by M C Beaton
But Betty was overcome by superstitious fear. She was sure it had been the ghost and heaved a sigh of relief when the dark woods of the castle were well behind them—and the gibbet—and they were riding along the country road in the sunshine with the long strips of fields stretched out on either side.
She was acutely conscious of the warm, hard feel of his body pressed against her back and of the feel of his arm around her waist. It was surely the moment for him to at least kiss her cheek. But they rode on through the silent fields. At last a huddle of houses appeared in the distance and the Duke gave a little sigh of relief.
"Civilisation at last," he said with a little sigh. "This farce will soon be ended."
"Indeed," said Betty, holding her back very straight. "And am I part of this farce, sir?"
There was an awkward silence while she waited, her heart beating to the clop-clop of the horse's hooves.
"No, my delight," he said at last. "I merely have a longing for clean clothes and hot water."
Betty tried to think of an equally light reply but could not. She felt very young and miserable and desperately in need of reassurance.
They clattered into the courtyard of the Jolly Coopers and the landlord came running out, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of the Duke and Betty.
"Your Grace," he said. "Have you had an accident?"
"In a way," replied the Duke, dismounting and then lifting Betty to the ground as impersonally as if she had been a package of goods. "Pray, landlord, post one of your men to town to my address. I shall give you a letter of instructions. I wish a private parlour for Lady Lovelace, food, and hot water. A great deal of hot water."
"Certainly, Your Grace. Of course, Your Grace. Anything Your Grace commands," said the landlord, bowing low.
His obsequience was balm to the Duke's injured pride and he began to look almost cheerful.
He led Betty toward the door of the inn, tucking her hand in his arm and suddenly smiling down at her in that heartbreaking way of his. Betty's dismal little world tilted and righted itself and the sun shone again.
But the couple were brought up short by the sight of a thin fashionable woman and her rabbity daughter who were just emerging from the inn. The Duke swore under his breath and Betty stiffened. Both of them immediately recognized Mrs. Campford, London's worst gossip, and her tittering daughter, Belinda.
"Why, Your Grace!" cried Mrs. Campford. "And Lady Lovelace, I declare. What is amiss? You look as if you had been set upon by highwaymen. Where is your maid, Lady Lovelace?"
"Forgive us, I beg of you, Mrs. Campford," said the Duke, all chilly dignity. "My fiancée is tired and in need of rest."
"Fiancée!" echoed Mrs. Campford while Belinda let out an inane giggle, but the Duke was already pushing Betty before him into the inn. Betty was shown into a low comfortable bedroom and the Duke told her he would meet her in their private parlor in one hour. He bowed and gave her quite a kind smile and Betty began to feel happy and elated all over again.
One of the inn's housemaids had been delegated the job of lady's maid and Betty found it soothing to have the luxury of a bath and then have her hair brushed and her dress, now completely free of mud, brought back from the kitchens where it had been cleaned and ironed.
Betty twisted her blond curls into as fashionable a style as she could manage, put on her tattered silk slippers, and went to open the casement window to let in some fresh air, for a fire had been lit in the bedroom and the air felt hot and stuffy.
Directly below her in the courtyard of the inn stood Mrs. Campford and her daughter. Betty was about to draw her head in again when Mrs. Campford's words stopped her short.
"So like her stepsister, Jane Lovelace," Mrs. Campford was saying. "She trapped Charles Welbourne in exactly the same way. You recall how we came upon them unchaperoned in Hampstead? I am sure that was why Lord Charles had to marry her. And now this. My dear Belinda, did we not hear only this morning how they had ridden off together from the Ruthfords' drum? Drunk, mark my words. Well, now he has to marry her. Only think! The high and mighty Collingham brought low by a blacksmith's daughter."
Betty closed the window and turned and stood with her back to it, hands clenched into fists to try to stop their shaking.
