The astounded silence that followed this declaration was broken only by Giles’s spluttering cough as the piece of ham he had been chewing became lodged in the back of his throat, threatening to choke him.
Getting to his feet and striding around the breakfast table to administer a hefty thump to his brother’s back, thereby relieving his discomfort, Marcus took the opportunity to shoot the scarlet-faced Major a warning look, indicating that he would be the one to decide about which aspects of Sophie’s history his parents might need to be apprised.
Resuming his seat, he turned to face his still stunned father and said, ‘In case you might be wondering, sir, the lady’s name is Miss Sophie Pendleton-Flint. It is my intention to bring her to meet you both sometime in the very near future. I would be glad to have your assurances that you will be prepared to receive my—fiancee—and welcome her into the family.’
A suspicious glint in his eye, the Earl regarded his son silently for some moments before saying, ‘Somewhat out of character for you, isn’t it, this sudden need to observe the proprieties?’
Swallowing the retaliatory retort that had instantly sprung to his lips at his father’s contentious barb, Marcus curled his fingers tightly round the stem of his glass. ‘Comes to all of us in the end, I dare say,’ he said, striving to maintain his temper. ‘I should have thought you would be glad to hear that I am finally prepared to meet your demands and relieve you of some of the burdens you carry.’
‘Enough, you two. I beg of you!’ interposed the Countess, reaching out to grasp hold of her son’s clenched fingers. ‘This is no time to re-enact past grievances! We must look to the future and I, for one, cannot wait to meet your chosen wife, Marcus. Miss—um—Pendleton-Flint, did you say? It is not a name I recognise—is the family new in Town?’
‘The lady is not one of the current crop of debutantes, if that’s what you’re asking,’ returned Marcus hurriedly, as he rose to his feet in preparation of quitting the room before either of his parents could embark upon a surfeit of awkward questions that he was not, in all conscience, fully confident that he was equipped to answer. ‘Suffice to say that she is twenty-three years of age and her father was, until his death at Waterloo, a greatly admired and highly revered lieutenant-colonel in one of His Majesty’s elite hussar regiments. And now, if you will please excuse me, I have a most pressing matter to attend to—I hope to be able to furnish you with further information regarding my forthcoming nuptials within the next day or so.’
Hardly had he left the room, however, before Bradfield, turning to his younger son, demanded, ‘Out with it, Giles! It’s quite clear that you know a good deal more about this matter than you are prepared to admit. Has that fool of a brother of yours got some young hussy in the family way and thinks to present us with his by-blow, or what?’
‘Really, Edward!’ protested Lady Susanna, tossing down her napkin and getting to her feet. ‘You have spent the past month bemoaning the fact that Marcus refuses to come home and take up his duties, yet no sooner does he show his face than you are ready to malign him all over again. Little wonder he prefers to remain in Town with his friends. And now, when he has brought us this most thrilling piece of news—which, if I may be so bold as to remind you, is something we have been waiting to hear for some two years or more now—all you can do is reduce it to gutter level. You should be ashamed of yourself, referring to your son’s betrothed in such a tawdry manner!’
‘Calm yourself, my dear,’ exclaimed Bradfield, as he reached for his walking stick and levered himself up out of his chair. ‘I have no desire to distress you in any way, as you well know. But I surely do not need to point out that the boy seems to derive a great deal of pleasure from causing me as much aggravation as possible, and I fear that this latest ploy might well turn out to be yet another one of his—’
‘I think not, sir,’ put in Giles hastily, having registered his father’s rapidly heightening colour and taut neck muscles—both warning signs that pointed to a swift rise in the Earl’s blood pressure, a situation to be avoided at all costs, given the gentleman’s weakened heart condition. Whilst Marcus’s announcement had come as something of a bombshell to him, he had observed his brother’s cautionary glance and had resolved to keep his counsel. Now, however, torn between a real concern for his father’s health and a sense of loyalty towards his older brother, he felt that it was impossible to remain totally silent.
‘I have met Miss Pendleton-Flint, sir,’ he said. ‘And I can assure you both that the young lady is, beyond question, entirely respectable.’
