In the end, however, despite the fact that the ever-cheerful Gus Hastings had brought out a lantern to help the Viscount carve his way through the waist-deep drifts that had formed throughout the previous night and earlier part of the day, the growing darkness finally overcame even his obdurate resolution.
‘Best jack it in now, mate,’ advised the guard. ‘A good night’s sleep and we can ‘ave at it again come first light—less than twenty yards to go now, by my reckonin’.’
Utterly spent, and with every muscle in his body crying out for reprieve, Marcus at last agreed that it was time to quit, and, after virtually dragging himself back to the sanctuary of the kitchen, he collapsed into the chair by the fireside and thankfully accepted Mrs Webster’s offer of a hot toddy.
‘I’ll take myself off to my bed now, if you have no objections,’ he croaked wearily, after he had downed half of the spicy mixture. ‘If you could manage to dry my shirt by morning, I’d be most grateful.’
‘No problem at all, sir,’ Mrs Webster assured him, as she draped a large towel over his heaving shoulders. ‘I’ve put extra rugs and cushions on the settle, so you should get a fairly decent sleep tonight. Just pass me out your shirt and I’ll have it clean and ready for you when you need it.’
Ignoring the rest of the assembled company, the Viscount headed for his makeshift bed in the parlour, unbuttoning his soaking wet shirt as he went. Once inside his room, he peeled it off and passed it out to the waiting landlady, bidding her a weary goodnight as he closed the door.
‘Young fool was practically killing himself out there,’ observed the Captain, with a concerned shake of his head. ‘Must be desperate keen to get on his way.’
Desperately keen to get away from me, more likely, was Sophie’s forlorn thought, as she finished drying the last of the supper dishes. Having been watching Marcus out of the corner of her eye, in the vain hope of seeing some sign of conciliation from him, it had been made clear to her that he had no intention of giving her any chance to apologise for her recklessly hurtful remarks, the constant memory of which now filled her with a burning sense of self-recrimination. She found herself thinking that even the fact that he appeared to have been about to suggest that living under his protection might be preferable to the penury of her present position could not really be regarded as ample justification for the unbridled discourtesy of her response. Her six-month tenure with the Crayfords had left her with few illusions as to how the so-called haut monde conducted their lives. Indeed, she had soon learned that many females in circumstances similar to her own would have been only too glad to jump at such a generous offer especially—as she found herself obliged to admit, albeit with a somewhat rueful sigh—from so personable a man as Marcus Wolfe!
But then, she reasoned, as she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders in preparation to bidding her fellow travellers goodnight and quitting the room, her parents had brought her up to place a high regard on her self-respect, and, although it was true that her situation within the Crayford family was far from ideal, she was not yet reduced to selling herself in order to survive!
This spirited resolve was doomed to falter slightly as she made her way past the door to Marcus’s sleeping quarters and was unable to prevent herself from conjuring up a picture of his bronzed and muscular torso—shirtless now, of course—only to find herself then wondering if he slept in those thigh-hugging leather breeches or…!
Pulling herself up sharp, she all but fled up the stairs to her own bedchamber, where she was more than pleased to find that her young charge, having been liberally dosed with Mrs Webster’s willow-bark powders throughout the day, was now almost back to her normal petulant self. So much so that she was quite adamant in her refusal to allow her governess to borrow one of her many nightgowns, forcing Sophie to spend yet another night in her flimsy shift.
Rolling off his cushioned settle well before any sensible-minded lark would even consider the possibility of rising, Marcus flexed his aching muscles, pulled on his breeches and opened his bedroom door—to find there on the floor, just as promised, his shirt, newly washed and ironed. Even the hardly surprising discovery that none of the other stalwart navigators had yet risen from their beds did not deter the Viscount from rescuing his discarded shovel from where he had tossed it the previous evening and applying himself once more to his gruelling self-appointed task.
