‘Put your hand on my shoulder and I will guide you.’ He was beside her, treading water, while she accustomed herself to the bitter conditions. Then they struck out across the pool towards the faint streak of light. ‘Ready? Take a deep breath—now!’
For one terrifying moment she lost her grip on his shoulder, then he was beside her, pulling her down, and after what seemed a lifetime, they came to the surface. She all but cried out in alarm as a long piece of rank-smelling weed trailed across her face and opened her eyes to find herself swimming in full moonlight. They made haste to seek the shadow of the farther bank. There, with his aid, Kate scrambled up the slope to lie gasping in the thick undergrowth and look back at the stark silhouette of the house, with its two great octagonal towers rising sheer out of the moat. But she was allowed no time for contemplation.
‘We have nigh on half-a-mile to go,’ Mr. Derwent urged her. ‘I dared not permit Harvey come closer to the house. Can you contrive? You’re best off without your clothes until you’ve dried a bit.’
‘Y-yes,’ she whispered back through chattering teeth. ‘I’ll do very well.’
‘Keep as low as you can. A watcher on top of one of those towers could see any movement.’
Stealthy as cats, they crept through the brushwood, then a brief dash across an open expanse of greensward and they were in the shelter of the trees. A little later, and Harvey was greeting them as composedly as if they had just stepped out of Charles Street and he awaiting them with her ladyship’s barouche.
‘All right and tight, sir? And you—dear goodness, miss, you’ll be chilled to the bone!’
‘Yes, put on your clothes, Kate. I hope they’ve taken no hurt, but they’re bound to be wet through.’
Wet they certainly were, but she scarcely noticed that in the pleasure of hearing him call her by her given name. Harvey untethered the horses and she was lifted up in front of Lysander, his right arm hard about her, enveloping her in his heavy riding cloak.
‘Tired?’ His cheek was against the wet mass of her hair. ‘You are a brave girl, Miss Honeywell.’
‘Kate, if you please,’ she corrected him shyly.
‘Miss—Kate!’ he amended, half-smiling, and she accepted that as being at least a step in the right direction. ‘There is something you should know,’ he went on hesitantly.
‘About Bredon and Sophia? Yes, I do know it. How could Timothy have been so foolish as to attempt to sell the necklace? Ly—Mr. Derwent, I am very sure it was Wayleigh who shot Cantwell. He did not deny it when I accused him. I imagine he was too taken aback by hearing the truth after all this time.’ She then told him Lady Harveston’s story.
‘Will she stand up at Bredon’s trial and say that Wayleigh offered her the deeds?’ he demanded.
‘If she does he will say he got them from Timothy.’
‘Who will deny it—one word against another.’ She shivered suddenly, and his arm tightened about her. ‘Pray God you’ve riot caught your death of cold, but I’d not wager a groat against it.’ He looked up at the waning stars. ‘We’ll not be many minutes now. We are riot returning to Newmarket. Lord Fontevin has engaged all of a small tavern in quite the opposite direction, where no one will ask question when we arrive, dripping wet, at such an unseemly hour. Your reputation will not be sullied.’
‘Only a very little tarnished?’ she quizzed him, but he declined to be amused.
‘Should any whisper of tonight’s activities get about, then be assured that I shall offer you the protection of my name.’ She thanked him demurely, while giving the delicate problem of how to circulate such a whisper her attention. If swimming in her underclothes with a gentleman in the middle of the night did not suffice to provoke an offer of marriage, then something more outrageous must be contrived. But that, she decided, snuggling closer to him in a way he found to be remarkably disconcerting, could wait until morning.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Harveston Hall, though a handsome enough mansion set in spacious, well-planned grounds, won no encomiums from Miss Honeywell. Mr. Derwent’s gloomy premonitions proved all too true, and she had been confined to her room with a feverish cold since her arrival in Sussex, which misfortune brought about a state of acute frustration in so active a young lady.
‘I must know what is taking place!’ she demanded. ‘Has Mr. Derwent had to yield the race to Wayleigh? And what of poor Bredon’s situation?’
