The Original Miss Honeyford (16 page)

When they were back in the carriage, he leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek, but it was a brotherly caress.

Lord Channington had been up most of the night gambling and so he soon fell asleep again.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny fields and cottages rolled past and the well-sprung coach swept onward up the road to Bedfordshire.

Honey hoped Lord Channington’s mother would not be too shocked, and began to regret having left her fine clothes behind.

And then she thought of Lord Alistair. He was so close to her it was as if he was in the carriage. He was furious. He hated her.

Honey screwed her eyes up tightly, but the tears forced their way through her lids and trickled down her cheeks.

Lord Alistair was going to ask Lady Canon’s permission to pay his addresses to Honey. He felt ridiculously young as he washed and changed into his best clothes.

Lady Canon had just finishing dressing when Beecham climbed the stairs to announce his arrival. She turned a faint pink, and shouted to Clarisse to lay out the best silk. Hurry!

She would tease Lord Alistair a little, she thought, about his success in ensnaring Honey, but she would also lecture him for having gone too far.

Lady Canon had not felt so young or so feminine in years as she descended from the bedroom to the saloon amid a rustle of expensive silk. She paused outside the door of the saloon and adjusted her becoming lace cap in the mirror.

Lord Alistair rose to meet her as she entered the room with such a radiant smile on his face that her heart began to beat very hard and her breathing became rapid.

“Where is she?” asked Lord Alistair. Then he laughed, a great joyous laugh. “Only see how impatient I am, Lady Canon. I am supposed to beg your permission first, and yet I cannot wait to see her.”

Lady Canon paused and put a faltering hand to her mouth.

“Who? What? Do you wish to see
Honey?
But that farce is ended, my lord.”

“The farce has most certainly ended,” he said cheerfully, “and real life is about to begin. Poor Lady Canon. You must think my wits are wandering. Did not Honoria tell you? We are to be married.”

“Married!” Lady Canon put out a trembling hand and supported herself on the back of a chair.

“Yes,” he said. “May I see her?”

“Of course,” said Lady Canon weakly. The incredible had happened. Lord Alistair Stewart was getting married at last. She rang the bell and then wondered whether to tell Lord Alistair of Honey’s shock when she had told her he had only courted her because he had been asked to woo her away from Channington.

But Beecham answered the bell promptly.

“Tell Miss Honeyford that Lord Alistair is anxious to see her,” said Lady Canon.

Beecham stood very still without moving. Lord Alistair read apprehension in the butler’s face and added sharply, “Well, go and fetch her.”

Beecham turned and walked stiffly from the room. Now was Lady Canon’s opportunity to tell Lord Alistair what she had told Honey, but she looked at his glowing face and found she could not.

She felt old and ugly. The man in front of her did not see her was a woman, but only as his beloved’s elderly relative.

“How is your dear mama?” she asked through dry lips.

“Much better, I thank you. She had the influenza. I was amazed when I arrived to find she was really ill. You know how it is, being an old friend of hers, she often
makes
herself ill, but this time it was genuine. I was glad I went, although I wish I had had the foresight to beg you to let me take Honoria with me.”

“Yes,” said Lady Canon dully.

There was a long silence. Lord Alistair did not seem to notice. He was quite obviously straining his ears to hear Honey’s step on the stair outside.

At last Beecham opened the door and stood just inside as if prepared for flight.

“Miss Honeyford is not in her room,” he said. “There was only this letter addressed to you, my lady.”

Lady Canon opened the letter and read it several times, as if willing the contents to change to something different.

“Very good, Beecham,” she said. “That will be all.”

Beecham bowed and withdrew, closing the doors behind him.

“What is it?” demanded Lord Alistair sharply. Lady Canon wordlessly held out the letter to him. Lord Alistair read it. He suddenly looked older, harsher. Lady Canon felt as if she had never really understood the passions that could wrack the human breast before. She looked at the torment in Lord Alistair’s eyes with a kind of dazed wonder.