Chapter Six
The Duke of Collingham sat alone in the private parlor, communing with his soul and a glass of brandy. Some two hours after he had dined, his servants had arrived in force. He was barbered and powdered and dressed in his best. Bella, flanked by two Westerby maids, had arrived almost at the same time to attend to the wants of his new fiancée, Lady Betty Lovelace.
Well, of course, at first he had felt as if he had trapped himself into marriage. As soon as he had found out that the child being abducted was not Simon, he should have remembered this posting house or at least have made an effort to return to London before dark, lame horse or no. But he had not. And now he was to be wed. But that was no longer the problem troubling him.
He had become reconciled to the whole idea. By the time they had arrived at this inn, he had begun to think that this Lady Betty was out of the common way. He reflected on her courage, her stamina and her bravery. No one, least of all himself who did not rate the gentler sex particularly high, could have guessed from her delicate and feminine appearance that Lady Betty had all these sterling qualities.
Before luncheon, he had chided himself for his cold behavior and was perfectly prepared to be . . . well . . . more loverlike.
But this time it had been she who had treated him to a dose of chilly formality and at one point when he had tried to kiss her hand she had gently withdrawn it and winced—yes, dammit to hell, she had winced. The frown deepened between his brows as he mulled over this insult. Had that gos-sipping, meddling Campford woman had anything to do with it? But then Lady Betty should have realised he was honour bound to propose marriage.
Or what if she had not?
Now just suppose she had considered his proposal to come from the heart and then realised it had not? Well, she was as bound to him as he was to her and she would just have to make the best of it. All at once, he remembered the feel of her young lips under his own and realized with a shock that he did not want this type of marriage of convenience but would prefer a love match with a willing Lady Betty.
In any case, he could not sit all day in this country inn worrying over a matter which could be better solved in London. He sent for one of his servants and dispatched him with a message to Lady Betty suggesting that they make their departure within the half hour.
It was only when Betty appeared in the courtyard to join him that he realised he had been hoping that she would have changed back to the Betty he had known in their brief escapade—angry, happy, frightened, in love, always alive.
The stately little fashion plate that stood on her elegant high heels among the straw of the courtyard was as unreal as a porcelain figure. Her hair was powdered and her face enameled like a delicate mask. Her gown of gold damask was worn over a wide hoop with falls of gold lace at the elbows and at the bosom. She swept him a curtsy, forcing him to respond with an elaborate bow.
The Duke turned to Bella who stood sentinal with her thick arms crossed over the ample folds of her starched apron.
"Well, Miss Bella," teased the Duke. "Are you not to congratulate me on having secured so fair a prize as your mistress?"
"Eh?" said Bella stupidly, her small eyes darting from her mistress's set face to the Duke's slowly disappearing smile.
" 'Tis nothing, Bella," said Betty. "His Grace is merely funning. I feel he has had a surfeit of my company and so I shall travel with you, Bella. My lord Duke . . ." Betty swept him another low curtsy, a footman sprang to the Westerby carriage and let down the steps.
The Duke of Collingham stood where he was while Betty arranged her skirts in the carriage, the footman raised the steps and closed the door and the cumbersome Westerby coach rattled out of the inn yard. Betty looked out at him once, just once, and raise
d her hand in a half salute. He knew he should have pulled her from the carriage, shaken her, made a scene, demanded an explanation. But a lifetime of strict formal manners was hard to break. Also, no one had ever snubbed the Duke of Collingham in all his charmed life. He was very rich and he was very powerful. He became aware that the landlord was beside him, bowing so low his nose nearly touched the ground, awaiting His Grace's further wishes. This abject subservience which the Duke had never noticed before, taking it entirely as his due, began to irritate him.
But he contented himself by saying curtly that his stay at the inn was over. His Swiss would pay his shot and then the Duke would take himself off and all the time he was speaking the Duke was making up his mind to follow Lady Betty to her London address and there impress upon her that he was indeed her future husband.
In no time at all, his faster carriage had fallen into line behind the Westerby coach and stayed there until they all rolled to a halt outside the Westerby town house.
Betty invited him in to take some refreshment in a cold, tired, dull little voice which all too clearly showed she heartily wished him elsewhere.
