by M C Beaton
Amanda sank down in a kitchen chair and gazed around at the lengthening shadows of evening. She had walked from the Mail to Fox End in the late afternoon, stopping at the vicarage to pick up the keys. She did not feel up to long explanations, and allowed Mrs. Jolly to think that her aunt and Richard were to follow by travelling carriage.
She had fed Bluebell, the donkey, and then Richard’s horse. She had walked about the garden, planning where she would plant all sorts of useful vegetables.
Then she had saddled up Bluebell and ridden to Hember Cross to buy groceries, trying to parry a hundred questions from the townspeople and shopkeepers, the main one being: what was Miss Colby doing back so soon when they had all heard she would be in London for the Season?
Amanda murmured replies that her visit was temporary. She had merely come home after hearing of Mr. Cartwright-Browne’s departure to make sure everything was in order. The townspeople had looked askance at her dusty dress and careworn appearance, but kept their dark thoughts to themselves.
Bluebell decided he wanted to go home as slowly as possible, stopping to look dreamily over hedges or crop grass, until Amanda dismounted and searched through a pannier of groceries to find the sugar loaves.
Once home, she had packed the groceries away and made herself a cold meal. The house seemed dark and silent.
Suddenly she felt nervous. The shadows began to seem threatening, and the once-familiar country noises, sinister.
She decided to light a fire in the morning room. As she crossed the hall, she nearly dropped her candle in fright as an owl hooted from the nearby woods.
Amanda lit the fire and sat back on her heels and watched the blaze.
So this is what her life was going to be like. Perhaps she would have to spend the rest of her days here alone, a shabby spinster, eating only what she could grow in the garden. Perhaps Aunt Matilda might learn after all of the robbery, and decide to stay forever with Mrs. Fitzgerald.
Amanda realized she had never lived alone before. She felt small and infinitely vulnerable. What if Mr. Brotherington should call and start to berate her?
Any thoughts of Lord Hawksborough had been kept at bay by the dash to Oxford and the return to Fox End. Now, all at once, she remembered the warmth and love in his eyes when he had said he would break his engagement.
Hot tears poured down Amanda’s face. There was a sick, gnawing ache inside her and a terrible feeling of loss and mourning.
The sudden hard thud of hooves on the road outside, approaching at a great rate, made her cock her head and listen anxiously. The sound of galloping hooves came nearer and nearer, and then slowed, and then stopped.
And then she heard the banshee wail of the iron gates leading into the drive of Fox End being opened.
Almost immediately afterwards there was a great hammering on the door and a voice crying, “Amanda!”
Amanda slowly got to her feet, and then she gave a great sigh. It must be Richard.
Richard come home to say good-bye.
She rushed and opened the door.
The tall cloaked figure of Lord Hawksborough stood on the step.
“Oh, God!” said Amanda, reeling back, a hand to her lips.
“‘My lord’ will do very well, Amanda,” he said, walking past her into the hall.
Amanda led the way into the morning room.
She stood with her hands behind her back.
“My lord,” she began, “I must try to explain—”
“Do not explain.” He smiled. “Show me.”
“Charles! You forgive me?”
“No, you must marry me as soon as possible. That is to be your punishment.”
Amanda ran into his arms and buried her head against his chest.
“And Richard?” came her muffled voice.
“Back at Oxford.”
“Oh, Charles, you are too good. I cannot marry you.”
“You must. I did not bring a carriage. You have no chaperone. You are a fallen woman.”
“You are only marrying me because you are sorry for me.”
“I am not sorry for you in the slightest, my sweeting,” said his lordship, pushing her chin up so that he could see her eyes. “I am sorry for myself. I cannot live without you.”
He bent his head and kissed her long and lingeringly with such tenderness and sweetness that Amanda began to cry again out of sheer happiness.
“I’ve never known such a watering pot,” he murmured. “Will you cry the whole time?”
“No, I shall stop. You must have some refreshment, Charles. You must be famished.”
“I am,” he said, pulling her back into his arms and kissing her again.
“I did not mean that precisely,” said Amanda when she could, giggling. “You make me feel quite wanton.”
“I can do more than that,” he said huskily, swinging off his cloak and throwing it over a chair. “Now,” he said, his arms about her again, “where is that mouth of yours? I adore it as much as you admire my leg.”
“Charles, how did you manage to forgive me?”
“Richard told me we were in love with each other.”
“Richard! Richard cannot see beyond the end of his nose.”
“What fond contempt you two have for each other! Oh, Amanda…”
He fell to kissing her again, at great length, and with such expertise that Amanda eventually broke a little away from him and whispered, “I do not mind if you stay the night, Charles.”
“I am going out to stable my horse and I have every intention of staying the night. But not in your bed. No more eccentricities or irregularities. We will do the proper thing and wait for our wedding night, which will be just as soon as I can arrange it. Now, kiss me again.”
Mr. Brotherington slowly backed away from the window of the morning room and went off home, shaking his head with gloomy satisfaction.
“Well, what did you find out, Papa?” asked his daughter, Priscilla.
“Just as I thought,” he said.
Mr. Brotherington and Priscilla had heard reports in the town that Miss Colby had returned, looking ill and shabby. Curiosity had overcome him, and he had crept to look in the windows of Fox End, only to see Amanda Colby being ruthlessly kissed by a London swell.
“What happened?” nearly screamed Priscilla.
“She’s gone to the bad, like I always said she would. There’s no sign o’ that aunt or brother o’ hers, and they certainly didn’t arrive in any travelling carriage like she said they would. I sneaked round by the stables and there’s only the horse and donkey. But there’s this great horse tethered outside. So I sees a light in one o’ the downstairs windows and peeps in. And there’s that wretched Amanda Colby being hugged and kissed by a London buck.”
“Ooooh, Papa! Who was he?”
“Well, now you come to ask, it was that Lord Hawksborough, I think. And he don’t mean marriage. Men don’t, you know, when they go stark staring mad with passion like that. There’s one blessing—that’s something that will never happen to you, Priscilla.… Now, the Lord ha’ mercy, what have I said to make you burst into tears?”
