Standing at the far end of room with his back to the fireplace was the Earl. He was dressed and looking so smart, so magnificent and overwhelming that for a moment she almost felt as if he was a stranger.
Then with a little cry she ran towards him.
“Why did you not – tell me you were – going to get up?” she asked. “Are you well – enough? Are you quite – sure it is not too – much for – you?”
Her questions tumbled over themselves.
The Earl smiled and replied,
“Good morning, Mariota. I am glad I have been able to surprise you.”
“I am astonished! I thought you would have to stay in bed for another two or three days – at least.”
“I refuse to be a weakling any longer and quite frankly, I feel much better than I expected to. I have been waiting for your return so that you could share a glass of champagne with me.”
“To celebrate that you have come downstairs?” Mariota asked with a smile.
“No, to celebrate that I am a man again and you will no longer be able to bully me as you have been doing while I was stuck in bed!”
Mariota looked at him quickly to see if he was serious, then realised that he was teasing her.
She gave a little laugh as she walked towards the table on which she now saw there was her father’s wine-cooler, which had not been taken from the safe for many years and in it an open bottle of champagne.
“Shall I pour you a glass?” she asked.
“That is what I am waiting for.”
She handed a glass of champagne to him and, as she gave it to him, she looked up at him and suddenly for some inexplicable reason felt shy.
She told herself it was because he was right in saying that he was a man again and that was very different from being a patient who wanted her to look after him and who sometimes, when he was in pain, seemed like a little boy who needed her protection and her comfort.
The Earl raised his glass.
“To Mariota, to whom I owe so much, far more than I can put into words.”
Mariota looked at him in surprise and he added quietly,
“I do not know of another lovely lady who would have nursed me as efficiently as you have done.”
It was not what he said but the way that he said it which made Mariota feel the colour rise in her cheeks.
Because she felt suddenly self-conscious, she walked back to the table to pour a small amount of champagne into the other glass that was waiting there.
“I ought to be toasting you,” she said, “and I think really it should be a wish that, as in the Fairy stories – you will live – happily ever – after.”
She thought the Earl might laugh, but instead there was a very serious expression on his face as he said quietly,
“That is unlikely and I will tell you why later today.”
She looked at him questioningly and he continued,
“I am going to take you driving this afternoon. Dr. Dawson has agreed that I need fresh air, but he will not let me ride or walk and so I have ordered a phaeton to be waiting for us after luncheon.”
“That sounds wonderful!” Mariota exclaimed. “I have always longed to drive in a really smart phaeton – as I am sure yours is.”
“I hope it will meet with your approval,” the Earl said a little dryly.
“You can be sure of that,” Mariota laughed.
It was strange the way the Earl was looking so serious and she wondered if something had upset him or perhaps, although he would not admit it, he was feeling weak and his head was hurting him.
But she had no time to ask him any questions before Lynne came running into the room.
She rushed up to the Earl to enthuse,
“I had the most marvellous, wonderful ride, thank you, thank you! How can you be so kind as to let me ride such superb horses? The one today was even better than the one yesterday!”
“That is what I thought myself when I ordered it and I am glad that you enjoyed yourself.”
“It was more glorious than I can ever tell you!” Lynne said. “May I have some champagne?”
“Only a little,” Mariota cautioned quickly.
“I will not get ‘foxed’ if that is what you are afraid of,” Lynne burbled, “except with excitement.”
She paused before she added to the Earl,
“Why can you not stay with us for always? Then we can ride your horses, drink your champagne and eat your delicious food.”
“Is that the only reason you want me?” the Earl asked.
‘No, of course not,” Lynne replied. “It’s exciting to talk to you and I can understand why all the beautiful ladies in London are at your feet.”
The Earl laughed.
“Now you are flattering me and may I say that I have never been in the company of two more beautiful ladies than I am at the moment.”
Lynne gave a little cry of delight and as she did so her father came into the room.
“I heard you had come down, Buckenham,” he said to the Earl. “You must be pleased to be back on your feet again.”
“I am celebrating my return to normality with a glass of champagne,” the Earl replied, “and I hope you will join me.”
“I shall be delighted to do so,” Lord Fordcombe replied, “if my daughters have left me any!”
Mariota looked at him quickly to see if he disapproved, but he was smiling and, as he took the glass she had filled for him, he said,
“I drink your health, Buckenham! I should also like to thank you for the interest you have brought to Queen’s Ford after arriving here in a somewhat unconventional manner.”
“I understand it was on a gate,” the Earl replied, “although I remember nothing about it.”
Because Mariota could not bear to remember that it was her fault he had been thrown from his horse in such a disastrous manner, she went from the room to see if luncheon was ready.
When they had enjoyed what had been a superlative meal and Mariota thought she could never remember one when there had been so much laughter, the Earl suggested,
“When you are ready, Mariota, my phaeton will be waiting for us and the horses having had very little exercise lately will be restless.”
