by Mary Nichols
‘The whole escapade was unseemly,’ her mother said irritably, taking a slice of toast and looking at it as if it might poison her. ‘I wonder at Stacey embarking upon it. Unless he don’t care for his good name any more.’
‘I don’t suppose he does, if his brother has been too hasty in taking it over. Is it any wonder he prefers to be an adventurer and pretend to be the Dark Knight, which I know now he is not?’
‘Is that what he said he was?’ Harriet asked, barely following the gist of what her daughter was saying.
‘The Dark Knight? No, he denied it, and later when we were held up by the high toby ourselves and one of them as good as admitted he was the Dark Knight I knew he could not be. I do not know if I was glad of it or not, for the Dark Knight has a romantic reputation, but I should not like the Captain to be hanged for a scamp…’
‘Molly, what are you saying?’ her mother asked weakly. ‘I begin to think all those romantical books you read have turned your head. Such a Banbury Tale I never heard.’
‘I am sorry, Mama; I did not mean to displease you, but there is so little to do at Stacey Manor, and when the Captain came to see Lady Connaught and rode out in the middle of the night…’
‘Middle of the night? You left in the middle of the night?’ Her mother’s voice was almost a squawk.
‘Yes, but I had no thought of coming to you then; it was only later, when my horse threw me and the Captain took me to an inn to recover, it came to me that it would be a prodigious adventure to come to London.’
‘He took you to a common inn?’
‘Yes, but he behaved very properly. After that we travelled in a coach with four beautiful bays and were never without a night’s lodging though I own he sometimes had to play cards to pay for it. And he insisted on Sergeant Upjohn’s wife travelling with us…’
‘Sergeant Upjohn’s wife! You think a common soldier’s wife is an adequate chaperon, do you? My life! You might as well have had none at all.’
‘Mrs Upjohn is clean and respectable and very polite and…’
‘Oh, that is the outside of enough! Captain Stacey, as you call him, has cut himself off from his family and left himself without a feather to fly with, so how could he afford to hire a coach and four?’
‘He did not hire it, he borrowed it. It belongs to Lord Brancaster.’
‘Lord Brancaster? Where does he come into it?’
‘He doesn’t, but we met his son, Mr Andrew Bellamy, and he was kind enough to lend us the carriage.’ She was very careful not to say anything about the duel.
‘If I had known this last night, I would certainly have called him to account for it. He has quite ruined your reputation and mine along with it. What Tadbury will say when he hears of it, I dare not imagine.’
‘What has it to do with the Marquis?’
‘Are you a sapskull, girl, that you can say that? I had all but got him to the point of proposing, but he will think twice of it when he realises what a scapegrace I have for a daughter.’
Molly found it difficult not to smile at the idea of the Marquis of Tadbury becoming her third stepfather. Why, he was nearer her age than her mother’s! ‘Surely there are others just as eligible?’ she said. ‘He looks so…so young.’
‘I am tired of being married to old men, Molly; they have a tendency to die on me. And the Marquis is very rich and very careful of me, which so many men of the haut monde are not. And I fancy myself as a marchioness. You would not ruin it for me, would you?’
‘Of course not. But I do not see that we have to tell the world how I came to London. You need only say your daughter has come to keep you company…’
‘My daughter!’ Harriet wailed. ‘No one knows I have a daughter—or if they do they think she is no more than a child.’
‘You will have to tell the Marquis some time,’ Molly said with perfect logic. ‘You cannot deny my existence if you mean to accept his suit.’
‘Yes, I know, but I was going to lead up to it when I was sure of him. Now he will hear of it from Stacey, you may be sure.’
‘The Captain won’t say anything. My goodness, he was a most reluctant escort.’
‘Not so reluctant as to refuse,’ Harriet said with heavy irony.
‘No, but the circumstances made it difficult for him. There was all that business when the stage was held up and being questioned by the watch and there not being another stage until the next day. And I persuaded him that it would be better if he travelled with a wife…’
‘Wife!’ shrieked Harriet. ‘You mean to say you have been passing yourself off as Stacey’s wife?’