‘And Marcus really means to marry the girl?’
Hesitating only briefly, the Major nodded. ‘It would appear so,’ he confirmed.
‘Then this is truly wonderful news,’ exclaimed his mother, clapping her hands in delight and turning once again to her husband. ‘We must hold a ball to celebrate this great event, my dear!’
‘Best wait until Marcus gives you the all-clear on that, Mother,’ put in Giles hurriedly. ‘You know how he is apt to dig his heels in if he thinks he’s being coerced.’
‘Only too well,’ retorted the Earl moodily. ‘A more obstinate example of manhood I have yet to come across.’
He stood for some minutes, idly tapping his finger against his lips, then, turning, exclaimed, ‘I have it now! Pendleton-Flint! I had a feeling that the name rang a distant bell but I couldn’t quite place it.’
Giles, who had spent some time trying to track down Sophie’s father’s past history without success, hastened to his father’s side and, after helping him into a nearby chair, asked eagerly, ‘You were acquainted with the family, sir?’
‘Not as such,’ replied Bradfield, his brows knitting together in concentration as he endeavoured to dredge up a vague recollection from almost half a century earlier. ‘However, if my memory serves me aright, there was a chap at university—couple of years my senior, he was—name of Joseph Flint. Anyway, the on dit at the time was that this Flint fellow had been contracted in marriage to the daughter of his father’s best friend—one Sir Jacob Pendleton by name. It appears that some sort of pact had been agreed between the two families when the youngsters were still in leading strings—something to do with the complicated entails of both estates, I believe. I wasn’t really that interested at the time. I do, however, have a pretty clear recollection of the fact that young Flint was expected to add the Pendleton name to his own upon the actual marriage.’ He frowned. ‘The Pendleton girl’s name escapes me, I’m afraid, although I do seem to remember being told that the poor lass died in childbed barely a year after the marriage had taken place.’
‘And the child—did the poor mite survive?’ the Countess was keen to know.
‘Must have done,’ Giles felt constrained to point out. ‘A son too, one presumes—otherwise the conjoined name could not have carried on this far.’ Then, turning back to his father, he asked, ‘Any idea from which part of the country these Flints and Pendletons hailed, sir?’
Lips pursed, the Earl again racked his brain. ‘Somewhere in the North Riding, I believe—Harrogate Spa, possibly—I vaguely recollect some tomfoolery regarding a proposed visit to the baths there. Flint seemed pretty well acquainted with the town, if I remember correctly.’
‘And this Pendleton fellow was a baronet, you say?’
‘Could have been merely a knight—can’t be certain, either way—although I definitely recall Flint referring to the fellow as Sir Jacob. You could try looking him up in an old Debretts, if you have a mind to, Giles. I believe we still have a copy of the 1802 original somewhere in the library.’
At her husband’s words, the Countess beamed. ‘It would appear that Marcus’s betrothed might not be without a certain standing, then,’ she said, heaving a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Although why he feels the need to be so very cagey about the young lady, I really cannot imagine. One would think he had something to hide!’
Chapter Fourteen
‘What are you saying, man?’
; ‘I have been advised to inform your lordship that Miss Flint is no longer resident at this address,’ repeated Hawkins somewhat warily, the image of Helstone’s violent and precipitate exit of the previous evening still vividly imprinted in his memory.
Marcus stared down at the manservant in stunned disbelief. No longer resident? Impossible! Less than twelve hours had elapsed since he had quit the Crayford premises the evening before. He frowned. Clearly the butler had been instructed to deny him access—a decision which, insofar as the mistress of the house was concerned, might be considered a rather daring and somewhat foolish move on her part. Although hardly surprising, perhaps, in the light of his abysmal display of temper on his last visit.
‘I see,’ he said, as he struggled to maintain a grip on his rage. ‘Then perhaps you would be good enough to ask your mistress if she could spare me a few moments of her time?’
‘I’m afraid Mrs Crayford is not at home, sir,’ the butler intoned, his expression wooden. ‘Perhaps your lordship would care to leave a card?’
