“If your mother finds out, she’ll never let you visit me. In fact, she’ll very likely refuse to take you to London next spring.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want a London season with Mama. Robert says ton events are dreadfully dull. He and his friends never go to them. They know much better ways to amuse themselves.”
“That may be true, but your only choices are ton parties in London, or staying home in Somerset. Which of those two is more dreadfully dull?” Eleanor leaned over and took the girl’s hand. “Caro, my sweet, I’m glad you’ve had the chance to meet some young men this summer, and get out of the house. In my opinion your mother is much too particular, but she’s not entirely wrong. Virtue is not enough. You must be careful not to let people believe you unchaste. Disappearing at a ball with a young man is just the kind of thing that gives a young girl a bad reputation. If that happens you will never have the chance to wed, whether you wish to or not.”
“Of course I will.” Caro spoke with utter conviction. “I’m going to marry Robert.”
“Has he offered for you?”
“Not yet. But he will. He loves me.”
Eleanor sighed. At a naïve seventeen, Caro trod a rocky path. Then she remembered. Townsend was leaving the county immediately. Instead of arguing the girl out of marriage, Eleanor should prepare her for heartbreak. It was all for the best, but she didn’t relish the task. She had no stomach for difficult encounters today.
Caro, who was giddy but not stupid, interrupted her dithering thoughts. “How did you know we were in the summerhouse? We were careful not to be seen.” The question struck Eleanor silent, but Caro had her own answer. “I suppose you were walking in the garden with Mr. Quinton.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he fancies you. I think you may fancy him, too. But I know he wants you. And Robert has been helping him.”
“What?”
“How do you think he always knows where you’ll be, and when? Because I tell Robert and Robert tells him.”
“But—” Eleanor’s mind reeled. She’d suspected, of course, and Max had virtually confirmed that he made a point of tracing her movements. But that Robert and Caro were in the conspiracy. “How did this come about? Does Mr. Quinton know Robert gets the intelligence from you?”
“I should think he must, since he told Robert to do it. Robert liked me when he first saw me. When we fell into the river. But he didn’t think much of it until Max—Mr. Quinton—suggested he get to know me better since I seemed a pretty girl. But Robert knew straightaway that it was you Mr. Quinton was interested in. We’ve had great fun, sending messages back and forth and making plans for you and Mr. Quinton to meet.”
Eleanor felt dizzy as she watched Caro, so blithe and happy and completely unaware of the effect of her words which seemed to come from a great distance. “I’m so glad it happened, because otherwise Robert wouldn’t have fallen in love with me.”
How could he be so callous? Caro was going to be miserable and it was all Max’s fault.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
Lancashire
“Oh! You’re here, my dear. When did you arrive?”
Eleanor dropped a kiss on her father’s gray head. “Last night, Papa.” There was no point in reminding Mr. Hardwick that he’d greeted her when she arrived late last evening, finding him deep in a book.
The same book, a hefty leather-bound tome, had been brought to the breakfast room. The Reverend Thomas Hardwick didn’t let the mundane requirements of the body keep him from his studies.
Or conversation.
As he consulted the index and flipped to the desired page, Eleanor helped herself to bread and butter and poured herself a cup of tea.
“Pass the marmalade, please Papa.”
Blinking like an owl, Mr. Hardwick looked around the table in vain.
“At your elbow. Careful you don’t get it on the pages.”
Finding and passing the dish of preserves seemed to awake him from his scholarly haze. “Did you have a good journey from Derbyshire?” he asked. “How was Cuthbert?”
“Cousin Cuthbert lives in Kent,” she replied calmly. “I was in Somerset with the Brothertons. Mama’s cousin Elizabeth, and Caro.”
“Ah yes. The little girl. She must be nine or ten by now.” Caro had, miraculously, managed to make an impression on Mr. Hardwick, who rarely remembered anyone who wasn’t interested in the natural history of the Bible. During a brief visit years earlier, she had attempted to lift a rare edition of Culpepper’s Herbal and dropped it on her five-year-old toes. Luckily the book had sustained no more permanent damage than did the child.
“I hope her foot recovered.”
“She is seventeen and walks without a discernible limp.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Did you enjoy your visit? Not too hot in the West Country?”
Eleanor didn’t want to talk about it. Neither did her father. “Is that Stackhouse’s History of the Bible?” she asked. “I should think you know it by heart.”
“I’ve been comparing what he has to say with Pilkington’s essay on the Mount of Olives and a new explanation came to me last night. I must write to Dr. Farrell at Cambridge. He will be most interested.”
