Miss Mouse

by Mira Stables

  Chapter Fourteen

  As a result of their disturbed night, everyone was slightly out of frame next morning. Graine was tense and anxious. She would not breathe easily until she knew that his lordship had taken his departure. Beatrice was heavy-eyed and inclined to be pettish, vowing that she felt much too tired to practise that dull sonata and would certainly fall asleep if she was required to study her Italian lesson. Adam and Bridget took their tone from her and were fractious and troublesome. Graine could only be thankful when Lady Elizabeth came into the schoolroom half way through the morning and decreed a holiday for the rest of the day.

  Her manner this morning was warmly friendly, Sir John having favoured her with a slightly expurgated account of the scene that he had witnessed in his brother-in-law’s bedroom. After puzzling over it for some time she had come to the pleasing conclusion that Graine had refused his lordship’s proposal out of modesty. The girl had not thought herself good enough for him, had probably believed that his family and friends would unite in disapproval of so unequal a match, and though obviously she loved him to desperation she had refused him rather than bring such trouble about his head. It was a ridiculously romantic attitude but to lady Elizabeth it was understandable. Her plan now was to encourage Graine to pluck up heart by displaying the very real liking that she, Ross’s closest relation, had for her. So she scolded the children, though in a teasing sort of way, for being so troublesome to Miss Ashley, who had saved them all from being burned in their beds by her timely warning of danger, and vowed that they did not deserve the treat that she had planned for them.

  “I mean to drive out to Kew this afternoon to visit your Grandmama,” she told them. “The news of last night’s fire is bound to reach her, as news always does reach the persons whom one would particularly wish to remain in ignorance, and she will be anxious for all of us. I plan to be beforehand and tell her about it myself. You shall all come with me, and that will give poor Miss Ashley an afternoon of peace. Would you not like to visit your sister, my dear? She, too, may like to be reassured as to your safety.”

  Graine accepted with sincere gratitude. Such an excursion was just what she needed. It would take her out of the house until after his lordship had left it. She knew already that he was occupied with Sir John this morning. He had told her so himself. With reasonable good fortune it might be weeks before he came up to Town again. By then she could be safely hidden away in a seminary in Bath, if Miss Lavery’s answer to her application was favourable. It was not exactly an exciting prospect, but anything was better than being obliged to meet his lordship again before the memory of last night’s shameful encounter had been allowed to fade. When Lady Elizabeth suggested that she should lie down on her bed and rest until luncheon because she looked pale and tired after her disturbed night and very understandably, too, she could have hugged her. When her benefactress further suggested that she might like to lunch quietly in her own room, away from the chatter of the children, she was able to relax completely. One might almost have thought that Lady Elizabeth knew how she was situated and sympathised with her difficulties. She bestowed such a speaking look of gratitude upon her employer that Lady Elizabeth, whose benevolence was not quite so disinterested as it appeared, felt positively guilty. She promptly dismissed this ridiculous scruple. After all, was she not acting in Graine’s own best interests? Instead of nourishing doubts about her activities she should be pluming herself on the success of her enterprise. These affairs only needed a little thought and diplomacy, she reflected.

  Her mind more or less at peace, Graine fell asleep almost at once and awoke much refreshed to enjoy the luncheon that Susie brought her and to drink the glass of wine that had been sent up with it. She felt a new person, able to face the world again, able even to take pleasure in as beautiful a day as March ever borrowed from May. Lady Elizabeth and the children would have a delightful drive down to Kew, she thought, and was glad for them. She herself would enjoy the walk to Bridie’s.

  In this comparatively carefree mood she came down the main staircase a little after two, dressed for the visit in one of her sober brown day dresses but paying tribute to the beauty of the day by wearing a rather charming bonnet in burnt straw, tied beneath her chin with a brown satin ribbon. She glanced about her a little apprehensively but no one was about. Boulding, Sir John’s butler, emerged from the slip of a room where he usually lurked when he was not busy in his pantry and bade her good afternoon. He proceeded to discourse on such varying topics as last night’s fire, the dangers of smoking indoors, the work that would have to be done to put the study to rights and the beauty of the weather. She was a little surprised. Though always polite and respectful, Boulding was not normally garrulous. He was a man of middle age, very professional, with none of the relaxed friendliness of the old family servant. She could only think that the events of the previous night had put him all on end, or even that he was grateful for her own small efforts. She answered and commiserated and agreed as seemed suitable, and assured him pleasantly that she was in no great haste when he eventually apologised for delaying her and moved forward majestically to open the door.

  The shock of seeing Lord Valminster’s curricle drawn up outside, the curricle that she had pictured as on its homeward way an hour ago, seemed to deprive her of her senses. Before she well knew what she was about, Boulding had handed her up into the seat beside the driver, and his lordship, having tucked a rug over her knees, was giving his horses the office.

  “I thought you would not object to an open carriage on so mild a day,” he said pleasantly while still she strove for breath. “So long as we take it gently I think you will be warm enough, and at least the fresh air will drive last night’s smoke out of your lungs.”

