Belinda Goes to Bath (13 page)

‘Demne,’ he said, scratching his head, ‘looks like I got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Miss Jordan told me this evening that Miss Earle was no better than she should be, and so I decided to try for a bit of sport. Then when Frenton walked in, stands to reason I thought Miss Earle was his … er … little friend, if you take my meaning. Now Frenton says he’s engaged to her.’ He rounded on Penelope. ‘Why did you tell me such a hum?’

‘They cannot be engaged,’ gasped Penelope. ‘They only met the other week for the first time.’

‘It was love at first sight,’ said the marquess in an expressionless voice. ‘I am sorry I hit you, Frederick, but you were misled. My fiancée has suffered enough upset and distress. I suggest you go to bed and let me talk to her.’

‘There’s something havey-cavey in all this,’ protested the earl. ‘You never said anything about being engaged to Miss Earle when you arrived, and yet you must have known she was one of the stage-coach passengers.’

‘I am of a shy nature,’ said the marquess, ‘and my love for Miss Earle made me even more shy. Besides, I was stricken with remorse at having let her travel ahead on the stage in this weather.’

Belinda sat up in bed, unable to move or speak. The sheer gladness that had flooded her body when he had first said she was his fiancée was quickly ebbing away. The marquess’s eyes held a mocking glint now. He was making fools of the Twittertons and the Jordans, that was all.

One by one they all went out, all except Hannah Pym, who stood her ground.

‘You, too, Miss Pym,’ said the marquess.

‘Are you really engaged?’ asked Hannah.

‘Yes,’ said the marquess.

‘No,’ squeaked Belinda.

‘So,’ said Hannah, folding her arms, ‘what is going on?’

The marquess sighed impatiently. All he wanted was to be shot of Hannah Pym and to kiss Belinda
Earle’s delicious mouth. He had said Belinda was his fiancée on the spur of the moment and to save her reputation. But now it seemed like an excellent idea. He would have Belinda Earle and that mouth of hers for his sole property for the rest of his life and he found the idea enchanting. On the other hand, he still felt guilty at having behaved towards Belinda in such an ungentlemanly way in the first place, and he
had
just made a noble gesture. So he opened his mouth and proceeded to put his foot in it.

‘It was all I could think of,’ he said. ‘Frederick has obviously been misled by Miss Jordan’s malicious and jealous gossip, although when I first saw Frederick entering here, I thought Miss Wimple might have had a hand in it. I had to save Miss Earle’s reputation, and so I said she was my fiancée.’

Belinda groaned and sank down on the pillows and drew the blankets over her head.

‘So now what are you going to do?’ asked Hannah.

‘Why, marry her, of course!’

‘Does she want to marry you?’

The marquess looked at Hannah in blank amazement. When did any woman
not
want to marry a wealthy marquess?

‘Go on, ask her, while I am still here,’ said Hannah grimly.

The marquess approached the bed. He tugged down the covers. Belinda’s furious eyes glared up at him. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

‘No, I will not,’ said Belinda, and jerked the covers up over her face again.

The marquess swung round. ‘Do leave us, Miss Pym. Miss Earle is not your concern.’

‘No, I will not, sirrah. Miss Earle does not want you and so I shall stay right here until you leave.’

Belinda heard Hannah’s words, and instead of being grateful to her, she was suddenly and irrationally furious. Was her life always going to be dogged by middle-aged people who did not think she had a mind of her own?

She struggled up from under the blankets again. ‘I can fight my own battles, Miss Pym. Pray do as his lordship requires.’

‘I cannot argue with you, Miss Earle,’ said Hannah severely. ‘But I am going to fetch Miss Wimple. You
are
her concern and she should be here.’

Hannah marched out but left the door open.

Belinda surveyed the marquess with a militant eye. He was still in his evening dress and his hair was powdered. His eyes looked aloof and remote. ‘Well?’ demanded Belinda sarcastically. ‘Tell me all about this love at first sight.’

He sat down on the bed and looked down at her. ‘I was trying to save your reputation.’

