he certainly deserved it.
The more she thought about it, the more she considered the way in which he had insisted upon being married with such unseemly haste to be an insult.
And if she had wanted to greet the few friends who had come to the wedding or to say long and loving farewells to her parents, he had made it impossible.
‘He may be frightening,’ she told herself, ‘but he is also abominably selfish and inconsiderate.’
That thought somehow made things better and she was not as frightened of him as she had been.
She thought too that if Caroline had been here at this moment, she would have been trembling and very very nervous of the man she had married.
‘I will not be afraid of him if I can help it,’ Rocana told herself. ‘If I have deceived him, then he deserved it. And I don’t believe for one moment that he has thought of his wife as a woman who wants to be loved.’
They were now driving very fast along a straight stretch of the road and it was therefore difficult to talk.
Rocana was glad that her bonnet fitted tightly and would not be blown off her head.
Equally the dust was unpleasant and she wondered what the Marquis would say if she asked him to drive more slowly.
But, only when the road began to bend and twist and he was forced to drive a little slower, did she say,
“You have not yet told me why you are in such a hurry to reach France. It must be something of the utmost – importance.”
“It is!” the Marquis replied briefly.
He did not seem inclined to say any more, and Rocana wondered whether it concerned a lady who had red hair and green eyes.
Or perhaps and it would not be surprising, one with quite different colouring.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rocana stirred and realised that somebody was pulling back the curtains.
She opened her eyes and could not imagine where she was.
Suddenly she realised she was in the Marquis’s yacht and at the moment the ship was not moving.
Then, as the valet who had looked after her last night pulled back the curtains on the last porthole, he turned round and Rocana exclaimed,
“It is morning!”
“Yes, my Lady, and you’ve slept all night.”
Rocana stared round the cabin, finding it difficult to believe that what he had said was true.
Then she remembered.
Looking back it seemed incredible that she had hardly exchanged more than a few words with the Marquis from the moment they reached the main roads.
They had travelled at what she thought was a phenomenal speed for over two hours after leaving The Castle, then drew into the yard of a large Posting inn.
“We will stay here for exactly twelve minutes,” the Marquis ordained.
Rocana was aware that it was well over an hour since he had last spoken to her and she had made no reply.
She merely climbed down from the phaeton and found the proprietor was waiting to take her to the bottom of the stairs where a chambermaid in a mob cap escorted her up to a large bedroom.
There was another maid in attendance and, while she washed the dust from her face and hands, they shook her cloak and removed what seemed an abnormal amount of dust from her bonnet.
She was as quick as she could be, but when she went downstairs again and was taken to a private parlour she found there only a servant, who she gathered was one of the Marquis’s to attend to her.
“His Lordship’s compliments, my Lady,” the man said, “and he’s eaten and gone to see to the horses.”
He served Rocana with a delicious dish of cold roast duck which she was sure had been brought with them, and there was also a glass of champagne which because she was thirsty she drank gratefully.
She was aware that it must be well over the twelve minutes she had been allotted and hurried out to find that the Marquis was already seated in the phaeton, holding the reins of his new team.
When late in the evening they reached the outskirts of Dover, she realised how fantastic the Marquis’s organisation was.
They had changed horses twice since luncheon and at each place where the Marquis allowed her five minutes respite there was a glass of champagne waiting for her and something light to eat.
It was what the Duke would have called ‘rush, rush, rush, all the way’, but to Rocana it was a joy because she knew that every minute that the Marquis did not question her identity meant that Caroline and Patrick were further away from The Castle and very much safer.
When they drove into Dover and turned down to the harbour, she saw, as the Marquis drew his horses to a standstill, his yacht was at the quayside and she was very impressed by it.
It was very much larger than she had expected.
As soon as they walked up the gangplank to where the Captain was waiting to welcome them aboard, the Marquis, having shaken hands, asked abruptly,
“Has the luggage arrived?”
“Half-an-hour ago, my Lord!”
“Good! Then put to sea, Captain Bateson.”
“Very good, my Lord!”
