She threw the Marriage Certificate that she had been holding in her hand down on the bed.
Then she too, a little unsteadily, walked towards the door.
“God Bless the bride and groom!” she said mockingly. “And may you both rot in Hell!”
She went with Harry from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Valessa felt that she was turned to stone.
This could not be happening! It was a nightmare from which she would soon wake up.
Yet at the back of her mind she had the terrifying feeling that it was true.
She felt her heart beating because she was so afraid.
Her mouth was so dry that she could hardly open her lips and it was then she realised that she had been drugged.
The Marquis walked across the room to stand with his back to the fireplace.
Valessa realised that he was looking at her and she shivered.
She wondered frantically what she could say.
How could she explain to him that she did not know what was happening?
Suddenly, as if he had made up his mind, he said harshly,
“Go and get ready. We will leave here as soon as it is light!”
Chapter Five
As the Marquis finished speaking, he walked slowly and with dignity from the room.
He did not look back at Valessa, but she felt the vibrations of his anger emanating towards her like a tidal wave.
She felt as if her head was filled with cotton wool and her legs were not her own but very slowly she managed to pull herself off the bed.
As she did so, she looked down at the Marriage Certificate where Sarah had thrown it and thought that it could not be true.
Sarah had said that a Special Licence had been signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Parson who had married them was genuine.
Valessa felt herself shiver.
Then, when she managed to reach the door, she found herself in the corridor where her bedroom was situated.
There was nobody about although she could hear a number of people laughing and talking downstairs.
When she walked into her room, she found that there was no maid waiting for her, but to her surprise she saw a large trunk by the wardrobe.
The trunk was open and she could see that the gowns Sarah had given her had already been packed.
She thought with horror how every detail of this degrading charade had been thought out.
They had anticipated that the Marquis would leave as soon as possible and, because they were married, he would have to take her with him.
She wanted to refuse to run away, but she thought that if she did so he might perhaps force her in front of the servants to obey him.
It was difficult to think or to plan what she should do.
She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and saw that it was not yet two o’clock in the morning.
This meant that if the Marquis wished to leave when it was light she would have to wait for over four hours.
She felt utterly and completely exhausted.
It was difficult to walk, let alone think, so she undressed and got into bed.
The milk that had been left for her the previous night was on a table by the bedside.
When she had drunk some of it, her throat did not feel so dry. But she knew the drug was making her stupid.
She fell asleep almost at once.
It seemed only a few minutes before the maid’s voice beside her said,
“It’s six o’clock, miss, and ’is Lordship wishes to leave in ’alf-an-hour.”
For a moment Valessa could not understand what was happening.
Then she remembered.
“I must get up,” she said, speaking more to herself than to the maid.
“I’ve brought you some breakfast, miss. You’ll feel better after you’ve ’ad a cup of coffee.”
Valessa had the idea that the maid thought that she had drunk too much the night before.
Then, when she saw the white gown lying crumpled on the floor where she had thrown it, she could understand what the woman was thinking.
Somehow it did not seem to matter.
All she wanted was to get away and never see Harry Grantham or Sarah Barton again, who had tricked her as well as the Marquis.
As she forced herself to eat her breakfast and drink the coffee, she was thinking to herself that what had happened could not be legal.
But she had the terrifying feeling that it was.
Surely, even Sarah could not have faked a Special Licence and a Marriage Certificate.
Then, as she drank a little more of the coffee, she held her breath.
The Parson who had signed it had written ‘J. Rowlandson’ and she remembered who he was. He was the Vicar of Ridgeley where The Towers was situated.
Once when their own Rector was ill he had come to their village to take the Service on Sunday. He had been a younger man then and his hair was not white as it had been last night.
But that was why, Valessa now realised, she had thought that she had seen him before.
“It’s true! It’s true!” the jeering voices of the men who had laughed at them last night seemed to be repeating in her brain.
She had the terrifying feeling that they might be waiting downstairs to laugh and jeer at her again.
The maid was at the wardrobe taking down the clothes that had been left for her to wear.
Valessa saw that there was a warm gown and to wear over it was a thick coat trimmed with fur.
Because they were Sarah’s, she wanted to refuse to put them on, but there was no sign of the gown and coat that she had arrived in and she told herself that she would be foolish to leave without the trunk.
She suddenly remembered the envelope containing the money that Sarah had promised her.
She looked in the drawer of the dressing table and for one moment of horror she realised that it was not there.
Then the maid who had buttoned up her gown said,
“’Er Ladyship tells me to pack everythin’ when you’d gone down to dinner last night and I puts the letter that was in the drawer in your bag.”