‘Good!’ said Belinda, her eyes flashing. ‘Now you have done that … go away.’

It was obviously the moment to tell her he loved her, but his pride would not let him. He had already been made too vulnerable by this girl who could wrench his heart-strings so easily. She did not love him, he thought sadly, or she would not look so contemptuous and angry.

Then he began to find himself becoming angry. There was that mouth, just below his. He put his hands on either side of her body and leaned down. He bent his head … and passionately kissed a mouthful of blanket. Belinda had dived under the covers again. He stood up and stripped the covers off her and threw them on the floor. He knelt on one knee on the bed, grasped the front of her night-gown and jerked her up against him. ‘Now, you will kiss me,’ he said.

Belinda opened her mouth to scream. He covered her mouth with his own and began to kiss her with single-minded intensity. Belinda beat at his shoulders and then pulled at his powdered hair, giving it several painful yanks, but he had the rest of her body and mouth imprisoned. The hand holding the front of her gown was pressed tightly against her breast. Her body was turning to liquid fire and her lips were beginning to tremble beneath his own.

Hannah Pym stood in the doorway again. For a short moment, shock kept her silent. Such blatant passion was indecent. They were both alike. They must get married and leave the world safe for decent people who did not know the meaning of lust.

‘My lord!’ she called loudly.

The marquess dropped Belinda on the bed and then looked at Hannah with a basilisk stare. Hannah felt her authority shrivel before that stare. Hannah, the gentlewoman of independent means, fled; even Hannah, the housekeeper ruling over a large staff, melted away. She could feel herself back in the kitchens of Thornton House as a scullery maid. She
felt like apologizing for her very existence, and only Duty, stern daugher of the voice of God, made her give herself a mental shake and say in a strong voice, ‘They’ve gone; fled. Miss Wimple and Mr Biles, and a footman tells me they’ve taken the earl’s carriage!’

‘Good riddance,’ said the marquess.

Hannah’s eyes flew to Belinda. Belinda was looking the picture of shame. If he had told her he loved her, she would be radiant. Men! thought Hannah bitterly.

‘Why have they gone?’ asked Hannah. ‘They had no need to flee.’

‘They had every need, madam,’ said the marquess. ‘Mr Biles is already married.’

‘Married? Does Miss Wimple know?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘But we must save her,’ said Belinda.

‘My dear heart,’ he said in a testy voice that robbed the words of any affection, ‘you are rid of a companion who did her best to blacken your name.’

‘I do not like her,’ said Belinda. ‘But I am going to try to find her. I cannot stand by and see even such as Miss Wimple ruined. She does not have much money, and if he abandons her there is nothing left for a lady to do but to go on the streets.’

‘Might stop her damned moralizing,’ said the marquess savagely.

‘We will all go,’ said Hannah soothingly. ‘My lord no doubt has a carriage.’

‘Which is staying in the stables.’

‘Which you will get out of the stables,’ said Hannah,
‘unless, of course, you have no affection for Miss Earle whatsoever.’

He looked at her in silence. Hannah met his gaze steadily. Hannah did not care a rap what happened to Miss Wimple, but she was frightened to leave matters between Belinda and the marquess as they were. If Belinda was allowed to go ahead on the coach to The Bath in the morning, then perhaps by the time the Marquess of Frenton should be calling on that moralizing great-aunt to ask permission to pay his addresses, he might instead have been snapped up by some designing female. And Hannah did believe that it was never any good for the path of true love to run smooth.

The marquess looked at Belinda. Her face was flushed and her hair tumbled and he realized with a shock that he found her very beautiful indeed and doubted that he would ever think of her as an ordinary-looking female again.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will change into my travelling clothes. Miss Pym, I suggest you go to the servants’ hall and tell the coachman that neither you, Miss Earle, Miss Wimple, or Mr Biles will be taking the stage. Oh, and I gather the Judds are to remain here. He will have an empty coach. Give me half an hour and then meet me in the hall!’

