by Mary Nichols
She was very quiet on the return journey, answering Mark’s enthusiastic chatter about the changes he meant to make with little more than monosyllables, until, in the end, he demanded to know what was wrong.
‘Nothing.’
‘It doesn’t seem like nothing to me. Her Grace said you were nervous, said I was to be especially careful of you.’ He held the reins in one hand so that he could put his free hand over hers. ‘There’s nothing to be nervous of. You will make a capital Marchioness.
‘Mark, why are you upsetting the villagers?’
‘Who said I was?’
‘I heard what you said to your father.’
‘That was simply a discussion about what is best for everyone. You need not concern yourself with it. Your province will be the house and running it efficiently. Surely that is enough?’
She tried arguing with him but that only made him angry, and in the end she gave up and they travelled the rest of the way home in uncomfortable silence.
It was dusk when they arrived, and there was a hired chaise standing at the door. Assuming it had brought more callers offering condolences, they went straight to the drawing-room, but Caroline was there alone, picking at a piece of embroidery.
‘Mark, thank goodness you are back,’ she said, jumping up and scattering canvas and wools on the floor. ‘That Frenchman is with Papa. They have been closeted in the library for hours.’
Maryanne gasped, making Mark look sharply at her, but she managed to bite off the exclamation she was about to utter.
‘I thought Papa meant to have him arrested,’ Caroline went on. ‘But he told me, as calm as you please, that he had seen him in church and asked him to call. Something’s going on and I don’t like it.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said grimly. ‘If he thinks he can humbug Father, he will find he has to deal with me.’ He strode out of the room and across the hall to the library. Light flooded out for a moment and then was cut off as the door was slammed shut. There was a smirk of satisfaction on Caroline’s face which made Maryanne want to slap her.
‘Now the man will hang for sure,’ Caroline said, sitting down and gathering up her embroidery.
Maryanne was too restless to sit; she went and stood by the window with her back to her tormentor. It was dark now, but there was a moon which threw long shadows across the garden and made a silhouette of the waiting chaise. Adam obviously intended to leave for France as soon as his interview with James was over. If only... She turned to Caroline. ‘I am tired; I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘Don’t you want to hear what happened? Aren’t you curious?’
‘No,’ she lied. ‘It is no concern of mine.’
In the privacy of her room, she sat in the window seat and continued her contemplation of the empty chaise; the driver was probably being entertained in the coach-house. She imagined Adam coming out and getting into it, being carried out of her life forever, leaving her behind to face a future that, in spite of a title and all the comforts money could provide, looked bleak indeed. Whether she married Mark, knowing there was no real love on either side, or remained a spinster, there was nothing to look forward to. But with Adam... Supposing he was right and Mark had caused the accident? Supposing Mark was right? Did it make any difference to how she felt? Did it make her love Mark the more or Adam the less? Could she let him go out of her life? Could she stop him? No, she decided, he was his own master; he would follow his destiny. And she must follow hers.
She stood up suddenly, went to the wardrobe and began feverishly throwing garments about the room. She changed out of full mourning into a grey jaconet dress with a high waistline and narrow tight-fitting sleeves, then she pulled out a travelling bag and stuffed it with a change of underwear, a wool gown for cooler weather and the barest minimum of toiletries. She had arrived with next to nothing; she would leave with nothing. She sat down and scribbled a hurried note to Mark to tell him she could not marry him and another to James apologising for the distress her disappearance would cause, though in her mind she substituted ‘scandal’ for ‘distress’, which was all they really cared about.
Then from the top drawer of her dressing-table she took two guineas - all she had; it had never occurred to James to provide her with money - put them into her reticule and, throwing a cloak over her shoulders, crept out on to the landing. A single lamp burning in the hall and a sliver of light beneath the library door told her that the men were still talking. She made her way slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. With a quick glance about to make sure she was not being watched, she darted across to the carriage and clambered into it.
Adam’s travelling cloak lay untidily on the seat. She sat on the floor and pulled it over her, trying to make it look as if it had fallen there, hoping he would not pick it up until they were on their way. It was a poor hiding place but it was better than nothing.
She was only just settled to her satisfaction when she heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel and then Adam’s voice. ‘I am in great haste, so drive as fast as you can, but I don’t want dead horses at the end of it.’ The door opened and she felt the carriage lurch as he put his weight on the step. The next moment he had settled in his seat and they moved off. Maryanne held her breath, expecting him to stoop to retrieve his cloak, but he let it lie. She was almost sorry because it was stifling her and she needed to come up for air. The driver waited until they had gone out through the gates, then he cracked his whip and set the horses into a gallop. The carriage swayed and lurched in sickening fashion as they picked up speed and Maryanne was wondering how soon she dared reveal herself when he said, ‘Don’t you think you would be a little more comfortable on the seat?’
Startled, she threw off the cloak and scrambled up beside him. ‘You knew I was there all along.’
‘I knew someone was there.’
‘Why didn’t you say something straight away?’