Having spent much of the night doing his best to dismiss all thoughts of Sophie from his mind, he had found himself racked with an unfathomable remorse at having treated her in such a cavalier manner. What in God’s name could I have been thinking of? he had asked himself over and over again. With two perfectly satisfactory mistresses already at his disposal and any number of bored young matrons indicating their willingness to make themselves available to him, his needs in that particular direction were more than adequately served. So what it was about this chestnut-haired, startlingly blue-eyed nobody that had managed to get under his skin he was hard pressed to comprehend. It was true that he had been without a woman for almost a week now, but surely, he thought savagely, as he dug his shovel into the snow, his sexual proclivities were not so all-consuming that he needed to latch on to the first pretty wench that he came across after a mere seven days? If so, heaven help him! He must really be turning into the godforsaken wastrel that his father had dubbed him! At that thought he could not help but let out a deep chuckle. If the old man could but see him now—knee-deep in a snowdrift! Knee-deep? He paused, leant on his shovel and stared at the blanketed terrain around him, suddenly realising that the snow’s depth, which had been well over three feet down at the lower part of the dig, was now down to less than two the closer he got to the highway. In just a couple of yards it would be possible to simply scrape it to one side to allow the carriage free access.
And so it was that, shortly after ten o’clock that same morning, the three other men having applied themselves to the task with extra vigour once they realised that their goal was no longer as insurmountable as it had seemed eighteen hours earlier, the passage was pronounced navigable. A hasty breakfast was gulped down as quickly as was humanly possible by those intending to travel, and by eleven o’clock the horses were poled up, the luggage strapped on to the roof and the driver declared the coach ready to depart.
With her four shillings and ninepence still intact— Mrs Webster having waved away all attempts at any sort of payment from her, on the grounds that she had achieved far more in the past two days than the absent local girl usually managed in a week—Sophie climbed into the carriage and took one of the window seats, with the well-wrapped-up Lydia at her side and Gibbons and Palfrey seated opposite. The Lucans, of course, would not be travelling to the Maidenhead post with them, but Sophie had promised to get a message to Mrs Lucan’s anxiously waiting mother, in order that that lady might set about organising her family’s safe removal from the little inn.
Looking out of the window, she could see that Jack Lucan and Marcus were standing ready to apply their shoulders to the rear of the vehicle, should the precipitous slope prove difficult to negotiate. She tried focussing her gaze on the back of Marcus’s head, desperately willing him to turn and look in her direction so that she could at least wave him farewell, but to no avail.
After two failed attempts to chivvy the lead horses up the slope, the coach at last began to move, and with Gus Hastings encouraging the horses at the front, and Marcus and Lucan hefting their backs at the rear, the ancient vehicle gradually began to lumber slowly through the man-made passageway.
Once on the turnpike, however, it was clear that the going had been made easier by the passage of several other vehicles already. Added to which, the sun had finally come out from behind the clouds and the snow was now beginning to melt quite rapidly. By midafternoon, Marcus hazarded, as he stood at the top of the incline trying to get his breath back, most of it would in all likelihood have disappeared completely, leaving him with nothing but a few painful memories that he could well do without. Time to saddle Jupiter a
nd continue his own interrupted journey, he reminded himself dismally. On to London, his original destination, or back to Bradfield to try and make peace with his father? At this point, he had no real idea of what he wanted to do.
Heaving a deep sigh, he turned to watch Gus climbing up on to the box next to Lapworthy. In doing so, he was unable to prevent himself casting a quick glance towards where Sophie was sitting, next to the carriage’s already misted-up window. Having made up his mind to avoid all contact with her since their altercation in the yard, he had not even joined in the round of farewells that had taken place when the travellers were ready to depart, electing instead to busy himself with the strapping on of the luggage. But now, as his eyes made contact with hers, his heart stopped, his stomach seemed to turn over and a sudden disquieting panic threatened to overwhelm him.