  This matter-of-fact approach did something to reassure her until she realised that his lordship had dismissed his groom, so that they were quite alone with no one to hear what passed between them, and that he was certainly not following the usual route to her sister’s house. She had walked it on several occasions and knew it well. But when she broke silence to question if he had mistaken the way, his reply was forthright in the extreme.

  “No, Miss Ashley, I have not. Not today, at least, though I seem to have done so in the past. You and I have a good deal to say to one another on a matter of vital importance. Our – er – encounter in the small hours convinced me that I have totally misread the situation between us. I have come to believe that you love me as much as I love you. After your behaviour last night you cannot well deny it. Very well, then. Either someone has made mischief between us, which seems unlikely, or there is some misunderstanding. We are not going to visit your excellent sister, Miss Ashley. She is not expecting you so she will not be disappointed, and a message has been dispatched to her assuring her of your safety after last night’s drama. You climbed into my curricle of your own free will, under the eyes of several highly interested witnesses, but it is only fair to inform you that you have been abducted ma’am, and that I intend to hold you prisoner here by the very simple principle of driving on and on until we have reached a clear understanding. I am not driving my own horses, you will notice. These are hirelings – a sturdy, placid pair who will demand little of my attention, so that I can devote most of it to you. Such forethought, you will agree, speaks well for my sagacity, a useful quality in a prospective husband. You, I profoundly trust, will display a matching measure of compassion, and will consent to my offer of marriage before the wretched animals are driven to foundering point.”

  Graine gasped and nearly choked. Marriage! The idea had never entered her head. Could he have meant marriage all the time? Then why had he not said so? She was in no mood to appreciate the subtle compliment implied by his obvious belief that no man would have offered her less. Instinct might bid her fall into his arms – difficult in any case when he was driving, even these biddable animals – but oddly enough indignation took precedence. If only he had made his intentions clear, all this agonising could have been spar
ed.

  The indignation was possibly irrational, but it was very real. It caused her to say crisply, “That is blackmail, sir. And I should have no hesitation in breaking a promise extracted by such discreditable methods.”

  He glanced down at her briefly, but the burnt straw bonnet hid most of her face. All he could see, since her gaze was bent on the clasped hands lying in her lap, was the curve of one cheek and a mouth set in a mutinous line. It made him decide to tread warily.

  “Be patient with me a little. I hope to win your forgiveness for my rather high-handed action in carrying you off like this. Simply, I was desperate, and desperate men use the first means to hand.”

  She neither spoke nor raised her head. A little encouraged, he went on. “When you declined to marry me it was a bitter blow. I did not expect you to love me as deeply and helplessly as I love you. I know that I am too old to figure as a young woman’s beau ideal of romance. But I thought that we had learned to like and trust each other to the point where love might gradually follow. When you told me that there could be no hope of happiness in such a union, that the disparity between us could never be bridged, I accepted your decision with the deepest regret and assured you that if ever you changed your mind you would find me waiting. The events which took place last night gave me cause to think that perhaps you had changed your mind. You could not expect me to go meekly back to Valminster without trying my fortune once more.”

  The demure little creature seated beside him pressed one hand to her breast as though to still a wildly beating heart. Warm waves of delight and happiness were coursing through her whole body. He loved her. He wanted to marry her. All the dreams that she had never dared to indulge were going to come true. But although all she wanted was to yield to this flood of delightful emotions, there was one awkward obstacle. How was she to explain her own capricious behaviour? His lordship had spoken politely of ‘changing her mind’. But she did not want him to think her a volatile, changeable creature who did not know what she wanted of life. She knew very well – had known for months – but had never expected to have it offered to her. How was she to explain the circumstances? It was not easy to tell a man that you had believed him to be offering you a carte blanche, which naturally you had been obliged to refuse. Did you tell him that it had been a sore temptation? That only consideration for the rest of your family had given you the strength to resist? Or did you tell him nothing at all, leaving him to suppose that you had simply changed your mind?

  That was a coward’s way out, and she revolted from it immediately. To tell anything less than the truth was to destroy the whole fabric on which their relationship was based. So, very well. The truth it must be. And how did one phrase it?

  She made one false start. “When we discussed this matter in the library at Valminster I understood that – that your lordship was offering me” – Her tongue refused to form the words. She tried again. “I did not know that you had matrimony in mind,” she said baldly.

  The lean brown fingers that held the reins tightened involuntarily. The horses obediently dropped to a walk. His lordship said nothing, but if ever a silence was eloquent, his was, tense with unspoken fury. And presently he checked the horses, and regardless of the narrowness of the way began to back and turn them, his face so thunderous that Graine felt an odd little quiver of alarm.

  “What are you going to do?” she demanded breathlessly.

  “I am taking you home,” he said curtly. “Somewhere where I can get my hands on you. A good shaking is the least you deserve, my girl, daring to talk such stuff. If I had known what maggot was in your head I would never have brought you out. At worst I thought some idle mischief-maker had interfered to set you against me. I certainly never dreamed that the mischief was in your own mind. What had I ever done that you should malign me so? No thought of matrimony, indeed – and I thinking of nothing else since first I recognised your quality.”