While the two men were talking, a small man, who Rocana was to learn later was the Marquis’s valet, asked her to come below.
She followed him and he showed her into a large very comfortable cabin where one of her trunks was already lying open.
She saw that an evening gown had been unpacked besides her night things.
“I thought after all the dust on the road,” the valet said, “your Ladyship’d like a bath.”
“Thank you very much,” Rocana replied.
She was indeed longing for a bath and knew it was a great luxury to have one aboard a ship.
She guessed she had been given the Master cabin that was normally occupied by the Marquis and it flashed through her mind that he might be intending to share it with her.
As this was something she had no intention of doing, she thought apprehensively that this was the moment when she must face him with the truth.
However, she lingered in the bath longer than she should have done, thinking that if she kept him waiting there was nothing he could do about it, as they were already out to sea.
She had heard the anchor being drawn up and was aware the sails were billowing out in the wind.
It was easy to guess that, as the yacht belonged to the Marquis, it would be built for speed.
Then, when Rocana came into the bedroom from the bathroom and saw her nightgown lying on the bed, she suddenly felt dizzy with exhaustion.
She had not slept the night before and although it had been an exhilarating experience to travel so fast behind team after team of four superlative horses, she felt as if her mind was still moving apart from the rocking of the yacht.
‘I will just rest for a few minutes,’ she told herself.
The bed was very comfortable and her head seemed to sink into the soft pillow as if it was a cloud – and she knew no more –
*
Now, sitting up in bed Rocana asked,
“Have we crossed the Channel?”
“Quicker than his Lordship’s ever done before, my Lady,” the valet said proudly, “and his Lordship asked me to give your Ladyship his compliments and say if it’s convenient he’d like to leave in an hour’s time.”
The valet walked towards the door as he was speaking and added,
“I’ll fetch your Ladyship’s breakfast.”
The Steward must have been waiting just outside the door, for the valet returned immediately and put a tray on the bed beside Rocana.
When she looked at it, she realised she was hungry and at the same time she was wondering what the Marquis had thought when she had not appeared to dine with him, but had slept through the night.
She supposed while she was eating that the same rush as yesterday would take place today.
She was certain of one thing, the Marquis would not wish to delay his de
parture for Paris by having a long conversation with her which would be inevitable once he was aware that she was not Caroline.
‘It will be better to face that after we reach Paris,’ Rocana reflected.
She had been right in thinking that the rush would be repeated and, when she came up on deck, the Marquis was already on the quay with another phaeton and another team of horses.
She was to learn later that he had sent his own horses and grooms ahead several days ago and that the luggage had left as soon as they docked.
The trunk that had been in her cabin had been removed so quietly that she had not been disturbed and the valet had left her the clothes she had worn on the previous day.
He also provided her with a chiffon scarf.
“I thought your Ladyship’d find it useful,” he said. “The dust on the French’s roads be worse than ours and there’s a bit of a wind at the moment.”
Rocana thanked him, tied the chiffon scarf over her bonnet and round her chin.
This helped to conceal her face even better than before and she thought how well everything was going.
Only when she saw the glint of her gold wedding ring did she ask herself if everything that was happening could really be true.
Was she in fact in some strange dream from which she could not awaken?
The roads to Paris, after they had left the twists and turns outside Calais, were straight, and there was not half so much traffic as there had been in England.
The Marquis’s horses were fresh and covered the first two hours at what Rocana was sure was a record speed.
Then there were the same arrangements as had been made the previous day.
A quick luncheon at noon that the Marquis ate before she came down the stairs and at the other places where they changed horses, there was champagne and a delicious croissant or a patisserie that were mouth-watering.
Again it was impossible to have any conversation for the Marquis was concentrating on his horses and the wind seemed to blow the words from Rocana’s lips.
Only as they reached the outskirts of Paris and she had her first sight of the tall houses with their grey shutters did she realise that she was very tired.
She thought, if she had to have it out with the Marquis tonight, she would be too tired to have her wits about her and, what was more, if he was angry with her she might easily burst into tears.
The Unbreakable Spell Page 9