"Now, there do be a letter for you, my lady," said Bella, picking up a long, folded piece of parchment from the hall table. "Must have come by hand because the post has been this morning and Miss Armitage has taken it into the study."
Betty picked up the letter and led the way to the drawing room, saying over her shoulder to Bella, "Do bring some tea and perhaps His Grace would like some canary."
She sat down by the fire and since she did not want to speak to the Duke, she gave a muttered, "Excuse me," and broke open the seal of the letter and glanced at the signature and gave an involuntary exclamation, "Why, it is from Hester!"
Betty scanned the letter quickly, her face turning pale. Then she began to read it very slowly and carefully as if hoping she had made some mistake.
"I cannot bear to tell you to Yr Face, dear sis," Hester had written. "I am sorry I ws that Twitty this morning but for sure I cant live without Him and when you read this I will be on my way to North Amerika to join Him whether he Marry me or no. Take care of Simon tho I think there is naught to trouble you there and that the misfortunes that beset us Westerbys were the Workings of Providence as Mr. Syms says and not Human Intervenshun and Ill miss you sore Betty. Forgive me. Yr. Loving Sister Hester."
The badly spelled letter was blotched with tears.
"You have had bad news," said the Duke quietly. Betty nodded dumbly and handed him the letter which he scanned quickly.
"I will see what I can do," said the Duke grimly. He quickly left the room. When he returned about half an hour later, Betty was still sitting where he had left her, pale and dry-eyed, staring numbly at the letter.
"There is a ship bound for North America leaving Gravesend on the evening tide," he said. "We could take my carriage and perhaps you might be in time to rescue your sister."
Betty nodded and called to Bella to fetch her mantle. Quietly Betty explained the contents of Hester's letter to the maid, saying that none of the servants or even Simon must know, for she hoped to being Hester back with her. "No, do not come with me, Bella," added Betty. "Stay and guard Simon." For unlike her sister, Betty could not quite believe that all the "accidents" which had befallen her family were entirely due to the workings of Providence.
The Duke was driving his racing curricle. No groom or footman was perched on the backstrap. "This is a family matter," he said to Betty, "and the less the servants know about it the better. Now hang on tightly. I'm going to spring them."
Perhaps Betty would have been afraid of the speed at which they were traveling, but anxiety for her sister drove all other thoughts from her mind. Fields, hedges, walls and cottages hurtled past. Each was still dressed in the clothes put on at the inn to impress the other, although Betty's gown was now covered with a mantle of gold-crushed velvet.
The huddle of houses and the curve of the river, red in the setting sun, at last appeared in view. There seemed to be a lot of craft in the estuary and, silhouetted against the sun, one tall ship sailing proudly out to sea.
"Oh, pray she is not on that ship," cried Betty and the Duke did not reply but urged his horses faster and faster and the curricle lurched and swayed in its headlong pursuit toward Gravesend. Through the dilapidated huddle of houses that was Gravesend they rattled, swinging round onto the wharf.
"Hey, fellow!" cried the Duke to a surly-looking seaman who was sitting on a coil of rope. "The Bonaventure. Where does she lie?"
"She lies a good bit to 'merica," grinned the seaman, pointing with his clay pipe to where the ship that Betty had seen earlier was now only a toy ship dwindling in the distance.
A cold breeze blew from the river. "Oh," said Betty hopelessly, that "oh" covering a world of misery. Gone was Hester's bracing good humor and she was left alone to care for a small boy whose life, she now increasingly believed, was threatened. She had not been aware of being alone with the Duke, so intent had she been on trying to reach Hester before she sailed—mad, crazy Hester, setting out for the New World without so much as a maid.
"I shall find a fresh team," said the Duke gently, "and we will return to London as quickly as possible." Large tears began to roll down Betty's cheeks and she scrubbed at them ineffectually with a pocket handkerchief.