He chuckled. ‘It occurred to me that whoever had taken the trouble to hide themselves in my coach must have wanted to leave Castle Cedars very badly.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you?’
‘What?’
‘Want to leave very badly?’
‘Yes. Yesterday you asked me to come away with you.’
‘That was yesterday,’ he said laconically. ‘Said in the heat of the moment, and, if my memory serves me, you were adamant that you would not consider it.’
‘I...’ She paused; this was going to be very difficult. ‘I changed my mind.’
‘And if I have changed mine?’
‘You haven’t, have you?’ she said slowly, noting with a certain amount of satisfaction that he had given no order to stop the carriage. ‘And I don’t want to go back.’
‘You are being very foolish,’ he said quietly. ‘Everyone will be distraught about your disappearance and your bridegroom will conclude that he has another crime to lay at my door. Mon Dieu! How do you think that makes me feel? It is an accusation I find particularly galling.’
‘Because, unlike the others, it isn’t true?’
He looked sideways at her, but could not see her face. ‘I wonder you are prepared to trust yourself to me, if your opinion of me is so low.’
‘There is no one else,’ she said, unaware of how much her words wounded him. ‘Besides, I can’t go back, even if I wanted to, you must see that. The family will disown me. The scandal...’
‘You should have thought of that before you set out on this adventure.’
She felt miserable and humiliated. What had made her think he would welcome her with open arms? A couple of kisses and a few light-hearted words which had obviously meant nothing to him. ‘Stop the coach, then,’ she said angrily. ‘Stop it this instant and let me off. I’ll walk.’
‘Back to Castle Cedars? It’s a fair step.’
‘No! Didn’t you listen to a word I said? I will not go back. I am going to stay with my uncle in Portsmouth. I had hoped you would take me there.’
He sighed and
leaned back in his seat, the better to see her against the moonlight, which caught in her hair and made it look like gossamer. Her eyes were large and bright with unshed tears. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her he would never let her go, but how could he? He cursed the impulse which had made him suggest she could come with him; it had been foolhardy, if not downright criminal. But if he insisted on taking her back, what would happen to her? His imagination painted horrendous pictures of the torment she would be subjected to and he knew he could not do it. ‘I mean to travel all night,’ he told her.
‘I don’t care.’
‘You don’t even know where I am going, do you?’
‘France. You told me so. And from Portsmouth too.’ He sighed. ‘Very well, that is where I shall leave you.’
‘Thank you.’ Her voice, even in her own ears, sounded small and muffled, as if someone were trying to choke her.
‘I suggest you try and sleep.’ He rolled his cloak into a pillow for her and put it behind her head. ‘I can’t slow down, I’m afraid; I was much later leaving than I intended.’ She leaned back and shut her eyes and before long her head was lolling off the makeshift pillow. He shifted himself to put his arm round her and make her more comfortable. Her head found his shoulder and nestled there. He smiled and brushed his lips against her soft hair. ‘Sleep, little one,’ he murmured. ‘Sleep while you can.’
It was dawn when the coach slowed to enter the town. Maryanne stirred and sat up, shaking her tousled head, and then looked out at the half-remembered streets. On both sides, ancient ramshackle buildings stretched down to the arch of St James’s gate; shops, taverns, chandlers, cook shops and pawnbrokers huddled together. The combined smell of seaweed, tarred rope and strange spices gave the place its own particular odour. It was strange how a smell could be so evocative of the past; that more than any other sense brought back a place, a scene, something half forgotten. The road ran into the beach where lightermen ran their boats on to the shingle to unload and where the ticket porters in their strange hats and leather shoulder-cushions waited to carry the chests of naval men and the luggage of travellers to and from the boats that plied between the shore and the ships anchored in the bay.
Maryanne looked out towards Portsea dockyard where merchant ships and men o’ war lay at their moorings. Beyond them a line of dark hulls, without their masts, lay low in the water, strung out in line, bow to stern, rising and falling on the swell. These, she knew, were the hulks which, during the war, had housed French prisoners of war. ‘Were you ever on one of those?’ she asked, pointing.
‘Not as a prisoner, thank God, but I have been aboard.’ He stopped speaking and tapped the front of the coach and the horses drew to a stop. ‘Give me your uncle’s direction. I have little time to spare.’ Why had he sounded so brusque? He didn’t fool himself and he did not think that he fooled her either; she must know how the prospect of leaving her was affecting him.
‘It is only a step from here,’ she said. ‘I need detain you no longer.’ Before he could stop her, she had picked up her bag and jumped down. ‘Thank you for your help.’
‘But I must see you safely there.’
She turned and waved. ‘No need. I am home, among my own people. Bon voyage!’ Then she turned and ran in among the crowds that thronged the street. He watched until he saw her turn into the doorway of a small cottage set back a little way from the road, and then paid off the coachman and set off along the shingle.