Not at home to me, you mean, thought Marcus sourly as, with a brisk shake of his head, he turned to leave. Having had it made clear to him that he was persona non grata insofar as the Crayford household was concerned, the exasperated Viscount was obliged to accept that any further advances from himself were certain to be similarly rebuffed. And, as if that humiliation were not more than enough with which to cope, he was obliged to face up to the fact that Giles—the only person he might have called upon to act as his emissary—had just chosen to embark on some sort of wild goose chase up into the wilds of North Yorkshire, thereby requiring Marcus to shelve all his hastily garnered plans of matrimony until such time as his brother should choose to return.
Not that there’s any real point in Giles trying to ferret out any of Sophie’s long-lost relatives, he told himself, as he steered his curricle around the mass of vehicles battling to enter Hyde Park for the morning promenade. I just hope he doesn’t spend too long at it, that’s all, since he’s the only one who can be relied upon to gain admittance into the Crayfords’ house and persuade Sophie to agree to meet up with me.
His dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he conjured up her look of delight when he finally announced his altered intentions towards her—a vision that caused him to spend the remainder of the drive back to his Grosvenor Square mansion in blithe contemplation of the various ways in which Sophie might choose to reward him for providing her with so magnanimous a compromise to her earlier opposition.
Having noted her daughter’s uncharacteristically withdrawn demeanour, Mrs Pendleton-Flint could only suppose that Sophie’s time with the Crayfords had been rather more of an ordeal than her daughter had been prepared to divulge and she endeavoured to do what little she could to try to take the girl’s mind off the experience. By sending Sophie down to the village shops daily on some pretext or other, and keeping her actively involved in as many domestic activities as was possible in such a small household, she sought to encourage her daughter to concentrate her thoughts more firmly on the here and now, rather than dwelling on the past.
Three days had now elapsed since Sophie’s enforced flight from the Crayford residence and, although she did her utmost to disguise her unhappiness, the memory of the bitter words she had flung at Helstone on the evening of the ill-fated soiree still continued to haunt her, threatening to reduce her to tears at the most inconvenient times and bombarding her senses with the same unanswerable questions. How might it have been had she accepted Marcus’s proposition? For how long might such a fragile relationship have stood the test of time? Was it possible that he might, eventually, have come to love her in the way she loved him? On the other hand, and, most testing of all, could she really face a future knowing that she would never set eyes on him again?
As if on cue, the tears would start to well up again and she would be obliged to make some hurried excuse to take herself out into the small back garden, where she would try to busy herself with the tying back of lavender, or some other mundane occupation, in an effort to prevent her mother from witnessing her anguish. And so the interminable days, coupled with the never-ending nights, drifted drearily by.
Returning to the house on the third afternoon of her enforced visit, bearing the small packet of baking powder of which her mother had insisted she was in dire need, Sophie was surprised to see a rather sumptuous-looking travelling chariot drawn up in the street outside the front doorstep. For one foolish moment her heart soared with joy as the thought that Marcus had sought out her whereabouts, having found himself unable to stay away from her, leapt into her mind. One careful look at the painted crest on the carriage’s door panel, however, soon disabused her of this idea, for she had seen enough examples of the Helstone family crest on the tableware at Laurel Cottage to have committed the device of an upright lance to enduring memory.
With a disappointed sigh, she made her way into the living room, where she perceived her mother in conversation with a sweet-faced, rather plump lady of middle years, her elegant silk travelling outfit proclaiming a certain affluence. At her entrance the stranger rose immediately to her feet and hurried towards her, hands outstretched and the widest of smiles on her face.
‘Oh, my dear Miss Pendleton-Flint! How pleased I am to have finally found you! Elizabeth has spoken of you with such affection—you cannot know how glad I am to be able to thank you at last!’
‘Elizabeth? I’m afraid I don’t…’ began Sophie, only to find herself enveloped in the visitor’s arms, her face pressed into the lady’s very ample bosom.
‘To think that without your aid my poor little Lizzie might well have died,’ exclaimed the now quite tearful stranger when she finally set Sophie at arm’s length, only to continue to gaze at her in the most disconcertingly soulful manner. ‘And that dear little baby—oh, it really doesn’t bear thinking about!’