“Was she here last night?” he demanded.

“Oh, yes,” faltered Lady Canon. “She said she had the headache and I put her to bed myself.”

“Then she either left during the night or early this morning.”

“I don’t know,” said Lady Canon wretchedly. “I do not see what we can do. She says in her letter that she and Channington are to be married, so we may as well make the best of things.”

“If Channington marries her, then it will be a miracle. If she is married by the time I get my hands on them, then she will shortly be a widow.”

“My dear Lord Alistair, you are becoming overexercised—”

“Your servants must have known,” he interrupted.

Lady Canon drew herself up. “My servants would not go against my interests. Only see how concerned Beecham was when Miss Honeyford went to the hanging.”

“Has Beecham been with you long?”

“He came to me as a footman when my husband was alive. He has been my butler for twenty-five years.”

“During which time he has had many increases in salary?”

“His pay was naturally increased when he became butler.”

“But not since then.”

“Of course not. I do not see what this has to—”

“Good day to you, Lady Canon.”

“Lord Alistair, what am I going to do about Honoria?”

“Pray,” he said savagely.

Lord Alistair saw Beecham hovering at the foot of the stairs.

“Beecham,” he said, “I am not going to waste time with accusations and recriminations. My Lord Channington greased your hand heavily to aid and abet him. I know this, so there is no point in lying. Unless you want me to persuade Lady Canon of this, and have you turned off without a character, you will tell me when she left.”

Beecham looked at Lord Alistair’s implacable face. “I could not help myself, my lord,” he said. “I asked my lady for more money a month ago and she refused. She said butlers were ten a penny and I should consider myself lucky to have a roof over my head. Lord Channington gave me enough to settle my debts and to pay the other servants for their silence. He is very much in love with Miss Honeyford, and he is an earl, and it didn’t seem wrong to help him.”

“When did she leave?” demanded Lord Alistair.

“This very morning, just before seven. She went off in a closed carriage with Lord Channington.”

Lord Alistair walked past him and out into the street. His grain was in a turmoil. She
could not
be in love with Channington. Why? Why had she left? Even if Lady Canon had told her about the plot to woo her away from Channington, she must have received his letter, and would know he planned to marry her. But what if she had not received his letter?

Channington did not mean marriage. His estates lay to the north of Bedfordshire. He might head in that direction to reassure her he meant to marry her from his home.

He must find her. He could not bear it if she returned to town as quiet and broken as Pamela Hudson had been. It was hard to imagine Honey being seduced by such as Channington. He decided to ride north in pursuit. He would not take his carriage. He would go on horseback and hunt them down.

Once at his town house, he changed into riding clothes, and had his servants put a change of clothes in his saddle bags, along with a pair of pistols.

And then he rode like the wind.

He decided to change his horse as frequently as possible, and to cut across country where the road took too many turns and twists.

He had his first news of them at Barnet and changed his horse for a great rangy hunter and set out without even pausing to eat or drink.

Although they had had a long start on him, they were obviously making a leisurely journey. He had news of them again at St. Alban’s and rode doggedly ahead, a picture of Honey always before his mind’s eye.

And then, as night closed in, he lost track of them. Precious time was lost doubling back on the road. He was tired and hungry and worried to death. He stopped the Royal Mail to ask about posting houses in the area and nearly had his head blown off by the terrified driver, who thought he was a highwayman.

But when the driver calmed down, he proved to be a useful source of information. He was a Luton man and knew of a new inn called The Goat in Boots which stood a little way off the road, about eight miles ahead.

It had become so firmly fixed in his mind that they would be there that he could hardly believe his ears when the landlord told him he had never heard of or seen such a couple. He gave Lord Alistair a list of posting houses and inns in the neighborhood together with directions to them all.

Lord Alistair’s horse was weary. He had to find a good posting inn in order to get a fresh one, for he meant to search all night if need be.

The night was very dark and a thin drizzle had started to fall.

He was riding through a small dark wood which edged either side of the road when two dark figures plunged out of the trees.