‘If you think it will at all help his case, I will go to Bow Street the moment we return to town and make a deposition,’ her hostess promised her.
‘I cannot see that it will,’ sighed Miss Honeywell. ‘Oh, where is Mr. Derwent?’
Lady Harveston concealed a smile. ‘Doubtless he has a great number of things to attend to,’ she soothed her querulous patient.
In her more rational moments, Miss Honeywell could have understood that to be probable, but a streaming cold was not conducive to lucid reasoning. ‘I still do not perfectly comprehend how he traced me to that house,’ she complained pettishly.
Lady Harveston, who had had the advantage of a long discussion with Lord Fontevin when that perspicacious gentleman had delivered Kate up.to her, cleared her throat and attempted to brush over the incident.
‘I believe he fell into conversation with this Weston female whose horse you took, and she told him about the house.’
‘But she is Wayleigh’s creature! She would never confide in his rival!’
‘Well, you know how persuasive Mr. Derwent can be when he sets his mind to it.’ Lady Harveston was treating the matter as being of no importance.
‘And she one of the muslin company? Oh, yes, I can see just how it was!’ Miss Honeywell’s eyes snapped dangerously.
‘Kate dear, you must not excite yourself! He had to discover where you were—and quickly!’
But her pleading fell on deaf ears, for Miss Honeywell had wrapped herself up in her bedcovers and was paying no heed to anything her friend might say in Mr. Derwent’s defence.
That gentleman, quite unaware of how low he had fallen in the lady’s estimation, had indeed a number of things to occupy his attention. With regard to the race, it was felt, as Miss Honeywell had feared, that Wayleigh could not be wholly discredited on the evidence of the groom alone. The general verdict was, however, that either the wager should be cancelled or the race re-run, many knowledgeable persons giving it as their opinion that no horses could have been as fresh as were the Marquis’s after twenty-three punishing miles, and his lordship’s methods of getting his own way being all too well known. The rumour that he had made off with Miss Honeywell because he feared she might discover . proof of his guilt was also gaining ground, so that he had thought it advisable to retire to Mount Trennick until the hubbub had died down.
Here he found a tearful but unrepentant Lady Sophia and a very worried Lord Francis.
‘For God’s sake, Way, too many people are in the secret! Anyone coming here can see the place is overrun with black horses!’
‘I don’t deny I have two teams of blacks, but what has that to say to anything? No one can prove I used ‘em both. Keep a cool head and a still tongue, Francis, and none will be the wiser. I gave Derwent a week to prove a case against me, and if he cannot, he pays up.’
‘And what of Miss Honeywell?’
‘I doubt not that Derwent will bid her hold her tongue, for to have been shut up in my house for most of a night will do nothing for her good name. I’d give a monkey to know how she escaped, though.’
‘Bribed a servant to open the door for her?’
‘Forced one to do so, more like, with that empty pistol,’ growled the Marquis. ‘She’s a high-spirited filly, I’ll grant her that. I’d be glad to know where she is now, for she’s not at Charles Street.’
‘Best leave her be until the Bredon affair is over,’ counselled his brother.
But that the Marquis could not afford to do. Even if only based upon suspicion, an accusation made against him by Miss Honeywel
l, supported by Lady Harveston’s testimony, could prove devilish awkward and hint that his interest in the business was less benign than had hitherto been supposed.
He was standing in the yard, pulling on his gloves and turning things over in his mind while waiting for his horse to be saddled up, when a letter was brought to him. Carelessly, he flipped it open and glanced at the signature. It was that of a young man who had had the misfortune to commit an indiscretion which had come to Wayleigh’s attention. Such unhappy incidents could often be turned to good account, in particular when the wrongdoer was employed in so worthy an establishment as the Bank of England, and his lordship was gratified to learn that this unfortunate victim was proving his worth. So absorbed was he in his thoughts that his groom had to remind him that his mount stood waiting.
‘Don’t look for me for much of the day. There’s no knowing where I’ll be.’