When they reached a posting house on the outskirts of Gravesend, a fresh team of horses was quickly saddled up and the Duke set a more sedate pace on the road back to London. Having neither brother nor sister himself, he could only guess at Betty's distress and he privately cursed his friend Jimmy Dunbray under his breath.
Betty had stopped crying, but despite the clatter of the horses hooves, he heard her give a pathetic little dry gulping sob and reined in.
"My dear," he said, turning to Betty, "you must not distress yourself further. You have me to take care of you now."
"No," said Betty with a sigh. "No. I am aware you feel obliged to marry me, but I assure you I-I d-do not w-wish to be married t-to you or any other man."
"Don't be silly," said the Duke in tones of maddening patience. "If you do not announce our betrothal soon, then your reputation will be in ruins. Mrs. Campford will see to that."
"You c-cannot f-force me to m-marry you," said Betty lifting her chin. Long evening shadows lengthened across the road and the evening air was damp with the promise of rain. A flock of rooks circled and swung high above their heads, their raucous cries carrying on the rising wind. The wind rushing through the trees beside the roads sounded mournfully like the sound of the sea which was bearing Betty's beloved sister away to the other side of the world.
The Duke knew he should gather her in his arms and tell her he loved her. But his pride was there, was always there, a high wall which kept him from betraying his feelings or showing any warmth. Again he felt the lack of his well-ordered life which Lady Betty had disrupted, as she had disrupted his heart with strange doubts and unmanly emotions. Of course he found her attractive, very attractive, but that would surely pass. If he married, he needed a highborn and obedient wife.
This was the dawning of the Age of Reason. Emotions were untrustworthy beasts which must be kept at bay. The intellect was all and his intellect was telling him that she was showing him an open road out of an unsuitable marriage.
"Very well," he said, gathering up the reins. Betty gave another dry sob. The Duke did not know how badly he had failed her, how he had just proved her worst fears right. At one sign of love from him, Betty would have thrown her arms around him. But he did not love her. At least she had been saved from a loveless marriage. But, oh, she felt so young and inexperienced and she longed for her dead mother, for her dead stepsister and for her sister who had left her alone in this strange and cruel London world.
"Now I can go back to Eppington Chase," thought Betty. "There is nothing now to keep me in London."
But as the miles to London rolled swiftly under their yellow wheels—"were all the Duke's carriages
yellow?" wondered Betty—her misery began to be replaced by a small spark of anger and as she looked sideways at his handsome profile, so uncaring, so divorced from her anguish, the small spark became a flame and by the time she had reached home she had resolved to see if she could make him hurt and suffer as he had made her hurt and suffer.
Was there a sadness, a hint of longing in those green eyes of his as he helped her down from the curricle? Betty decided that there was—the Duke was longing for the safety of his home and sad that he had ever met her. He bent over her hand but she snatched it away and marched into the house, her head held high.
Bella was sitting asleep in a chair in the hall and awoke with a start as Betty slammed the door shut behind her.
All Betty's reserve and bravery crumbled. "Oh, Bella," she cried. "She's gone and he doesn't love me!" And with that she ran forward and sinking to her knees, buried her face in Bella's apron and cried as though her heart would break.
The next day, calm and pale, Betty went about her various duties. Simon had been invited to a children's party to celebrate James Entwhistle's birthday and was in great fig at being allowed to go to his own social event. Betty left him with the Entwhistles, promising to send Miss Armitage to collect him that evening. She instructed Miss Armitage to place an advertisement in the Morning Post for a tutor, remembering briefly that the Duke had promised to find one for her and then firmly dismissing it from her mind. The great town house seemed sadly quiet and empty; bereft as it was of Hester's noisy, ebullient personality.
Fanny Bentley called and Betty explained that Hester had been feeling exhausted by the entertainments of the town and had gone to the country, at which news Fanny tried to hide her disbelief. She could not imagine anything exhausting Hester.
"Are you going to the Martindale's ball this evening?" asked Fanny.
"I accepted the invitation," said Betty, "and had planned to go with Hester, but now . . . well, perhaps I shall stay home."