Barely stopping to think, he stepped forward, wrenched open the door of the carriage and, dipping his hand into his jacket pocket, extracted one of his calling cards. Thrusting it into the startled Sophie’s hand, he exhorted her to contact him should she ever require his help, then, slamming the door shut before she could deny him, he stepped away from the vehicle just as the driver gave the lead horse the office to move on.
A heartening surge of relief seemed to flood through his veins as he stood back and watched as the coach pulled away. Now, at least, she was not lost to him for ever. By giving Sophie his card he had made it possible for him to call on her in the socially accepted manner. After that—well, who knew what Fate might have in store for them? But even as the Viscount sought to console himself with this comforting thought, the cold trickle of impending disaster proceeded to sweep it abruptly away as all at once it came to him that he had not the slightest idea of Sophie’s place of residence—nor did he even know the name of the people who employed her! Any thoughts that he might have had about contacting her within the next few days were clearly doomed to failure!
Letting out a loud groan of dismay, he started after the carriage, though he was well aware that, with a team of frisky horses having been cooped up for two days at its head, his chances of catching up with the now swiftly moving vehicle were somewhat less than nil. After a fruitless dash of some fifty yards or so, he dragged to a gasping halt, his shoulders slumped in despair, and, disconsolately retracing his steps, he made his way back to the inn, hoping against hope that Mrs Webster could furnish him with the information he needed—information that had, for some inexplicable reason, suddenly become a most vital necessity!
Chapter Five
‘I still fail to understand why finding this blessed female is of such vital importance to you. Have you fallen in love with her, or what?’
‘Don’t talk rot!’
Strolling with his brother Giles down Oxford Street’s wide thoroughfare, Marcus let out a dismissive bark of laughter. Two weeks had passed since his return to the capital and he was still no further forward in his search. The tavern’s landlady having informed him that she knew very little about Sophie’s personal history, other than the fact that her father had been killed in action at Waterloo and that she had a younger brother who was away at school somewhere, Marcus had been reduced to enlisting his brother’s help. The Major, in his capacity of Chief Intelligence Officer at the Home Office, was equipped with the necessary seniority of rank to pull all sorts of strings that were unavailable to the Viscount himself. So far, however, it would seem that even Giles’s investigations had drawn a blank.
‘Well, as I’ve already told you, the only Flints that I’ve been able to get any leads on are a young rifleman from the ninety-forth and a Scottish Colour Sergeant, neither of whom were married with children. There was one other—for what it’s worth—but he was a highly decorated Lieutenant-Colonel, name of Pendleton-Flint. Can’t see that he would fit your—where in the hell are you off to now?’
Left standing speechless as he watched his brother tear across the road, dodging in and out of the heavy press of traffic and taking his life in his hands, Giles was set to wondering—and not for the first time during the past fourteen days—whether Marcus had suffered some sort of weird brainstorm when he had been benighted by that freak blizzard. That the Viscount had been acting rather oddly since that time would be something of an understatement, to say the least, especially in regard to the puzzling rekindling of his once close relationship with his brother Giles, from whose side Marcus had hardly strayed since his arrival back in town. No all-night drinking and gambling sessions, no mad escapades with those equally notorious associates of his and, somewhat more disturbing, not a single minute spent in the company of either of his rather comely mistresses! Instead, an apparently single-minded dedication applied to the task of uncovering the whereabouts of some mysterious governess—a task to which he had also managed to persuade Major Wolfe to devote not only his expertise but quite a significant portion of the manpower at his disposal, in addition.
With a groan of dismay, Giles heaved in a choking gasp of despair as he witnessed his brother narrowly managing to avoid being crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded brewer’s dray before leaping up on to the pavement opposite, where he skidded to a breathless halt in front of the rather drab-looking wench who was walking amongst the press of people there.
‘Mr Wolfe!’
Although her eyes had widened with delight at the unexpected pleasure of seeing Marcus again, Sophie’s cheeks immediately flushed scarlet as she realised how she had addressed him. ‘I do beg your pardon, my lord,’ she substituted hurriedly. ‘H-how nice to see you! H-how are you keeping? Well, I trust?’
