Authors: Elizabeth Mansfield
“Be still, Anabel, and let me handle this!” her father commanded. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his side-whiskers thoughtfully. “I will admit that, if your information is correct, I cannot like Pollard’s doin’s. Still, you say you think he intends to keep his word and wed my Anabel as we agreed…”
Wys jumped to his feet furiously. “You cannot still consider permitting your daughter to marry him, knowing the sort of … I mean, she deserves better than that!”
Joshua leaned forward in his chair. “Oh, she does, does she? Meanin’
you
, I suppose.”
“At least
I
would never—!” Wys snapped. He stopped himself immediately, appalled at himself for what he considered a lapse of taste. Returning to his chair, he said quietly, “Excuse me. That is not for me to say.”
Joshua Plumb regarded Wys with a softened expression. This chap was more to his taste than that fish-eyed Pollard. This one had spirit and talked to a man straight and eye-to-eye. And it was plain as pikestaff that Anabel was taken with him. But it was a sticky business. He and Pollard had made a bargain. Pollard had asked for six weeks to end his affairs, and he had agreed to it. But this business Farr told him of sounded rather more like the
beginning
of an affair than the
end
of one. If true, the information could well be a reason to break the agreement. “Tell me, Mr. Farr,” he asked, “can you give me proof of your accusations against Sir George?”
“Proof? I hadn’t given that any thought. I have none now, sir, but I suppose I could find some way to—”
“Good. Get me some proof of your story, and I’ll end the alliance between Pollard and my daughter.”
“Oh,
Papa
!” cried the overjoyed Anabel.
Wys rose again. “And will I then have your permission to call on your daughter, sir?”
“Now, that’s another question, ain’t it? I know nothin’ about you, y’know. Might you be a duke or a marquis?” he asked hopefully.
“No, sir, I have no title.”
“None at all? You ain’t even a baron?”
“No, sir.”
Mr. Plumb was crestfallen. “I hope you don’t think, Mr. Farr, that if you was to wed Anabel, you’d be entitled to the sum of blunt I’d promised to Sir George. After all, without even a Sir attached to your monniker—”
“Confound it, Plumb,” Wys said sharply, “I’d take not a penny from you! If you think I’m at all interested in your ‘blunt’ you’re out in your reckoning! I’m sorry that your daughter has to hear this … this discussion … but I must tell you, sir, that to think your daughter needs a dowry to make her eligible is not only an insult to her but completely ridiculous. You need only to
look
at her to know that she’d enrich any man she chose, even if she hadn’t a penny in the world!”
Plumb’s eyes twinkled, although his face did not betray his amusement by the movement of a single muscle. “Very fine talkin’, my boy, but it don’t put no mutton on the table nor clothes on the back. I didn’t raise my girl to be a lady just to throw her away on any here-and-therian who comes along.”
“As to that, Mr. Plumb, if and when your
daughter
decides that I am worthy of her hand, I can assure you that I shall provide her with every luxury to which she is accustomed.” He looked down at Anabel with a sudden grin. “I may not be a
Sir
, but I can support a wife very well without the help of her father.”
Wys found that Anabel was regarding him with a look of such radiance that he forgot her father’s presence entirely. Without another word, he pulled his chair close to hers and took her hand. A chuckle escaped Mr. Plumb, but the two did not hear. Plumb pulled himself up from his chair, smiled at them in satisfaction, and went to the door. “I suppose you’ll do,” he said to the unheeding Wys. He paused at the door, expecting the young man to take his hint and say his goodbyes, but Wys and Anabel did not move. Plumb shrugged. “I suppose I can leave you to be private with each other for a minute or two, eh?”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you, sir,” Wys answered absently, so engrossed that he did not stand or turn around but continued to gaze at Anabel, enraptured.
Joshua Plumb, looking at his daughter’s face, permitted himself to beam. “Too bad he ain’t at least a baron,” he murmured as he left the room and discreetly closed the door behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
T
HERE WAS A DEFINITE
scent of snow in the air when Wys emerged from his blissful
rapprochement
with his Anabel. He pulled up his collar and headed straight for the Selby house. Waiting for the door to be answered, he consulted his watch and found, to his astonishment, that it was not yet two in the afternoon. He had been through so much today that it was hard to believe that only a few hours had elapsed since he had met Tom on Drew’s doorstep. To his even greater astonishment, the butler informed him that Lady Selby had not yet risen from her bed. “Is she ill?” Wys inquired.