‘Only for one night, and he did not come to bed…’
‘Enough!’ Harriet said weakly. ‘I do not want to hear any more of this. You have given me a megrim and I shall have to go and lie down again.’ She left the room, the back of her hand to her forehead.
Molly sighed and took Miss Austen’s latest novel from the shelf, thinking to take it out to the garden, then changed her mind. She went to the kitchen and asked Perrins to send the potboy round to the mews to have Jenny saddled and brought to the door.
Returning to her room, she scrambled into the new habit which Duncan had included in his purchases in Norwich, pulled on her boots and set her feather-trimmed riding hat on her fair curls. Ten minutes later, having asked Perrins for directions, she was riding her mare down Oxford Street towards Hyde Park, completely ignoring the fact that she ought to have had an escort.
It was a lovely summer day, the sort of serene day when everyone should be happy. Indeed the faces of those about her seemed cheerful enough as they went about their daily business. An errand boy was whistling, a young man and a girl were deep in a conversation which was making them smile, a bird sang from its perch on a railing, ignoring the cat that was sunning itself on a step.
The shops were open and people passed in and out of their portals, carrying packages; phaetons and tilburys and curricles went up and down the busy street; a stagecoach rattled along, the guard tooting his horn to let the next stop know they were coming. Even the barefoot beggars called cheerily. Molly’s spirits lifted as she rode. How could she despair when the world was such a lovely place?
She turned in at the gates of the park which was crowded with people in carriages of every description, all dressed in the latest mode, going at a sedate pace, nodding to acquaintances, stopping every now and again to exchange pleasantries and the latest on-dit. Were they talking about her? Her mother seemed to think they would be and it had worried her more than a little. According to Mama, reputations could be lost with a single word, or even no word at all, if someone of importance were to cut one dead.
The carriageway was divided from the ride by a fence. She found her way round it and set off at a trot to try and dispel the image of her and her mother being the subject of everyone’s gossip. It was foolish, she told herself after a few minutes; no one knew who she was; her mother had taken care of that.
Her thoughts occupied her so completely she was unaware of the rider coming towards her until he pulled up in front of her, forcing her to stop. ‘Why, I do believe it is Miss Martineau,’ he said, doffing his curly-brimmed beaver and bowing from the waist.
‘Mr Bellamy.’ She inclined her head in acknowledgement, while controlling Jenny, who objected to being reined in so unexpectedly.
‘All alone?’ he asked, looking about for her escort.
‘As you see.’
He was dressed in a single-breasted coat of bath cloth and buckskin riding breeches tucked into tasselled topboots. His starched muslin cravat fell over the top of a yellow and black striped waistcoat, reminding her of a bumble bee. He was, she supposed, what was called a pink of the ton.
‘Then please allow me to accompany you.’
‘I am sure you have other things to do.’
‘Nothing of more importance, my dear. I am at your service.’
Molly wasn’t at all sure she liked him addressing her as ‘my dear’ but she did no
t comment. The Captain did it all the time and she assumed that was how young men went on in the haut monde. ‘Thank you, sir, but I was thinking of turning back.’
‘Not yet, surely? Riding is a pleasure on a day such as this; we should take advantage of it, for tomorrow it may well be raining. Do you not agree?’
‘Yes,’ she said doubtfully, wondering whether she ought not to give him a set-down. But how could she do that when he had been so good as to allow them the use of his family coach? ‘I did not thank you properly for lending us your carriage,’ she said as he turned and walked his horse beside hers.
‘Think nothing of it.’
‘Oh, but I do! And for the Captain to call you out was not at all the thing.’
‘How is the gallant Captain? No permanent damage done, I trust?’
‘He was recovering well when I last saw him. But it was unkind of you to shoot him when he had refrained from firing.’
‘One of us had to do something; we could not stand facing each other for the rest of the day. And I only winged him.’
