The only lie I have told was to make us the same age so the ceremony will therefore be completely legal.
However, in case the Duke or the Earl try to take Elizabeth from me and find some way of annulling our marriage, we are going to disappear until all the recriminations have blown over and it is safe for us to come back from where we will be enjoying a blissful honeymoon.
I shall know it is safe to return when you put a message for me signed ‘Mariota’ in the personal column of ‘The Morning Post’, which I shall contrive to buy wherever we are hiding.
Dearest Mariota, do this for me, and of course do everything you can to prevent our being discovered too quickly. First of all, keep the Earl from communicating with the Duke for as long as possible. I am fetching Elizabeth very early in the morning before everybody is awake and she is leaving a note to say that she is coming over to Queen’s Ford to be with the Earl on his journey back to Madresfield.
This will keep everybody from being curious until the Earl himself appears and they realise that Elizabeth is not with him. By that time I hope we will be married and far away and I know you will think I have been very clever in all my plans when I told Elizabeth to pack some of her clothes in one of the Earl’s trunks that were waiting for him and to tell the footman he needed it to bring his clothes from Queen s Ford.
What was more, as I know it is a question you will ask, Elizabeth and I have enough money for our honeymoon, but I would marry her if she had not a penny.
I love her for herself, she is the most wonderful girl in the world but of course it makes things easier than if we had to scrimp and starve, as you have been doing these last years. And at least I shall not have to eat rabbit!
Fortunately I did not pay my tailor’s bill when I was in London and practically everything I obtained in that criminal manner of which you so disapproved is in the bank. Complemented with the money and jewellery that Elizabeth is bringing with her, we will be very comfortable.
I think I have thought of everything and, although you may be angry with me for what I am doing, I am sure you will think I have in fact been very resourceful. You are a wonderful sister, Mariota, and Elizabeth is sure that she will love you as much as I do, so please give us your good wishes for a happiness we are quite certain we are going to have together.
Don’t forget to let us know when we can come back to civilisation, but there is no hurry, as we are both determined to have the most perfect honeymoon any two people have ever enjoyed together.
With love from your resourceful brother,
Jeremy.”
While she was reading the letter, Mariota had held her breath until she reached the end, feeling that this could not be true.
Then, as she did not know what to say or what to think, she merely handed the two closely written sheets of writing paper to the Earl.
He took it from her with a look of surprise, but he did not ask any questions and began to read what Jeremy had written, while Mariota stood looking out with blind eyes into the garden, her fingers clenched together.
She could not even wonder what he would think or what he would feel. She only felt unsure of herself and a little frightened.
It seemed to take him a very long time to read the letter, but when he had done so, he folded it up and returned it to her.
She took it from him and as her eyes searched his face, wondering what he was feeling he said,
“I have changed my mind! I shall not be leaving until this evening and only when I am ready to go, you will show me that letter which I have not yet read.”
“I-I don’t – understand – you mean – ?” Mariota stammered.
“I mean, my darling,” the Earl said with a smile that illuminated his face, “that we must give the young couple a sporting chance to get away as far as possible before the hue and cry begins!”
Then, as Mariota stared up at him wonderingly, his arms went round her and his lips came down on hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Earl of Fordcombe was working at his desk when the door opened and Lady Coddington looked in.
“Forgive me for bothering you,” she said in her soft voice, “but I cannot find anybody and I wondered where my brother might be.”
There was a smile on Lord Fordcombe’s face as he rose to his feet.
“I am so delighted to see you!” he exclaimed. “I have finished the chapter about the part my ancestor played in Marlborough’s campaign and I want to read it to you.”
Lady Coddington came further into the study and shut the door behind her.
“How exciting!” she said. “I am longing to hear it.”
She walked as she spoke towards the desk and Lord Fordcombe realised that it was the first time he had seen her in anything but mourning.
Instead of the black or mauve gowns she had been wearing since she first came to Queen’s Ford she had on a very attractive gown of white trimmed with ecru lace, run through with rows of sapphire blue velvet ribbons.
Her bonnet was also white except for blue ribbons to match those on her gown and some tiny blue ostrich feathers peeping over the brim.
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said,
“You look very lovely – almost like a young girl on the threshold of life.”
Lady Coddington looked shy.
“I wish that was true, except that perhaps now I am older I am wiser and more appreciative.”
Lord Fordcombe looked surprised at the last word and she explained,
“When one is young one takes so much for granted, but when one is older one savours everything that happens and is very very grateful for any happiness one finds.”
“Sometimes I have thought I have forgotten how to be happy,” Lord Fordcombe said, “but talking to you about my book has given me a new enthusiasm for it and perhaps also for living.”