The cottage where Maryanne had been born was tucked right at the end of Broad Street, as near as Ben could be to the sea without actually living on it. She felt a pang of guilt that she had not visited him before, but the Reverend Mr Cudlipp had always refused to bring her and she had not considered making the journey alone. She would make it up to him, she promised herself.
She knocked and waited, but when no one answered she stepped back to look up at the house, and saw for the first time that it was empty and deserted; some of the windows were broken and the tiles slipping from the roof. She tried the door, but could not open it and when she peered through the window she found the rooms bare, and covered in dust and cobwebs. Of Uncle Ben there was no sign. ‘He’s dead,’ she said, with sudden conviction, looking back to where she had left Adam, but there was no sign of man or coach. ‘And now I’m in a pickle.’
Slowly she slid down to sit on the step and lean her head against the doorpost with its peeling paint. Her brain refused to function. She was too exhausted to think clearly, she told herself, and if she could only have a few hours’ sleep she would wake refreshed and be able to decide what to do. She rose and went round to the back of the house, where she climbed in through one of the broken windows. She stood in the empty cottage, ignoring her bleeding hand, and looked about her, trying to imagine it as it had been, trying to put life and laughter back into a place which had long since surrendered both. Finding an old blanket in one of the rooms, she lay down in the corner and curled herself up in it, putting her bag under her head. Outside she could hear the noise of the streets and the sea breaking on the shingle. Nearer at hand, the wind sighed through the broken windows. It was like a lullaby and, too exhausted to notice how hard the floor was, she fell into a troubled sleep.
She was woken by a sound outside and sat up with a jerk. Someone was approaching. She crept across the room to look out of the window, but whoever it was had gone round the side of the house. With her heart pounding, she moved silently to stand behind the door, picking up a poker from the hearth as she went. The door had been bolted from the inside and did not give at the first push, but a heave with a strong shoulder sent it crashing back, just as she stepped out from behind it and brought the poker down on the man’s head with all her strength.
He fell like a log, face down on the floor at her feet, and did not move. There was blood on the back of his dark head, running in a little pool on to the floor. She pushed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from screaming and forced herself to bend over him and touch his temple. There was still a strong pulse there; he was not dead. She turned his face towards her and cried aloud, because the man she had felled was Adam. She knelt beside him, wondering how to staunch the bleeding and bring him round. She dashed out into the yard, found a tub of rainwater and dipped her towel into it, then ran back and knelt beside him to dab at the cut. It was a messy wound, but not very deep, and she breathed a sigh of relief. When he regained consciousness, he would have a headache and perhaps a nasty bump, but, please, God, nothing worse. She wished he would open his eyes, but they remained firmly closed, although his breathing was easy.
She stroked his forehead and murmured his name, wondering if the damage was worse than she thought. ‘I’ll fetch a doctor,’ she said aloud. ‘Please don’t die, please don’t.’
The next minute she was lying on the floor beside him and he was holding her in his arms, and there was no weakness there, but an animal strength that held her against all her struggles.
‘You! You... brute!’ she cried, kicking out at him. ‘How could you frighten me so? I hate you!’
He let her go. ‘Good, that saves a deal of trouble.’
She scrambled to her feet. ‘What do you mean? And what are you doing here, anyway? And why did you pretend to be knocked out cold?’
‘I didn’t pretend,’ he said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. ‘That blow was enough to fell an ox.’
‘Well, you are an ox, and you deserved it, creeping in like that.’
‘I didn’t creep.’ He looked around at the bare room. ‘Your uncle’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘I think he must be, but you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here? I thought you had sailed...’
He smiled, thankful that she had stayed and not run off when she found the place empty or he’d never have found her. ‘Who said anything about sailing? I went to see someone off and mentioned Ben Paynter to the man who carried his chest on board. I was told the old fellow was dead. Died two months ago.’
‘So you came back to find me?’ She could not understand why her heart was suddenly singing. ‘I couldn’t leave you, could I?’ he retorted.
‘Why not? What does it matter to you what I do? Why are you so angry with me? Is it because I hit you with the poker?’
He smiled ruefully, getting to his feet. ‘Is that what it was?’
‘I’m sorry. Does it hurt very much?’
‘Abominably.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want a doctor?’
‘Certain.’ He took her arm. ‘Come on, we must get some way along the road before the day is out.’
‘Road, what road?’ she demanded. ‘If you think you can take me back...’
‘No,’ he said, picking up her bag and leading her out to where a second coach stood waiting. ‘What’s done is done and there is no going back now, though what I am going to do with you I have no idea.’
It was hardly a proposal, but she didn’t care. She would rather be with him, who did not love her, than with anyone else who did, and, as long as it lasted, she would rejoice in that.
Chapter Seven
The crush outside the Lord Markham’s London home in Bedford Row was worse than it had been on the night of the ball and it was obvious Lady Markham was having one of her renowned assemblies. The driver stopped the chaise just short of the patient line of carriages waiting to discharge their passengers and called down, ‘Do you want me to go on, guv? It’ll be an hour or more afore you get to the door.’