7

‘They will have headed for the city,’ said the marquess, meaning Bath. ‘We shall go in that direction first.’

He helped the ladies into the carriage and climbed up on the box. Hannah was disappointed. She had not expected the marquess to drive his carriage himself. She had hoped the couple would have had the opportunity to talk to each other on the journey and get to know each other better. Hugs and kisses were all very well, thought Hannah, giving her nose a tug. But how would they ever find out if they were suited if they never had a chance to talk?

‘Do you think he is angry with us?’ ventured
Belinda, peering out into the snow-covered blackness. Although the snow had stopped falling, the countryside was white.

‘For going in search of Miss Wimple? He was at first, but now I think he is reconciled to it, and he must be glad to be shot of the Jordans, as are we all.’

‘Did you mark that when Penelope Jordan joined the others in my bedchamber that her eyebrows were quite thin?’

‘No, I did not,’ said Hannah roundly. ‘I had other things to think about.’

‘Well, they were,’ said Belinda triumphantly. ‘And that means she wears false eyebrows.’

‘A dangerous practice,’ said Hannah severely. ‘It is one to be avoided. Mrs Clarence gave a dinner party once and there was a certain Sir Brian Curtis and his lady present. Right in the middle of dinner, he roared across the table at his wife, “Your left eyebrow is slipping.” Most mortifying for the lady. And then there was another gentleman who had strictly forbidden his wife to wear paint. She appeared in the drawing-room with a little rouge on her face. He grabbed a napkin, soaked it in seltzer, seized her, and scrubbed her face clean before the whole company.’

‘How dreadful! It is just as well this business of me marrying Frenton is all a hum. Marriage is a state to be avoided if a female can afford it.’

‘True,’ said Hannah gloomily. ‘Men
will
regard us as their chattels, you know, and … Faith! What am I saying? Not all men are thus, Miss Earle, I assure you. Furthermore, I do not think Frenton was teasing when
he named you as his fiancée. There is his pride, you see.’

‘And there is mine,’ said Belinda. ‘He would take my very soul away,’ she said, half to herself.

Hannah fell silent. Belinda was left to think about the nature of love. Of course she had often thought about love, but had imagined that feeling would be something pure and spiritual. At that very moment, she hated the marquess, but at the same time longed for some sign of affection from him.

She peered out of the window of the carriage again. ‘We are moving down to lower ground,’ she said, ‘and there is no snow and the road is quite dry. How odd the vagaries of the English climate! Although I am concerned for Miss Wimple, I am sharp set. I barely touched anything last evening. The venison was vile, stringy and gamy, and the smell!’

‘I confess I could touch little of it myself. Moral people seem to have stomachs of iron. Both Miss Wimple and Mr Biles ate great quantities of the stuff. But as to Miss Wimple, it is our duty to apprise her of the facts because she is a woman and a fellow sufferer. If we women do not stick together, then what hope is there for us?’

‘Have you never met a man with whom you could spend the rest of your life?’ asked Belinda.

‘There was one,’ said Hannah, ‘but he turned out to be a cheat and a liar and deceived me sore. Thank goodness that there
are
good men in this world.’ She thought of Sir George Clarence with his fine figure, his piercing blue eyes, and the courteous way he listened
to her so intently. He had offered to take her on a tour of the gardens of Thornton House on her return. Would he remember his offer? Perhaps he would marry and his new wife would frown on this strange friendship with a servant, albeit a former one. The thought of Sir George’s marrying anyone depressed Hannah.

‘The carriage is stopping,’ she said.

‘Perhaps we are going to be allowed something to eat,’ remarked Belinda hopefully.

The marquess opened the carriage door. ‘I am going to make inquiries at this inn.’

‘Any hope of breakfast?’ asked Belinda.

‘Later,’ he said shortly.

‘You have the right of it, Miss Pym,’ said Belinda bitterly when the marquess had closed the carriage door again. ‘We must always do as we are told.’