“I don’t believe so, sir,” the butler said. “Merely a late party last night. But
Lord
Selby has been up for several hours.”
“Very well, I’ll see him instead. Where is he?”
“In the library. I’ll take you to him, sir.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll find my way.”
Selby looked up from his newspaper with a cheerful greeting on his lips, but one look at Wys’s face told him that Wys had more than a social purpose for his visit. He put a shaking hand to his forehead. “Wystan, old fellow, I’m glad to see you, but if you’ve come to suggest some activity for me, I beg you to excuse me. My wife dragged me to the Ogilvies’ last night, and a duller evening I’ve never endured. As a consequence, I drank too much port and I’m fit for nothing today but to lounge in my chair.”
Wys eyed him askance. “A likely tale! When have I ever found you fit for anything else?”
“A base canard, my boy,” Selby replied affably, “but I haven’t the energy to refute you. Pour yourself some of that Madeira and sit down.”
Wys complied, but after a sip or two of Selby’s excellent wine, he lost no time in coming to the point of his visit. “Much as I dislike to disturb your lethargy, Selby, I have a wolf by the ear and need your help. Gwen Rowle has run off with George Pollard, and I learned by chance from Lambie Aylmer that the blackguard has no intention of marrying her.”
Selby’s owlish eyes grew even larger as he tried to grasp the import of the confusing statement Wys had just thrown at him. After several questions, which Wys answered too impatiently to clarify Selby’s confusion, Selby insisted that Wys begin at the beginning and tell him the events of the day step by step. Before this request could be granted, the library door opened, and a heavy-eyed, tousled Hetty—dressed in a loose morning dress and house slippers—padded in. “Heard you were here, Wystan,” she said, yawning. “What are you doing, calling so early?”
“Early!” cried the aggrieved Wys. “It’s almost two!”
“Oh. In that case, make yourself at home. I’m going to get myself some breakfast.”
“Breakfast! At two in the afternoon? That is positively sinful, Hetty. Besides, I need your support with Selby, so sit down, please, and listen to what has happened this morning.”
“Wystan,” warned Selby, “unless you want the story spread all over London, don’t tell her a thing!”
Hetty drew herself up to her full height, an action which—since it brought her up only to her full five-feet-two-inches—failed to impress the observers. “How can you be so provoking, Selby,” she asked with dignity, “when you know that I’ve gone all these months knowing all the facts about Drew’s duel and have not breathed a word to a soul?”
“Good for you, my dear,” Selby observed drily. “Since you merely swore an oath on your honor, in front of witnesses, that you would hold your tongue, you are much to be commended for your silence.”
“Oh, be quiet, you beast,” she retorted, her dignity discarded. Perching on a wing chair from which she could watch both her irritating husband and her guest, she tucked her legs under her comfortably and said contentedly, “Now, Wys, tell us what happened this morning.”
Wys, forcing himself to curb his impatience, recounted the events of the morning in as much detail as he deemed necessary for their understanding. The account took several minutes, during which he was interrupted by frequent questions and exclamations from the wide-eyed Hetty and by some pungent epithets from Selby. At the conclusion of his tale he looked from one astounded listener to the other and said, “So you can see why we must do
something
! And at
once
!
Selby, whose owlish eyes had grown larger with every detail, now shut them with a wince. “We?” he groaned. “
We
?”
“Well, of course, we!” his wife declared, bouncing out of her chair energetically. “I shall dress at once and be ready before you know it.”
“Just a minute, my dear,” Selby said quellingly. “Not so fast!”
“But you heard what Wystan said. There’s no time to lose!”
“Hetty, sit down,” Selby ordered, and fixed his eye on her until she’d obeyed. “Now, then, have you thought to ask yourselves just where we would go, and what we would do when we got there?”
“We’ll go after that … dastard, Pollard, tell Gwen what he’s up to, and take her back with us,” Hetty answered promptly.
“Do you think it’s as simple as that?” Selby asked bluntly. “First, we don’t know what route he’s taken. Second, we can’t travel much faster than they can, so that if we ever
do
catch up with them, we may well be too late. Third, I think there’s snow in the air. And, last, we have no right to interfere at all. We are not related to her any more than Drew is!”