‘Why did he call you out?’
‘Do you not know?’
‘No, he would not say.’
‘Then neither will I.’ He smiled. ‘Where is he? I am surprised he is not with you today.’
‘I don’t know where he is. He was only my escort for the duration of the journey to London, you know. I do hope you will not put any other interpretation on it.’
‘If you say that was all there was to it, then of course I will not.’ He reached out for her reins and drew both horses to a stop. ‘Shall we walk a little?’
He jumped down and held out his hands to help her dismount. She looked about her, wondering whether she ought to comply, but none of the riders who were hacking up and down was paying them the least attention, so she slid from the saddle and stood beside him.
‘There, that is better,’ he said. ‘We cannot converse properly across the backs of our horses.’
They walked side by side, leading their mounts, but she felt uncomfortable about it and wished she had given him the right about when he had first approached her. What would her mother say if she knew where her daughter was at that moment? Would she put it down to another of her embarrassing scrapes or would she be pleased that someone was fixing an interest in her?
‘Miss Martineau, may I call on you?’
She pondered this for a moment. Calling meant no more than paying respects, after all. ‘If you wish. Mama will want to thank you for the use of the carriage, I am sure. But I do not know how long I shall remain in town.’
‘Not remain! Oh, how could you be so unkind as to give the world a glimpse of your loveliness and then disappear again? I declare it is cruelty of the most severe.’
She laughed at this piece of nonsense and answered lightly. ‘Oh, sir, you put me to the blush.’
‘And a very pretty blush it is,’ he said, caressing her cheek with his finger.
‘I think we should mount again,’ she said, turning away in confusion.
‘So soon?’ He took her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him. ‘We have hardly had a chance to converse at all.’
She refused to look up and he put a finger under her chin and raised it so that she was forced to look into his eyes. She shivered apprehensively and he, aware of it, smiled. ‘Are you afraid of me?’
‘No. Should I be?’
‘Not at all.’ He lowered his mouth to hers but he had hardly touched her lips before she realised what was about to happen and pulled herself away. ‘Mr Bellamy, I must go. Mama will be concerned.’
‘Very well.’ He sighed melodramatically. ‘Another time perhaps, when we can contrive to be alone and you have learned to relax in my company.’ He stooped and cupped his hands for her foot and in a moment she was in the saddle again where she felt more at ease.
They had almost reached the gate when she saw Duncan approaching on Caesar and her heart suddenly seemed to beat twice as fast as usual and her hands to shake. He was riding leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. He could not have seen what had taken place, could he? Oh, she prayed he had not!
He reined in when they met. He looked very impressive in the uniform of a hussar and she wondered if he had rejoined his regiment. Did that mean she would not see him again? The thought made her suddenly sad.
‘Miss Martineau, I hope I find you well?’ he said, searching her face, trying to read she knew not what, but she felt the colour flare in her cheeks and it put her on the defensive.
‘Very well, thank you, Captain.’
He turned to Andrew, forcing himself to be polite for Molly’s sake. ‘Bellamy. I did not know you were in town.’
‘How could I resist, when this lovely lady is here? We have been having quite a coze, you know. Delightful.’
‘I am sure.’ Not by a flicker of the eye did he betray his deep concern. ‘Molly, allow me to escort you home.’
‘I have Mr Bellamy to escort me,’ she retorted. ‘And I do not remember giving you permission to call me Molly.’
‘It seems you have been given your congé, Stacey,’ Bellamy said with a wide grin which made Duncan want to hit him again. ‘I should accept it with a good grace, if I were you.’
‘Miss Martineau?’ Duncan appealed to her.
In spite of feeling uncomfortable with Mr Bellamy, Molly objected to being treated like a child by Duncan and so she smiled and picked up her reins again. ‘Please do not trouble yourself, Captain. Mr Bellamy will see me safely home.’