‘My fault,’ said Hannah. ‘Never ask a tentative question of a gentleman or the answer is bound to be no. I should have said, “Help us down. We are going to have breakfast.”’

‘That wouldn’t have worked either,’ said Belinda. ‘Try it.’

After only a short time, the marquess returned. ‘Good news,’ he said. ‘They stopped here and paid a driver handsomely to return the carriage and horses to the earl.’

‘Did they go ahead on foot?’ asked Belinda.

‘No, they paid for a pony and gig and took off in that. They asked the road to Monks Parton.’

‘And where is that?’ asked Hannah.

‘About six miles to the north.’

‘Good,’ said Belinda. ‘Now, if you will but stand aside, my lord, I am going inside that hostelry with Miss Pym and we are going to have some breakfast.’

‘As you will,’ he said.

‘There you are,’ muttered Hannah gleefully. ‘Works like a charm.’

Seated at a table in the coffee-parlour of the inn, Belinda and the marquess studied each other warily. Belinda thought the marquess, even in top-boots and a plain coat, looked more like a haughty aristocrat than ever, his cold eyes giving nothing away. The marquess wondered why Belinda, tired as she was, and with shadows under her eyes, looked like the most beautiful woman in the world, and then wondered whether she had bewitched him, but he showed all these confused thoughts and feelings like a true English gentleman by asking her, ‘More coffee, Miss Earle?’

Hannah began to despair of the pair of them. Of course there were marriages where husband hardly ever spoke to wife, but such had been the marriage of Mr and Mrs Clarence, and only look where that had led. Her eyes glowed blue with remembered sadness.

‘You are like a chameleon, Miss Pym,’ said the marquess. ‘I have observed your eyes change colour according to your mood.’

Hannah, who privately thought he would have done better to observe Belinda’s eyes, replied, ‘Humph,’ and buried her nose in her coffee-cup.

‘The sky will soon be light,’ said the marquess, ‘and
the morning promises to be fine. It should be an easy and pleasant journey to Monks Parton. I have plenty of carriage rugs. Would you care to wrap up well, Miss Earle, and join me on the box?’

Hannah feared that Belinda was on the point of saying something pettish and kicked her viciously in the ankle. Belinda let out a yelp of pain.

‘What is the matter?’ asked the marquess anxiously. ‘Is it your ankle? I had forgot about that sprain.’

‘I experienced a sudden twinge of pain in my other ankle,’ said Belinda, glaring at Hannah. ‘Yes, I would like to join you. I have never travelled on the box of a carriage before.’

Hannah smiled, well pleased.

After Belinda had been helped up on the box and wrapped in a bearskin rug, Hannah climbed inside, accompanied by the marquess’s valet, curled up on the carriage seat and went to sleep.

‘How very high above the ground we seem to be,’ said Belinda nervously.

The team of grey horses ambled slowly forward. The air was sweet and there was a hint of spring in the warmth of the wind. Behind her the tiger, also wrapped in rugs, had fallen asleep.

‘So I have you to myself at last,’ said the marquess. ‘I am sorry I did not make you a formal proposal of marriage, but the circumstances were odd. I shall call on your great-aunt when we reach The Bath.’

‘But what do we know of each other?’ demanded Belinda, looking at his hard profile. ‘I had made up my mind not to marry, to be independent.’

‘You would have independence were you married to me. A spinster has a sad life.’

‘Miss Pym is a spinster.’

‘True. But Miss Pym is an Original.’

‘But you don’t really want to marry me,’ said Belinda. ‘You were just being chivalrous.’

‘Alas, I am never chivalrous.’

‘Why do you want to marry me?’

The marquess reined in his horses and looked down at her angrily. ‘Because I love you, dammit, as well you know.’

‘No, I
don’t
know,’ snapped Belinda.

He dropped the reins and took her in his arms. ‘Then let my silent lips tell you what my words cannot.’ He kissed her tenderly on her eyes, her nose, and then her mouth. No more bruising kissing, thought the marquess. But Belinda freed her lips and looked up at him with starry eyes, and said with a break of laughter in her voice, ‘Oh, you do love me, and I love you so much, Frenton.’