Lady Coddington drew in her breath.
He came from behind his desk and they moved as if by instinct towards the sofa which, worn and faded, was on one side of the large fireplace.
Lady Coddington sat down and then she said,
“I expected Alvic to come to Madresfield for luncheon, but I am sure that when the moment came to leave he decided he would stay here with you a little longer.”
“It has been a great pleasure to do what we could for him.”
Lord Fordcombe spoke as if he was not thinking of what he was saying and his eyes were on Lady Coddington’s face.
Then he said in a different tone from the one he had used before,
“I suppose if your brother leaves us today, I will not see you anymore.”
There was silence.
Then Lady Coddington said in a voice that had a little tremor in it,
“It will be difficult, once I have – left Madresfield.”
“You know how much I shall miss you.”
“Are you sure you will?”
“It is difficult to put into words what a difference your company has made to me and how when you leave the sunshine seems to go with you.”
Lady Coddington looked up at him and her fingers were clasped tightly together in her lap.
Then she said in a voice a little above a whisper,
“I shall miss you!”
Lord Fordcombe rose to his feet and walked across the room to stand at the window.
He stood looking out as if he had never seen the garden before or the trees in the Park and after a moment almost as if the words were jerked from between his lips, he said,
“I have nothing to offer you!”
He did not hear Lady Coddington move, but suddenly she was beside him and he was aware of the closeness of her and the sweet fragrance of the scent she used.
She stood very still without moving and after a moment Lord Fordcombe said,
“You know the position I am in. You have seen my house and what has happened to my children.”
“But there is – you.”
The words were almost inaudible.
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Lord Fordcombe turned round and she thought that no man could look so handsome, so attractive and yet she was still afraid she had misunderstood what he had said.
She raised her eyes to his beseechingly and he said in a voice that was low and hoarse,
“What can I say? I want you, I need you and I love you!”
There was no need to speak.
Lady Coddington gave a little cry of sheer happiness and moved into his
arms –
*
Mariota and the Earl found their way across the uncut lawn through bushes of syringa and lilac to an arbour.
“Nobody will find us here,” Mariota said, “and you must sit down and rest. I am sure Dr. Dawson will disapprove of your doing too much or getting over-excited.”
“I am over-excited!”
The Earl pulled Mariota almost roughly against him and kissed her until they were both breathless.
“I love you,” he sighed, “and now there is nothing to prevent me from saying so. We will be married as soon as it is humanly possible.”
Before Mariota could answer him, he kissed her again and only when finally she was free did she indicate a battered and torn old sofa at the back of the arbour and say,
“Please sit down – I feel as if my – legs will no longer – support me.”
The Earl laughed, then seated himself a little gingerly on the sofa and found that, although it looked so dilapidated, it was comparatively strong and quite comfortable.
He would have pulled Mariota down beside him, but she fetched a wooden stool and placed it in front of him so that he could lift his legs onto it, before she said,
“If your sister comes over this afternoon, she will wonder what has become of us, but it would be a – mistake for her to learn too – quickly that Elizabeth is – not here.”
“That is why I told you that we had to hide,” the Earl said, “and may I say it is something I am very happy to do with you, my lovely one.”
“I cannot believe what has happened is true! And now you do not have to – marry Elizabeth are you quite – certain that you – want to marry me?”
“Are you really asking such an idiotic question?”
Then he looked at Mariota’s face and asked,
“What is worrying you?”
“How do you – know I am – worried?” she parried.
“I love you,” he answered, “and because of it I know every expression in your eyes, every inflection in your voice and even now, when I feel as if I am jumping over the moon, I know that you are worried about something.”
He would have put his arms round her, but Mariota moved a little way from him before she said,
“I-I have something to tell you – and perhaps it is – foolish of me to do so – because when you hear what I have to say – you will no longer – love me or want to marry me.”
“Is this the secret worry of which I have been aware ever since I have known you?” the Earl asked.
“Y-yes!”
“Then whatever it is,” he said, “let me make it clear that even if you had committed every crime in the calendar, I would still love you and I would still marry you. You are mine, Mariota, and nothing and nobody shall prevent us from being together for the rest of our lives.”
Mariota made a sound that was curiously like a sob before she said,
“You must – hear what I have to – tell you first.”
“I am listening.”
He knew as he spoke that she was trembling and only because he wished to do what she wanted did he prevent himself from kissing away the worry in her eyes and the slight quiver of her lips.
He thought as he did so that never in his whole life, in all his many and often tempestuous love affairs, had he ever felt as he did now.
No woman had ever affected him not only with a burning desire but with a feeling that he recognised as reverence for her innocence and purity and also with something else.