“I will not keep them more than a minute or two,” Mariota said rising from the table.
As if he suddenly thought of it, Lord Fordcombe asked,
“Where is Jeremy? Why is he not here?”
“I saw him when I was going to Church, Papa, riding across the Park,” Mariota replied. “I expect he has either forgotten the time or has stopped at an inn for bread and cheese.”
Because she was aware that Jeremy was riding the Earl’s stallion, she did not stop to hear her father’s reply, but hurried from the room.
She ran upstairs to fetch a shawl to put over her thin gown just in case it should grow cool during the afternoon and arranged her bonnet in front of the mirror.
As she did so she remembered the fashionable bonnet that Lady Elizabeth had been wearing yesterday and thought with a touch of depression that it would not matter what she did to herself, she would never be able to look as smart or as elegant as the Duke’s daughter.
Then, because she was afraid of keeping the Earl waiting, she hurried downstairs to find him, as she had expected, climbing slowly and carefully into the high seat of the phaeton.
The two horses he was driving were perfectly matched and Mariota knew were as distinctive in their own way as his stallion.
As she sat down beside him, she realised they were driving alone and the groom was not travelling with them in the seat behind.
It gave her an unexpected feeling of happiness she could not explain, but she knew it was what she wanted and it was thrilling to have the Earl alone.
He drove as she expected with an expertise that was unmistakable and, as they moved down the drive, she said impulsively,
“This is how I always imagined you would look.”
“In one of your dreams?” the Earl enquired.
“Yes, but the real you is even better.”
The Earl smiled and turned his head to look at her. She thought no man could look more attractive and it was not surprising that her heart turned over in a rather unaccountable manner.
“Where shall we go?” the Earl asked.
“There is a rather pretty drive where I have not been for a long while. It is across the Park and through the woods you can see in the distance. I am sure you would not wish to be on the dusty highway.”
“Certainly not!” the Earl replied.
He turned onto the grass path that Mariota indicated to him and they drove right across the Park and found the entrance to the wood where there was a ride that took them into the very heart of it, then out at the other end onto a path across the meadowland.
They did not talk because the Earl was concentrating on his horses and Mariota was telling herself that this was something she would remember all her life and recapture again and again in her dream stories.
“I tell you what I would like to see,” the Earl said breaking the silence, “and that is the place where I fell off my horse and the stone I hit my head on.”
Mariota drew in her breath.
“Why do you – want to see – that?” she asked nervously.
“Just curiosity. I don’t remember in my whole life ever falling before in such an ignominious manner and it will remind me that pride often goes before a fall!”
Because she could think of no good reason why he should not go there and it was not far from where they were at the moment, Mariota directed him to what was called the Worcester Road.
They drove along it until they came to the place where Jeremy had held up the carriage and the Earl had appeared on the other side of the road.
“This is – it,” she said in a rather small voice as the Earl drew in his horses.
There was no need to point out the large boulder against which he had hit his head when he had fallen.
She stood looking at it and remembered all too vividly how at the shot from her pistol the stallion had reared up and he had been thrown from its back onto the stone.
“It really looks rather formidable,” the Earl said. “Perhaps I should take it home as a souvenir?”
“No – forget it!” Mariota cried.
She found herself remembering how frightened she had been and how, when he had pointed his pistol at Jeremy’s back, she had thought he would kill him.
While she was hoping that he would not speak of it, suddenly from the woods behind them through which she and Jeremy had emerged, came a harsh voice saying,
“Put up your ’ands!”
Mariota turned her head and gave a little cry of horror.
For one split second it flashed through her mind that it might be Jeremy playing highwayman again.
Then she saw standing on a bank that made him almost level with them in the phaeton was a large man holding in his hand an ancient shotgun.
He had a handkerchief covering the lower part of his face and a battered old hat pulled down over his forehead. His dark eyes looking at them seemed menacing and she could see the finger of one of his huge dirty hands with its broken nails on the trigger.
“Give I your money!” the man called out through the handkerchief that was covering his mouth, “or I’ll blow a piece of lead right through you!”
The way he spoke was so menacing that, without thinking Mariota moved forward on the seat and stretched out her arm in front of the Earl so that he was behind her.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” she said angrily. “This gentleman has not been well and you must not hurt him.”
“That’s not me business,” the man said. “Give I your money or it’ll be the worse for you.”
Instinctively Mariota was aware that the Earl was thinking of what he could do to prevent them from being hurt and at the same time strongly resenting handing over his money in such an ignominious manner.
Then to his surprise, Mariota said in a different tone of voice,
“I know who you are! You are Bert Hewings! How can you behave in such a horrible manner?”
“I’m not arguin’ with you, Miss Mariota,” the man said in a surly tone.
Mariota dropped her arm, which she had held in front of the Earl.