There was a satin reticule on one of the chairs and Valessa thought with a feeling of relief that at least she would be independent of the Marquis.
She would ask him to take her home or perhaps to a Posting inn where she could hire a carriage.
Anything would be better than having to be further embroiled with Sarah Barton.
She remembered the spiteful way that she had spoken last night and her rudeness and the look of venom that had been in her eyes as she glared at the Marquis.
‘She is common and she is horrible!’ Valessa thought. ‘I hope I never see her again!’
The maid brought her an attractive bonnet that matched her coat and, as she was putting it on, there was a knock on the door.
When the maid opened it, a man’s voice asked,
“Is the trunk ready?”
“Yes, it is,” the maid answered, “but you’ll ’ave to strap it up for me, Mr. Bowers.”
“That’s all right.”
He walked into the room, saw Valessa and said,
“’Mornin’, miss! His Lordship wants to get off as soon as you’re ready. The horses are comin’ round now from the stables.”
“I am – ready.”
She had the idea that the man was the Marquis’s valet.
As he had picked up the trunk and was carrying it outside, the maid said,
“There’s a bonnet box, too, Mr. Bowers, and don’t you forget it!”
“I won’t,” Bowers replied.
There was obviously a footman in the corridor waiting to help him and Valessa had heard another man’s voice speaking outside.
Then, as they must have moved away, she gave a last glance at herself in the mirror and saw that she was very pale.
There were also dark lines under her eyes, which she thought must have come from the drug that had been given her.
“Goodbye!” she said to the maid. “I am – sorry I have no money to thank you with – but actually – as you have very likely guessed, I have not a – penny to my name!”
“That be all right, miss,” the maid replied, “and good luck! Wherever you be goin’!”
Valessa thought that she would most definitely need it, but she did not say so.
She hurried down the Grand Staircase aware as she did so that her legs still felt a little strange.
The Marquis was in the hall, one footman helping him into his overcoat, another handing him his high hat and gloves.
To Valessa’s relief there was no sign of anybody else.
She only hoped that they had all drunk far too much last night to be aware of what was happening this morning.
The Marquis’s phaeton was waiting outside.
Although Valessa was not aware of it, the Marquis had designed it for himself for travelling. Unlike most phaetons it had room for the luggage underneath the high seat at the back that was intended for the groom.
He preferred to have his valet travel with him and the man was there when he arrived and he did not have to wait for the brake to turn up.
This for other travellers carried the servants and the luggage from place to place.
His grooms travelled with him as outriders and Valessa noticed that there were two of them waiting beside the phaeton, mounted on superb horses.
One of them was Saladin.
A footman helped her in while the Marquis climbed in on the other side.
A thick fur-lined rug was placed over her knees and she thought that, as there had been a frost last night and the sun had not yet risen, it was very cold.
The Marquis drove off.
Only when they had gone a short distance down the drive did Valessa say in a small, hesitating little voice,
“Would it – be possible for you – ?”
Before she could say any more, the Marquis, without turning his head said,
“Be silent! I have no wish to speak to you until we reach London!”
The note of cold authority in his voice made her conscious of how very angry he was.
She looked at him without revealing that she was doing so.
She saw by the squareness of his chin and the tightness of his lips that he was forcing himself to be self-controlled.
She moved as far away from him as she could, squeezing herself against the side of the phaeton.
The seat was heavily padded and was very comfortable, but she felt nevertheless as if she sat on a table of nails.
She wanted to tell him that it was not her fault and that she had been deceived just as he had.
But he had told her to be silent and she wondered how long that silence would have to last.
The Marquis was calculating that Ridgeley Towers was eighty miles from London.
He remembered that many years ago the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, had broken the record driving to Brighton.
His Royal Highness had driven fifty-three miles in five and a half hours and the Marquis was certain that he could do better with his horses.
That was what he had planned yesterday when he had decided to leave promptly after breakfast and arrive in London in time for dinner.
Now he was determined to get to London as quickly as possible.
Then he had another plan to put into operation, but he had no intention of discussing it with the woman who was sitting beside him.
How was it possible, he asked himself, that he could have been tricked in such an outrageous manner?
He had thought, perhaps conceitedly, that Sarah loved him.
It was what invariably happened when he had an affaire de coeur with one of the great London beauties.
Now he knew that what had happened was in fact his own fault.
Sarah had certainly not been suitable from the point of view of breeding, nor for that matter in character, to be his wife.
But she was not a ‘Cyprian’ or ‘a bit of muslin’ and they could be paid off when he was no longer interested.
Sarah wanted marriage. She therefore considered herself to be intolerably insulted that he did not think her good enough to be the Marchioness of Wyndonbury.