“Oh, Selby,” Hetty said in disgust, “must you always be so deucedly
logical?
We
must
go, in spite of your so-reasonable objections.”
“Not all of your objections are valid, Selby,” Wys pointed out in his own reasonable way. “First, we can make a good guess at Pollard’s route. Second, he doesn’t own a horse much better than a slug, so the chances are he won’t make good time. Don’t tell me your greys aren’t a match for anything Pollard may have picked up.”
“
My
greys, eh? What about the nags
you’ve
been bragging about for months? Won’t they do as well?”
“Why take the time to stop at my stables when we can much more easily start from here?” Wys answered ingenuously.
Selby growled. He was getting deeper and deeper into a situation in which he had no wish to involve himself. “But I still don’t think we have a right to take this on. If
Drew
wouldn’t, why should we?”
Wys frowned. “Drew’s been badly hurt. I’ve thought of asking him again, but, in truth, I’d like to spare him. It’s for his sake more than anyone’s that I think we must bring Gwen back.”
“There’s that
we
again.
We
! Why can’t
you
do it and leave us out of it?” he demanded, feeling much put-upon.
Hetty got up and went to Selby’s chair. Perching on the arm, she rubbed one hand against his cheek and with the other curled a wisp of his greying hair around her finger. “Don’t be such an old bear, my love,” she said in his ear. “We can’t let Wys do this all alone. It’s for Drew’s sake, after all. And it’s too dreadful to think of Gwen in the clutches of that scoundrel. What if it were
me
, and you sat here being logical, and nobody lifted a finger—?”
“
You?
” Selby gave an involuntary shudder. “As if you would ever think of running off like that!”
She bent and planted a light kiss on his forehead. “That’s because I have the best—the very best—of husbands,” she said fondly.
Wys watched in amusement as Selby visibly wilted under Hetty’s quite obvious wiles. Strange that even a clever fellow like Selby could be turned from his intentions by female stratagems that the veriest fool could see through. And Wys smiled to realize that he himself would no doubt behave in the very same way. How pleasant it will be, he thought, when Anabel perches on the arm of
my
chair and makes a dupe of me in the very same way!
“It’s a fool’s errand, I tell you,” Selby grumbled, making his last gasp of independence. “We’ll doubtless make a mull of the business and get nothing for our pains but a good trouncing from Pollard and the everlasting enmity of your precious brother.”
“Nonsense,” said his wife decisively. “We shall do very well, and it will be a perfectly grand adventure.”
Selby regarded her as he would a creature from Bedlam. “Adventure!” he muttered, casting a helpless glance at Wys. “
Women
! If you had any sense at all, Wystan, my boy, you’d stay away from ’em. Even that paragon you’ve discovered this morning.”
Hetty, knowing she had won, ignored the affront and bounced up happily from her perch. “Well, I’m going to change. I shan’t be a moment.”
“Take your time, you troublesome minx,” her husband said shortly. “I’m going to have my luncheon, and I won’t be hurried.”
“Luncheon?” asked his scandalized wife. “
Now?
”
“If you think I’m going to set out on a race to Scotland without a good meal to sustain me,” he declared roundly, “you’ve much mistaken your man! And if you don’t like it, you both can jolly well set off without me!” And with that he trotted out the door, slamming it behind him with a satisfying bang.
The snow had started to fall by the time Pollard’s coach had reached Stamford at mid-afternoon, and he knew that they would not get much further by nightfall. While Gwen viewed the advent of snow with alarm, George was not at all troubled. The longer they were delayed on the road, the more opportunities he would have to compromise her reputation, and the more difficult it would be for her to find reasons to refuse the offer he would make. He pretended to a concern he was far from feeling about the weather, and tried to console her by drawing her to him to keep her warm.
Gwen’s misgivings had grown as the day had progressed. Try as she would to convince herself that she could learn to love the man sitting beside her, she found herself unable to respond to the advances he made with irritating regularity. At one point, she had feigned sleep, sliding away as far as she could from him and letting her head rest on the coach window. That she had resorted to a subterfuge troubled her. She feared that it augured greater dishonesty in their married life to come. As the day wore on, the ceaseless rocking of the carriage made her feel ill. Her head ached and her stomach churned and she couldn’t tell if the misery of her spirit was due to the abominable ride or to the decision she had made to marry the man who was now sitting beside her.