He could only describe it to himself as a spiritual awareness that he and Mariota belonged to each other and had been joined as one since the beginning of time.
It was not only her beauty that held him spellbound, so that as he had said she haunted him both by day and by night, but there was also an aura of goodness that emanated from her and made him aware that she was not only exceedingly desirable, but also very precious as a person.
‘I worship you,’ he wanted to say to her.
But because they were so closely attuned, he knew that she had to tell him what was on her mind before she could be sure of his love.
“You will be – very shocked and perhaps very – angry,” Mariota began in a small voice, “and I don’t know how to – tell you how desperately – ashamed I am of – what I have done.”
“What have you done, my precious?”
Mariota drew in her breath.
Then in a voice that did not sound like her’s, she said,
“I-I was with Jeremy when – disguised as a highwayman – he – held up your sister’s coach and – robbed her of her – money!”
She could not look at the Earl as she went on, feeling as if every word had to be dragged from her lips and to speak was an agonising pain,
“It was – I who fired my pistol at – you when I saw you pointing yours – at Jeremy’s back and which caused your horse to rear – so that he – threw you.”
She knew, without looking at him, that the Earl was staring at her incredulously.
Then he asked,
“You were dressed as a man?”
“Y-yes, Jeremy said it was safer – and it would be dangerous for him if I did not – go with him – I could – therefore not let him go – alone.”
As Mariota spoke, she thought that this was the end of everything that mattered and that, because he would be shocked and furious not only at her behaviour but at her perfidy in not telling him sooner, the Earl would walk away and leave her.
He would then go back to the house and somehow find a way of leaving immediately.
She would never see him again and her dreams of happiness would lie broken around her so that she might as well be dead.
Then, suddenly, unexpectedly and astonishingly, the Earl laughed.
As if she could not believe what she was hearing, Mariota turned her face to look up at him and saw that his eyes were twinkling and he was laughing as if he could not help it.
Then he put out his hand and pulled her towards him.
“Oh, my darling, only you and your fantastic family could think of anything so unusual, so extraordinary, that I can hardly believe I am not taking part in some Restoration Comedy. I adore you!”
He put his arms around Mariota and held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe, let alone speak.
Then he went on,
“How could I have imagined for one moment that you would do anything so absurd and at the same time so dangerous? I promise you, my precious one, that it is something you will never do again.”
Mariota hid her face against his shoulder and, as he knew that she was crying, he said,
“You are not to cry, there is nothing to cry about.”
“I thought you would – hate me – and I would – lose you.”
“You will never do that,” he answered tenderly. “At the same time I would find it humiliating that your first sight of me should have been when I fell off a horse, if it had not been a most effective if somewhat unusual introduction.”
His lips were against her forehead as he carried on,
“If that had not happened, I would have gone on to Madresfield and not even been aware that you existed. So all I can say is, my darling, thank God Jeremy needed some new clothes!”
Mariota looked up at him wonderingly, the tears on her cheeks and on her long eyelashes.
“You – realise that was – why he wanted money?”
“I admit I have wondered once or twice,” the Earl replied, “as you were so poor and according to Lynne existing on a diet of r
abbit, how Jeremy could appear in the latest and most fashionable attire, made by what I know to be a very expensive tailor.”
“You will not be – angry with Jeremy?”
“Angry with him?” the Earl asked. “I am so grateful to him for taking Elizabeth off my hands that I am just wondering what would be the best and most expensive wedding present I could give them both.”
Mariota gave a little cry of joy.
“You understand and you forgive us? How can you be so – wonderful? How can there be such a kind and – marvellous man in the world and how could – I have found him?”
The Earl did not answer.
He merely kissed her and it was a long time later before Mariota asked,
“You will not tell your – sister about Jeremy?”
“No, of course not,” the Earl replied. “It would be a great mistake, my darling, for your secret to be divulged to anybody except your husband and I very much doubt if Jeremy will confide in his wife.”
“I did promise Jeremy that nobody will ever know,” Mariota said, “but I had to tell – you in case it created a secret between us that might have spoiled our love.”
“There will be no secrets between us,” the Earl asserted fiercely. “I will take care of that! You are mine, Mariota, and I own every thought that comes into your head and every dream that you have when you are asleep.”
She gave a little laugh and he added,
“I have always in the past despised men who are jealous, but I shall be wildly jealous of you and that is what happens when one is really in love.”
“You will never – need to be jealous,” Mariota answered. “For me you fill the whole world, the sky and the sea and there is only you. It would be impossible for me when – you are there to know that – anybody else exists.”
The way she spoke, the depth of her voice and the little touch of passion that had never been there before was very moving.
Wish for Love Page 13