  He relapsed into fuming silence. Graine took heart. He certainly sounded very cross, but she did not think that he was meditating casting her off because of her folly, and so long as that was all right, nothing else mattered. And she thought that he was probably finding some relief for his fury in the pace at which he was driving. Several people had turned to stare after them. If she wished to speak in her own defence she had best make haste, for at this rate they would be home in ten minutes.

  She said tartly, “When you were so good as to inform me that you found me desirable and essential to your happiness – those were the exact words that you used, milord – you also spoke of the advantages that you could offer to a penniless governess, and of the difficulties consequent upon a closer relationship between us. Not once did you mention marriage, nor even say that you loved me. What else did you expect me to think?”

  His lordship, drawing breath to annihilate this ridiculous argument, was pulled up short. He had, of course, expected her to think that he was offering marriage, and could scarcely believe that the word itself had never passed his lips. But if Graine said that it had not, he supposed, reluctantly, that there were some grounds for her misunderstanding. Then he remembered that she had passed a whole week under that same misapprehension without doing anything to clear the matter up, and fury rose again within him. He did not ask himself what a modest, gently bred girl could have done in such circumstances but nursed his wrath in silence until they drove into the mews, tossed the reins to a startled groom who eyed the sweating horses in shocked disbelief, and helped his passenger to alight, drawing her arm through his with a resolution that brooked no argument and conducting her into the house with all the air of a triumphant jailer who has just discovered his most prized prisoner in an attempt at escape.

  He closed the drawing room door behind them with a firmness that convinced Boulding that an offer of refreshment at this juncture would be ill-timed, and took both her hands in his, spreading them wide so that she stood breast to breast with him. She yielded submissively, which seemed to have a soothing effect, though his face still wore a harsh expression that was unfamiliar to her. Just so, she thought, he might have looked at some enemy or opponent. It was a strange expression for the face of love.

  He said slowly, as though he was biting out each word, “Miss Ashley, will you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?”

  Graine looked up into the beloved face. The harsh lines were softening, though he still looked deeply serious. If she had felt a momentary impulse to tease him by adopting a formality to match his own, it was banished by that expression.

  “I never hoped to know such happiness, milord,” she said simply. “If you truly feel that marriage with me is ‘essential to your happiness’” – there was a little smile for the quotation – “then I consent willingly and proudly.”

  She was swept into his arms and soundly kissed almost before the words were out of her mouth, after which his lordship picked her up bodily, installed himself in one of his sister’s comfortable chairs and drew her down to sit on his lap, “As though I were a little girl,” she protested.

  “Not much bigger – and certainly no more sensible,” he told her severely.

  “Much more sensible,” she contradicted briskly. “Have I not just demonstrated my good sense by accepting your very obliging offer? To cast doubt upon it in the very moment when I have agreed to marry you must surely indicate that I am accepting something of little worth. Fortunately there can be two opinions about that, and I hold by my own, sensible or not.”

  Her happiness was bubbling over. She could not refrain from teasing him a little, putting on her prim ‘governess’ face as she said, “And you, my dear sir, must learn to set a higher value on yourself. The world, you know, is all too ready to accept us at our own valuation. It does not do to be too modest.”

  That made him chuckle. He gave her a loving little shake and declared that at least love and the imminent prospect of marriage had not made her maudlin.

  “The astringent touch is something that I particularly en
joy in your remarks,” he told her fondly, and kissed her again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “But we can’t possibly get married as soon as that!” exclaimed Graine in startled accents.

  “Indeed we can,” returned the Earl calmly. “Far too much time has been wasted already. If we delay any longer I shall have you changing your mind, and deciding that you are not going to throw yourself away on one so far sunk in senility.”

  Graine giggled. It would have been difficult to imagine any one less senile looking than his lordship, immaculate even in riding dress, his tall, spare figure obviously charged with springing vitality as he strode up and down his sister’s breakfast parlour haranguing the ladies who were still lingering over their coffee. As a matter of fact they, too, had been discussing wedding plans, but Graine did not propose to tell him that.

  “We must give your sister time to find someone to fill my place,” she pointed out. “That is the least I can do after all the kindness she has shown me.”

  “No one could fill your place,” pronounced Lady Elizabeth. “I shall, in any case, have to make do with some inferior substitute. It seems to me that the greatest service you can render me is to marry this impatient wretch as soon as may be. At least it will prevent him from wearing out my carpet by this endless pacing.”

  Her hearers chuckled, but Graine said, “Three weeks is much too soon. If you only knew how sick I am of wearing dingy greys and browns. At least I would like to appear becomingly dressed on my wedding day. Give me time to choose a pretty dress.”

  “Three weeks is time and enough,” returned the Earl firmly. “Nor do you need all the trappings of fashion to appear at your best. I have not forgotten how you looked at Christmas in a dress of some dark red stuff, and though it may put my sister to the blush I will take leave to tell you that I have never seen you look lovelier than you did with no more than a dressing gown pulled over your petticoat.”