As he watched him ride out, the groom mused sourly that the look on his master’s face boded ill to someone and, muttering adversely under his breath in a way that would have earned him instant castigation had the Marquis chanced to hear him, he slouched off.
It so happened that, the sun being warm and the air stirred by no more than a playful breeze, Lady Harveston had considered the moment opportune for Miss Honeywell to venture out. Harveston Hall was no great distance from Mount Trennick; nonetheless only a malign fate could have directed the ladies’ carriage on a converging course with that of the Marquis.
He was cantering easily along a grassy track which crossed a winding country road a short way ahead of him. As he approached the road he reined in his horse and a trim phaeton bowled past, capably handled by a lady with another sitting beside her and a groom standing up behind them, none of whom noticed the solitary horseman waiting under the trees.
The Marquis could scarce believe his good fortune and promptly set off in pursuit, keeping a discreet distance. It was most unlikely that Elizabeth Harveston would receive him should he present himself at her door, more especially as she had Miss Honeywell in her charge, so some more subtle method of presenting himself must be devised. Once again chance favoured him and, having followed the ladies to their destination, he watched them, from a safe vantage-point within the grounds, establish themselves upon the south-facing terrace of the house.
‘How pleasant it is to sit in the sun and be idle!’ Lady Harveston opened up her many-coloured pagoda-shaped parasol to protect her delicate complexion from overexposure to the beneficial rays. ‘I declare it will be quite a wrench to go back to London tomorrow. Oh, la!’ She sat up with a lace of almost comical dismay. ‘I bade my agent attend me here this morning! The poor man must be kicking his heels this hour and more! Pray forgive me, I’ll not take long, I promise you, just a few last details to discuss.’
Left to herself, Miss Honeywell closed her eyes and fell to thinking about Mr. Derwent. She was sharply jolted out of this absorbing occupation by the sound of a footfall on the terrace beside her, and looked up to perceive the Marquis making her an elegant leg.
‘My apologies for this intrusion, ma’am,’ he said in the most natural way imaginable, ‘but I wished for a private moment in which to express my regret for the inconvenience you were put to t’other night, and to offer to erase any wrong impression that a censorious world might take of the occurrence. My only excuse is that I was bosky and you—very lovely.’
Reminding herself that this was the very man who had threatened her with ravishment, as one in a dream she asked him to be seated and listened with mounting incredulity to what he had to say.
‘I am aware that I am no great catch for any young lady,’ he resumed in the same almost apologetic manner. ‘I have a title to offer, of course, and the hope of a greater one in the future. As against that, my pockets are sadly to let—though doubtless, when my father is convinced of my determination to reform my rakish ways and become a conformable husband, he will loose his purse-strings.’ The fact that His Grace would be unable, as well as unwilling, to frank his heir to the extent necessary to free him from debt was not, in the Marquis’s opinion, worthy of immediate mention. ‘I allow,’ he pursued, ‘that in proposing myself to you for husband in this fashion, I am behaving with sad lack of decorum. But you have no parent in this country. To whom do I apply for permission to address you?’
‘Do I understand, my lord, that you conceive it to be your duty to offer for me because of what happened the other night?’
‘Partly,’ he admitted with a nice show of reluctance, ‘but that, believe me, is not my only reason.’
Miss Honeywell could not but admire his style. What a consummate actor was lost to the stage! Then a demon of mischief took hold of her imagination.
‘Other than Bredon I have no relatives here,’ she explained demurely. ‘But, being in my godmother’s care, perhaps she—but then she would refer such a matter to her son.’
The mental picture conjured up of Lord Wayleigh applying to Mr. Derwent for her hand was almost too much for her composure, but he treated the matter with perfect sobriety.
‘I doubt I’d get any encouragement from that quarter, but if I have your leave, ma’am, I will seek out Lady Glendower.’ Miss Honeywell found herself at Point Non-Plus. He was plainly in earnest, and since not even she herself knew the extent of her expectations, he could not be offering for her on that score. No, the only reason could be that he feared she might voice her suspicions regarding his dealings with Bredon, and sought to silence her by marriage, a wife’s testimony not being acceptable against her husband. She did not flatter herself for one moment that his lordship’s heart or his concern for the properties had instigated the proposal. But, whatever his motive, she resolved not to turn him down out of hand, since through him lay the only hope of proving Bredon’s innocence. Quite how she imagined she could bring about this desirable outcome was not very clear, but, being a resourceful young woman, she was confident that she would think of something.