“Stand and deliver,” said a hoarse voice.

Lord Alistair’s first weary thought was, “Why, tonight of all nights?” He had never been held up by highwaymen before, although he had spent a great deal of time on the roads of England.

He studied the two men. He could not make out whether they were armed with pistols or not, but he decided it safer to assume they were.

He swung down from his horse and faced them.

“Stand over there,” growled one. “Bring us the glim,” the robber said to his companion, “and we’ll see what we have here.”

Lord Alistair stood in the rain, dejected and weary. Then he remembered that in one of his saddle bags was a ruby ring which he had bought for Honey. All at once he knew they must not touch that ring.

From being a menace, the two robbers became a nuisance standing between him and his beloved.

Quick as lightning he sprang straight at the man who was covering him with a pistol—or what he assumed was a pistol. He lashed out in the dark and smashed his fist down onto the man’s arm. There was an explosion as a gun went off. He slammed his fist into the man’s face. His eyes were now accustomed to the blackness, and he neatly jumped sideways and ducked as a cudgel wielded by the other robber whizzed harmlessly past his head. He punched the second man in the kidneys and then, in a mad rage, picked him up bodily and threw him full at the first, who was just struggling to his feet.

Lord Alistair mounted his horse and set off down the road at a gallop.

By the time the lights of the next town began to flicker through the trees, Lord Alistair Stewart was praying hard that he might find Miss Honeyford and Lord Channington soon while he still had the strength to strangle the one and to shoot the other.

*   *   *

Honey sat in front of the glass in the best bedroom that The King’s Head had to offer and studied her reflection. Care and worry did not seem to have aged her in the least. Her skin was smooth, her color was good, and her now longer hair shone with health.

She was glad to be on her own for a little. Lord Channington’s behavior had been faultless. He could have been taking her for an outing in the Park instead of eloping with her. But Honey was uneasy. She decided she must be tired. That would surely explain her increasing uneasiness.

The King’s Head stood a little outside Leighton Buzzard. Honey had expected they would press on to Luton and had a feeling that Leighton Buzzard was surely out of their way. But Lord Channington had obviously stayed at this inn before. The landlord had hailed him as an honored guest and had promised the best bedroom for my lord’s “sister.” The news that she was to masquerade as his sister and that she was to have a separate bedchamber filled her with—what she privately thought as disproportionate—relief. And yet Lord Channington had done nothing to even hint he would expect any intimacy before marriage.

Honey thought of Lord Alistair. It was like having a death in the family. Time would heal the wound and by the time she saw him again it was more than likely she would be amazed that she had ever fancied herself to be in love with him.

She had put on the brown silk gown, finding to her dismay that these old clothes she had worn for the journey to London evoked more memories of Lord Alistair than any of her new finery would have done.

The inn was very quiet. The stone-mullioned windows, the rich oak cornices, and the wainscoted corridors showed the old building’s Tudor origin. Like so many other inns, it was probably called The Pope’s Head at one time and had had its name changed at the time of King Henry the Eighth in order to save the landlord from losing his own head.

Honey tidied her hair again. She was reluctant to go downstairs to join Lord Channington in the dining room. Now that she was on the road, now that she had left London behind, a little voice in her head was beginning to accuse her of being too precipitate. She raised the hairbrush again and her hand stopped in midair. She had been very ready to believe Lady Canon. What if… just supposing that Lord Alistair had set out to woo her on Lady Canon’s instructions and then found himself in love?

But that was ridiculous. Lady Canon was an eminently practical woman. If there had been any hope of her niece’s marrying the son of a duke, then she would have encouraged Honey for all she was worth.

Honey sighed and put down the hairbrush. The most comforting thing she could do was to live entirely in the minute, neither mourning yesterday or dreading the morrow.

Honey made her way downstairs at last, feeling more at ease.

Lord Channington jumped to his feet as soon as she entered the dining room. He pulled out a chair for her and then seized her hand and kissed it.