He crushed her close to him and sank his mouth into hers. Her passion rose to meet his. She caressed his hair and then choked and sneezed as a fine cloud of scented powder rose in the air.

‘We had better be married very soon,’ he said tenderly, handing her a large handkerchief.

‘Yes,’ agreed Belinda happily. ‘And you do believe me, or rather you did believe Miss Pym when she told you the real story about that footman?’

‘Yes, my love. Oh, yes, Belinda.’

‘I do not know your first name,’ said Belinda, shyly twisting a button on his coat.

‘It is Richard. Say, “Richard, I love you.”’

Her eyes were shining. ‘Oh, Richard, my dear heart, I love you so much.’

He held her close. Their lips joined in a kiss of such intensity that for both the world seemed to spin round faster and faster about them.

Inside the carriage, Hannah Pym awoke and sat up. The carriage was at a standstill. Perhaps they had arrived and the marquess and Belinda had not troubled to wake her. She opened the carriage door and climbed down.

There was a farmer, leaning on a gate with a farm-hand beside him. Both were looking up at the box. The farmer had a large steel watch in one hand. ‘Reckon that be about five minutes, Ham,’ he said.

‘Reckon as it do,’ agreed Ham with a salacious leer.

Hannah joined them and looked up at the box. The marquess and Belinda were wrapped in each other’s arms, both rock-still, their lips joined in a long kiss.

‘Been like that this age, mum,’ said the farmer cheerfully. ‘Ham, here, was saying as how he’d choke were he to do that there, but I says to him that he do breathe through his mouth the whole time, which is why he couldn’t achieve it. Wunnerful it is. Never seen the like.’

‘My lord!’ called Hannah angrily. ‘You are making a spectacle of yourself.’

The marquess started, released Belinda and looked down. ‘And so we are,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Climb in again, Miss Pym. We are on our way.’

Hannah climbed in and sat bolt upright. Their faces
had been, yes
transfigured
by love. As the carriage rolled on, a slow tear rolled down Hannah’s cheek. She felt old and lonely. The feelings of precious independence given her by that legacy seemed to be withering away. No strong man had ever looked at Hannah Pym like that. No man ever would.

She had always been cheerful and hopeful. She considered life had treated her well. She had never known disease or infirmity or starvation, never regretted her spinster state. But now she felt weak and childlike and lost.

A thin ray of sunlight shone into the carriage. Hannah looked out. They were travelling quickly now along a high ridge of land. The fields stretched out, calm and peaceful, and with only a few remaining patches of snow. Her spirits began to lift. Here she was, plain Hannah Pym, off on another adventure and assisting in the marriage of a marquess. She shook her head, wondering how she could have become so blue-devilled only a moment ago.

‘It must have been that venison,’ said the ever-practical Hannah Pym. She rubbed her crooked nose and straightened her square shoulders.

Monks Parton was a small, sleepy village, unchanged since Tudor times. Houses of timber and wattle and thatch crouched around a triangle of village green like so many shabby cats. Two women were drawing water from a well at the edge of the village green. The marquess called down to them, asking them if they had seen any sign of a portly gentleman in clericals and an equally portly lady, driving a pony and gig.

One of the women shook her head but vouchsafed that there was a small tavern at the end of the village that had three bedchambers for guests.

The marquess drove on. The tavern, called the Bear and Stump, was as old as the houses of the village. One end of it sagged towards the ground, and the beetling thatch over the dormer windows reminded Belinda of Penelope’s false eyebrows.

‘I am coming with you,’ said Belinda firmly, when the marquess showed signs of leaving her behind. ‘She will not feel quite so humiliated if there is another woman there to comfort her.’

Hannah was determined to be ‘in at the kill’, but for less charitable reasons. Although she felt they were only doing their duty, she did not like either the moralizing Miss Wimple or the pontificating Mr Biles and was looking forward to seeing the guilty pair brought down a peg.