He could not insist and was obliged to withdraw. She was still chasing her dream, still looking for her romantic hero. Did she think she would find him in Bellamy? He was sure marriage was not on the young man’s mind, not to Molly, who had neither pedigree nor fortune, and he was afraid he was more likely to offer her carte blanche. Would Molly have sense enough to realise what was happening before it was too late? He doubted it.
There was nothing for it; he must join the haut monde and set out to try and win her hand in the way she dreamed of. But if he stayed in town, who was he to be? Not the Earl of Connaught; that was no longer possible. He supposed that Molly’s assumption that he was a distant cousin of the Staceys was as good an identity as any and one which would be easier to maintain than a complete fiction, especially as he had always been known as Tony as a child to distinguish him from his father. Duncan Stacey was not a name anyone in today’s haut monde would recognise, except Harriet who had known him since he was in leading strings, and she was too busy furthering her own ends to spread tattle about him.
Molly’s escort chattered inconsequentially all the way back to Holles Street in spite of the fact that she was, for the most part, silent. She had been very rude to the Captain and she was burning with shame. Did he really think she preferred Mr Bellamy’s company to his?
He helped her dismount at the gate and escorted her to the door. ‘Thank you for your escort, Mr Bellamy,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘Oh, you do not mean to send me away without introducing me to your mama, do you? I have been looking forward to meeting her.’
‘I am not sure she is at home.’
‘I understand,’ he said, grinning. ‘You do not wish her to know you were riding out alone. Your secret is safe with me.’ He took her hand and bowed over it. ‘But I shall expect to be rewarded.’
‘Rewarded? But I have no money…’
He laughed. ‘It was not money I was thinking of, my dear, but the opportunity to ride with you again. I shall call on you and suggest it. Adieu, my fair beauty.’
He turned and mounted his horse, just as the door was opened by Perrins. She hurried inside and up the stairs to change out of her habit.
‘Molly, where have you been?’
She looked up, startled to see her mother at the head of the stairs. As she was obviously dressed for riding, there was nothing for it but to tell the truth. ‘For a ride, Mama; it was such a lovely day I could not resist it.’
> ‘Alone?’
‘I set out alone, Mama, but I met Mr Bellamy and he gave me his escort.’
Harriet sighed with exasperation. ‘Go and change into something more suitable for a young lady at home and then come into my boudoir. We must talk some more.’
Molly obeyed and a few minutes later was seated watching her mother, who stood beside her bed contemplating what to wear for a visit to the theatre that evening. The choice was between a green taffeta, trimmed with pink silk roses, and a ruby-red velvet banded in black and white braid.
‘Now tell me exactly what happened this morning,’ she said.
‘Nothing happened, Mama. We met while riding and Mr Bellamy offered to escort me, nothing more.’
‘Who else saw you?’
‘There were a great many people about, but they did not take any notice of me. Why should they? They do not know me.’
‘Thank goodness for that. But you will not do it again, do you hear me? Until I decide what is to be done, you will confine yourself to the house and garden…’
‘But, Mama…’
‘I blame Tony Stacey. When he does decide to put in an appearance—which give me leave to doubt, for he is assuredly more concerned with his own pleasures than the ruined hopes of a young lady—I shall ring a peal over him for leading you astray.’
‘Mama, that is unfair! He has not ruined my hopes and he did not lead me astray. He was always very proper and kind and generous. I told you that. If it had not been for him I would have had no clothes…’
‘Rags!’ her mother said, referring to Molly’s purchases and not the velvet gown she had just picked up and was eyeing critically. ‘I could wear my rubies with this. But I am not sure they suit my colouring. What do you think?’
Molly was fairly sure her mother did not own any rubies and the necklace which lay on her dressing table was almost certainly fake. ‘I think they would look very fine.’
‘But the green shows off my figure better, does it not?’ She stood up and held the taffeta gown against her ample bosom, then clad in amber sarcenet. ‘And the emeralds have more sparkle. The same colour as my eyes.’
‘Whichever you like, Mama. They are both beautiful.’