Any other woman would, he knew, have wept on his shoulder. She would have let him see how unhappy he had made her, but ultimately, of course, she would have accepted the inevitable.
Sarah had too much of her father in her.
Fred Wicket had, as the Marquis knew, fought like a tiger to reach the top of the tree, oblivious of whom he annihilated on the way up.
Sarah had wanted to annihilate him socially and he thought that she had undoubtedly succeeded.
He had barely noticed this creature who was now his wife when he had spoken to her last night.
Now he could hardly remember what she looked like, except that she had been very thin if well dressed.
If Sarah was right and she came from the gutter, what could he do about it?
He would see the faces of his relations when they learnt that he, whom they had begged and pleaded to marry, had now a wife.
She doubtless spoke with a Cockney accent.
She, however, would be triumphant, he thought despairingly, as Sarah had been last night when she had held up the Marriage Certificate.
Then her face, which he had thought so attractive, had been grotesquely ugly as she had jeered at him spitefully.
“Your wife who, whether you like it or not, is the Marchioness of Wyndonbury.”
He could hear the laughter of the men staring at him from the foot of the bed and he could see an expression, which he thought was one of shock, as well as of surprise, in the eyes of the women behind them.
He could imagine how the story would be repeated and repeated all over London.
In the drawing rooms and boudoirs of his friends, the Clubs of St. James’s and, of course, in Buckingham Palace where the King and Queen would not be amused.
The Marquis was intelligent enough to know that he had been successful for too long.
Quite a number of people, even those who habitually accepted his hospitality, would be glad to see him knocked off his pedestal.
His horses had been too frequently first past the Winning Post.
He had captured the hearts of too many beautiful women.
He had taken away a pretty ‘Cyprian’, as in the case of Harry, in whom another man had been interested.
Of course he knew that there must be people who were both envious and jealous.
He would be pilloried as a fool who had been tricked into having a woman from the gutter foisted on him when he was too drugged to be aware of what was happening.
It was humiliating enough to realise that he had been unconscious while he was being married.
He remembered now how after the ladies had left the room the port was passed round the table.
After twenty minutes the men had followed and Harry, who was taking it upon himself to play the host, had said,
“Wait a minute, Wyndonbury! Sarah asked me to offer you a glass of a very special port that is more mature than anything we have been drinking so far.”
“I really think I have had enough,” the Marquis remembered saying.
“I should have thought of it earlier,” Harry said, “but give it a try because if you like it Sarah has a case for you and she thought that you would like to give one to His Majesty.”
The Marquis was well aware that the King was always prepared to receive a present and he was quite certain that anything Sarah bought would be extremely expensive and also very good.
He had therefore let Harry pour the port into another glass.
He had sipped it and thought it had ‘body’ and was different from the rather light port that he had been drinking before.
“What do you think?” Harry asked.
He had taken two more sips.
Then, as he considered what he should say, he felt the room going dark and remembered nothing
more.
‘How could I have anticipated that Grantham would behave like that?’ he now asked himself.
It was hard to believe that because he had taken Yvonne away from him Harry had been plotting and scheming to have his revenge.
As the Marquis drove on, he felt the sound of the horses’ hoofs and the wheels as they turned seemed to be asking the same thing,
‘What are you going to do about this woman? What can you do?’
*
At first Valessa found the tremendous speed they were travelling at exhilarating. She had never moved so fast before.
She was aware that the Marquis drove as well as he rode and with an expertise that she had never seen before.
She knew how her father would have enjoyed driving these perfectly matched chestnuts.
Just as he would have been entranced by the movement of Saladin who she could see galloping in the field beside them.
The groom on him was a good rider, but Valessa could not forget how magnificent the Marquis had been when he took the jumps in the steeplechase.
‘At least I shall have that to remember,’ she thought.
Then she began to plan that, when she could speak to the Marquis, she would tell him that she would go back to the country and live in her own home.
If she was very careful with the money that Sarah had given her, she would be able to refurnish her bedroom and the sitting room and then she would have enough left over to last for some time.
She would keep out of his way and perhaps later, if he did not wish her to starve, he would give her a small allowance.
If not, she would go to London.
Because she was so used to telling herself stories, she found herself going over every detail of what she would do.
She believed that there were Domestic Bureaux where she could find out what sort of positions were available.
She was sure that she could teach young children, although perhaps she looked too young as she had a feeling that Governesses were usually women of middle-age.
Perhaps she could be a companion to an old lady, but then again she might be too young.
‘You will have to help me, Mama,’ she said in her heart.
Then, almost as if she had forgotten his existence, she glanced at the Marquis.
Revenge Is Sweet Page 8