“You are crazy, Bert!” she asserted. “You’ll be caught and hanged as you well know.”
“Might as well be ’anged as starve to death!” Bert retorted.
“Nonsense!” Mariota replied. “Besides, if you were to hang, you know it would break your mother’s heart.”
“It’s no use, Miss Mariota. I’ve got to get some money,” Bert said. “I ain’t ’ad a decent meal for days. I’m ’ungry and that’s Gawd’s truth!”
“I know it’s difficult to find work around here,” Mariota said quietly, “but I will tell you what I will do, Bert. I will send a note to the Squire and see if he will find you something to do, perhaps as a woodman or working on the farm.”
“I’d do anythin’, Miss Mariota, you knows that,” Bert said hopefully.
He had pulled the handkerchief from his face as he was talking and the Earl could now see that, although he was dirty and unshaven, he was not a bad-looking youth.
“I will try to help you,” Mariota went on, “but how could you think of anything so wrong and wicked as to become a highwayman?”
“I ’ears that someon ’as ’eld up a carriage ’ere last week, picked up a fortune!” Bert replied.
“Who said that?” Mariota enquired.
“Them was a-talkin’ in The Green Man,” Bert answered.
This was the local inn and Mariota realised that when the Earl’s servants were searching for him they would naturally have related what had happened to them and how two highwaymen had held them up and robbed Lady Coddington.
She drew in a deep breath.
Then she said,
“You must forget it, Bert, and while one highwayman gets away uncaught, you might be hanged or transported.”
“If you take my advice,” the Earl said, speaking for the first time, “you will hide that gun and forget that you ever carried anything so incriminating. In the meantime here is something with which to buy food, until Miss Mariota gets you the job she has promised to find you.”
A coin spun through the air and Bert caught it deftly.
“Thank you, sir, thank you!” he cried, “and I’ll do as you say!”
“Don’t forget, Bert,” Mariota told him, “and I promise you I will write to the Squire.”
Bert touched his hat and the Earl drove on.
As he did so, Mariota thought miserably that it was all Jeremy’s and her fault.
Of course the story of their ill-gotten spoils would incite the younger villagers who could not find work to try the same thing.
If it had not been the Earl whom Bert had held up, he might now have been shot by a passenger who was quicker and more experienced with firearms than he was.
They drove on for a little way before the Earl said quietly,
“Thank you, Mariota. I realise that you tried to save me and it is difficult for me to understand how you could do anything so brave as to place yourself between me and the man who was threatening us.”
“It was only poor old Bert, who is very stupid and a failure at everything he undertakes,” Mariota answered.
“I don’t think you knew that at first,” the Earl remarked perceptively.
“No, but I could not have him shooting at you, as he might have done.”
“Why not?”
She could think of a number of answers she could give him, including that it was her fault he was here anyway. Then suddenly she knew the real reason why she had behaved as she had.
It was because she loved him.
It was something, she thought now, that she had known for a long time, in fact from the first moment she had seen him lying against the stone on which he had struck his head and thought how overwhelmingly smart and elegant he looked.
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Then being with him, talking to him and looking after him day after day had taken him not only into her dreams but also into her heart.
She loved him and the wonder of it swept through her like the brilliance of sunshine.
They drove on and now the Earl turned back into the wood they had just come through and they moved along the ride until they reached the Park.
Then, in the shadow of the trees, he drew in his horses and turned round in his seat to face her.
Because she felt shy at meeting his eyes and was also still bewildered by her own feelings she asked before he could speak,
“Why – are you stopping? I feel you – should not be out for too long.”
“We will return home in a moment,” the Earl replied, “but first, there is something I want to tell you, Mariota.”
There was a note in his voice she had not heard before and, as she looked up at him, her eyes met his and once again they seemed to fill the whole world.
“You are not only the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life,” the Earl said in a deep voice, “but also the bravest.”
Because it was not what she had expected him to say, Mariota could only draw in her breath and feel that the sunshine had a brilliance that illuminated the Earl until it glowed around him as an aura of gold.
“You must know by this time that I love you, Mariota,” he went on still very quietly with a note in his voice that seemed to vibrate through her.
“Y-you – love me?”
She was not certain whether she whispered the words or if they were just repeated in her heart.
She felt as if everything around them exploded like fireworks that flamed up into the sky and became stars.
“Yes, I love you!” the Earl repeated. “But there is nothing, my darling, that I can do about it.”
Mariota made a little gesture as if she would hold out her hands towards him, then they fell back into her lap.
“I – don’t – understand.”
“That is what I have brought you here to tell you,” the Earl said. “I somehow thought it would be easier than if we were in the house where we might be interrupted.”
“But you – just said that you – loved me?”
“Yes, I love you,” he said harshly, “in a way I never believed was possible!”
Wish for Love Page 10