In the meantime the Marquis was regarding her with a politely enquiring air, and she hastily began to murmur all the platitudes suitable to the occasion. He let her run on for a few minutes before cutting short her peroration.
‘I must warn you, ma’am, that I am so short of the ready that it will mean our living very quietly at Mount Trennick, for the time at least. For me that is no great penance, but for a lively young lady like yourself to be cut off from the beau monde and all the attractions of London society—am I asking too much of you?’
She had to confess that he did it very well; almost aid ne convince her that he meant every word he said.
‘As to that, my lord,’ she replied with a nice touch of confusion, ‘though it is indelicate in me to speak of such things, I am—well, I may not be quite destitute.’
He smiled upon her warmly. ‘Whatever monies you have will be reserved for your own use,’ he assured her. ‘You are willing, then, for me to approach Lady Glendower?’
She gave her gracious permission. ‘Though that does not necessarily imply, my lord, that I am consenting to your proposal. The whole idea is so new to me.’ She fluttered an arch look from beneath her eyelashes. ‘You will have to prove yourself a reformed character!’
‘Just so long as the idea is not totally repugnant to you, ma’am, I will cherish some hope.’ He raised her hand to his lips, and again, she had to grant that it was done with a great degree of style. ‘By the way, how did you escape the other night?’
‘I swam the moat.’ As if in support of her claim, she sneezed violently. ‘And have been confined to my bed with a fearsome cold until today.’
He stared at her out of narrowed eyes. ‘You swam the moat?’
‘Yes.’ She produced a workmanlike handkerchief and applied it with enthusiasm. ‘Mr. Derwent came to fetch me.’
‘Derwent? But how? Very few people know the secret of the way across the moat.’
‘Oh, I believe Miss Weston told him of it,’ said she sweetly, and observed with satisfaction the whit
ening of his knuckles as his fingers tightened on the arm of his chair. Maybe that would serve to teach that flamboyant female not to distribute her favours so generously!
The Marquis, once again in control of his reflexes, bade her adieu in a very proper sort of way, promising himself the pleasure of calling upon her in Charles Street at no very distant date. She assured him that she would be happy to receive him.
‘I wonder if Derwent will?’ he murmured, a gleam of sardonic amusement lighting up his harsh features.
Miss Honeywell entertained the same doubt, and as she watched his tall figure swing away over the lawns, she told herself fiercely that this time she had gone too far and taken complete leave of her senses. What Mr. Derwent was going to say when he heard of this development, she shuddered to contemplate.
Then she reminded herself that it was no concern of his, that he was a contemptible rakeshame, and there was no point in his protesting that he had pleasured himself with Miss Weston in order to save her, for she would not believe him. Having worked herself up into a fair state of misery, it was with real relief that she greeted Lady Harveston when that lady rejoined her a little later.
‘Lunch will be ready in a few minutes.’ She looked about her. ‘Quite fanciful of me, I daresay, but I could have sworn I heard you talking to someone when I was in the house.’
‘I was,’ Miss Honeywell said blandly. ‘It was Lord Wayleigh.’
The book Lady Harveston was carrying dropped from her nerveless fingers to the ground.
‘W-Wayleigh? Wh-what did he want? Did you deny me?’
‘He didn’t ask for you. He came to make me a proposal of marriage.’
Her ladyship sat down in a manner which suggested that her knees had ceased to support her. ‘He did wh-what?’ she quavered.
‘He feels it to be his duty to offer to set right any wrong he may have done me.’
‘I—I see. You, of course, declined his obliging offer?’ Miss Honeywell inspected her finely-wrought gold bracelet, a possession of many years, as if it was something so strange as to absorb all her attention.
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