The mere sight of him had reduced her to talking gibberish again, and she knew it. A fortnight of sleepless nights, tossing about on her hard, lumpy mattress, doing her best to put all thoughts of Marcus Wolfe out of her mind, had done little to improve her appearance. Her hair was, once again, encased in the dreaded lace cap, and both her nondescript bonnet and pelisse were as grey and as shabby as they had ever been. Since her shocked discovery that plain Mr Wolfe was—as indicated by the card that he had thrust into her hand at their parting—none other than Viscount Helstone, heir to the Bradfield earldom, and, according to what she had overheard of the servants’ chatter, more generally referred to as ‘Hellcat Helstone’ in the gossip columns of the popular press—she had alternated between thanking her lucky stars that their acquaintanceship had been cut short so precipitately and ruefully wondering how it might have developed had she been bold enough to accept his outrageous offer.
Mrs Crayford having held her personally responsible for Lydia’s severe cold on their belated return to the capital, the quality of her life in the Lennox Gardens residence had continued to deteriorate and, since there had been no snow in or around the centre of London at the time, her employer had refused to concede that the weather could have been so bad as to prevent their return at the pre-arranged time. This had not been helped by her daughter’s input that ‘There really didn’t seem to be that much snow about, as far as I could recall’—an unsurprising evaluation of the situation, given that the girl had spent the whole of the two days in bed, being waited on by her luckless companion.
Added to which, the young Arthur Crayford, his objective having been made only too clear on any number of previous occasions, had recently taken to waylaying Sophie in some deserted part of the house or other and pressing his lubricious attentions on her—a rather taxing situation that was beginning to cause her real concern.
Marcus, gazing down at her pale drawn face, could not help observing that she seemed to have lost weight since their last meeting, and as the possibility that she might be being deprived of food invaded his mind he found himself beset by a hot flood of rage.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, in reply to her garbled question. ‘How about you?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ came her automatic response, which might have caused the Viscount to laugh out loud, had his attention not been drawn to the dark shadows under her eyes.
By this time Giles
had managed to cross the road and was standing to one side, waiting for his brother to introduce him to the waif-like creature in the shabby attire. At his discreet cough, Marcus flushed, as he belatedly remembered his manners.
‘My brother—Major Wolfe,’ he said, not taking his eyes from Sophie’s stricken face as he waved a careless hand in Giles’s direction. ‘This lady is my Miss Flint, Giles.’
‘Good God!’
Marcus’s use of the possessive pronoun, followed so swiftly by his brother’s explosive epithet of astonishment, brought yet another rosy flush to Sophie’s cheeks, but on this occasion it was a flush of indignation. Raising her chin, she stared pointedly at Giles, favouring him with an example of one of the chilling glances that generally had the effect of putting even the most recalcitrant of her charges firmly in their place.
It worked, rendering the Major duly admonished.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ he stuttered as, casting a furious glare at Marcus and registering the unrepentant gleam of amusement in his brother’s eyes, he collected himself sufficiently to execute an elegant bow.
Before Sophie was able to respond to the Major’s gallant gesture, however, she felt herself being shunted forward as someone barged into her from behind, throwing her completely off balance. Letting out a cry of dismay, she would certainly have fallen to the ground had not Marcus, uttering an angry curse, thrown out his hands to grab at her and pulled her quickly towards him. For an instant the sudden surge of joy that cascaded through her at finding herself wrapped in the Viscount’s arms once more wiped all vestige of sense from Sophie’s mind, filling her entire being with a wholly primitive need to return the unexpected embrace. Almost of their own volition her hands reached up, and might well have attained their goal had she not suddenly become aware of the fact that her small beaded reticule, which normally dangled by its chain at her wrist, was no longer in its accustomed place.
The Rake's Final Conquest Page 6