At last Sophie began to understand. It was now obvious that the surprise visitor was none other than the recently delivered Mrs Lucan’s mother—the lady to whom the Lucans had been on their way to visit when the snow blizzard had waylaid their coach on that fateful afternoon now some weeks distant.
‘Do please sit down and finish your tea, Mrs—?’
Guiding the still weeping matron back to her seat, Sophie shot a questioning glance at her mother.
‘Mrs Egremont,’ interposed Mrs Pendleton-Flint hastily. ‘It seems that the family has been searching for you ever since Mrs Lucan told her mother what a help you had been to her in her hour of need.’ Since Sophie had favoured her mother with only the briefest of outlines in respect to that particular occurrence, the unexpected visitor’s disclosure had come as something of a revelation to Mrs Pendleton-Flint.
‘And it was not until the dear child happened to remember that you had mentioned the name of your brother’s school in Dulwich that we were able to make any sort of headway,’ sniffed Mrs Egremont woefully, as she dabbed at her tear-drenched cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. ‘His lordship—Jack’s father, as you are no doubt aware—even went to the trouble of engaging two Bow Street runners to seek you out, but to no avail. Although, it is true that they were told to search for a Miss Flint, of course. In the event it was not until your brother’s headmaster informed me that Roger’s full name was, in fact, Pendleton-Flint that we were finally able to ascertain your whereabouts.’
‘But I still don’t understand why you felt it necessary to go to such lengths to track me down,’ exclaimed Sophie, considerably puzzled. ‘What I did was no more than anyone would have done under similar circumstances.’ She paused as a sudden awful thought occurred to her, before adding, in a somewhat hesitant voice, ‘I trust that your daughter has made a full recovery from the unfortunate experience?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed, my dear,’ purred Mrs Egremont, leaning forward to clasp Sophie’s hand in hers. ‘Both she and the babe are thoroughly blooming, thanks to your sterling efforts.’
‘Perhaps it would help if I were to acquaint
Sophie with a few more of the details…?’ ventured Mrs Pendleton-Flint, having registered the still totally bewildered expression on her daughter’s face.
‘Oh, yes, please do,’ replied their visitor, heaving a deep sigh of relief. ‘I’m afraid I do seem to become somewhat beside myself whenever I am forced to dwell on what might well have been the outcome of that dreadful occasion, had it not been for the timely intervention of your brave girl.’
And so quite calmly, and in as straightforward a manner as was possible, given the somewhat emotional convolutions of Mrs Egremont’s original outpourings, Mrs Pendleton-Flint set about furnishing her daughter with the bones of the Lucan couple’s history, from which it soon became apparent that Sophie’s chance involvement during that snowbound episode had achieved more than simply helping to bring about the safe delivery of the pair’s firstborn child. It had, it seemed—rather more importantly from certain points of view, as it transpired—secured the ongoing line of the Lucan family, along with the not inconsiderable earldom of Whitcombe and all its attached estates.
Having been denied Mr and Mrs Egremont’s permission to marry their seventeen-year-old daughter, the current earl’s younger son, the Honourable John Lucan—Jack to his friends—had, it seemed, persuaded his childhood sweetheart into a secret elopement, whereupon, following their overnight dash to the Scottish border to exchange their vows, he had taken her across the Irish Sea and set up residence in a rural retreat in Waterford, from where the pair had cut themselves off from both of their families.
Some eighteen months later, however, finding herself about to give birth to her first child, the young Elizabeth had insisted upon returning to England in order that she might avail herself of her mother’s support during her coming confinement. Safely back within the family folds, following their unfortunate incarceration at the inn, however, the pair had been confronted with the tragic news that, shortly following their elopement and self-appointed exile, Jack’s elder brother Charles—heir presumptive to the Whitcombe title—had met his death in a riding accident. The ancient title had thereby passed to Jack and, of course, his wife—Mrs Egremont’s daughter Elizabeth—who, it seemed, now rejoiced in the lofty title of Her Ladyship the Viscountess Bingham.
The Rake's Final Conquest Page 18