Listening to her father ramble on about his obsession was balm to Eleanor’s soul after the storm of the past weeks. Buffeted by the uncertain yearnings of her heart and the undeniable rage of physical desire, she found rest in her father’s almost indifferent affection. He loved her, of course, but he didn’t need her. He made no demands beyond a sympathetic ear. Life could return to normal, to the enjoyment of cool reason, free from the upheavals that Max Quinton had twice wrought on her unwilling emotions. In the dining room of her lifelong home, with the cold mist of a Lancashire summer polishing the varied greens of the shrubbery near the open window, she felt at peace.
During the long journey home she had raged at Max’s manipulative deception. That he would jeopardize the happiness of an innocent girl to get close to her again demonstrated the same careless indifference with which he’d entered a contest to crack the guarded heart of a spinster, and then robbed the pitiful old maid of her virtue.
That the spinster in no way regarded herself as pitiful and in fact reveled in her old-maidhood was irrelevant. Max and his cronies had regarded her as a dried-up prune in need of softening up. But now she was home and ready to forget the whole sorry business. Again. She thought she’d forgiven him, but her anger had returned in greater force. Panic about disrupting the calm of her rational existence had nothing to do with it. It was anger that had driven her away, not fear.
Mr. Hardwick, whose soft discourse had faded from her consciousness, stared in surprise as she slammed her cup down, breaking one of her mother’s Worcester saucers into two neat halves. “I beg your pardon, Papa. I slipped.”
Yes, she had slipped. Twice. Slipped into a crevasse and broken an entire dinner service. Her brief respite of serenity was over. The room was too hot, despite a mild summer drizzle outside the open window. The lace trim of her gown scratched her neck. Her scalp felt itchy.
“I must see Mrs. Hibbert. Perhaps she can mend this.”
Mrs. Hibbert could. The housekeeper went over the accounts with Eleanor and consulted her on a couple of minor problems that she could have easily solved on her own. The staff was quite adequate to the task of caring for the comfortable parsonage and its eccentric master.
These banal tasks restored Eleanor to a state of serenity bordering on somnolence. Being at home always did. Wistfully she thought of the busy life she’d left behind in Somerset: friendly neighbors and an agreeable social circle. What her Lancashire life had always lacked. Mr. Hardwick’s living was not a prosperous one, neither was his parish busy. He liked it that way, had indeed accepted the position because it asked so little of him and allowed him ample time to study. The county was traditionally Catholic and the neighborhood gentry and their tenants adhered to Rome, holding themselves aloof from t
he representatives of the established Church. They required little pastoral care and offered no society. Like her mother before her, Eleanor was bored to distraction.
The distraction she sought in visits to her numerous relations, where she could participate in the pursuits of the gentlewoman. How much happier would her lively mother have been had she been an active vicar’s wife, like Mrs. Walpole, busy with friends, a growing family, and her husband’s advancement. Instead she had supercilious Catholics and a spouse who needed no help, unless he happened to have mislaid a rare pamphlet on the origins of barley. And a child, just one, a well-behaved and self-sufficient little girl. Had Eleanor been as much of a hoyden as Caro, perhaps her mother would have felt needed and stayed alive.
Poor Mama. She hadn’t the option of travel, as Eleanor had. She couldn’t take off for balls and horse races and enjoyable interference in the lives of her erring relatives. She’d been a married woman and tied to her husband.
If Eleanor wasn’t to go mad with no one but her lovable and oblivious father to keep her from brooding on Max Quinton, she’d better find another cousin who needed some bracing advice. In her current mood, she’d even consider the Ashdowns. She’d take a good deal of pleasure in making life miserable for Sir George.
The next day, she eagerly shuffled through the post, hoping for a summons from another county. Surely all her relations hadn’t been simultaneously struck down with health, happiness, and the pursuit of common sense? There had to be an only son who wanted to join the army, a mother of four with a broken leg, or a daughter with a broken heart.
There was but one missive inscribed with her name, in Caro’s unorthodox penmanship. Poor child! Her only qualm about her rapid departure from Sedgehill had been leaving Caro before she learned of Robert’s inconstancy. She’d done her best to prepare the way, persuading Cousin Elizabeth to let Caro accompany the Markhams to Bath for a week or two.
“Robert will find me there,” Caro had whispered happily.
Eleanor left her illusions intact. The likelihood of Robert Townsend abandoning the delights of London for starchy Bath seemed less than nothing. By that time, she trusted, the pangs of first love would have diminished.
She took her time opening the letter, fetching a knife to slice under the seal with a good deal more care than its sender had used in its application, judging by the splash of red wax on the folded sheet. A quick survey told her that Caro didn’t mention Max Quinton. Perhaps he hadn’t even called at Sedgehill. Perhaps he’d taken her request for a few days reflection seriously. Or maybe he’d thought better of his proposal. Which was fine and proved Eleanor had made the right decision. Again.
Dearest Eleanor,
I wish you hadn’t left in such a hurry because you’ve missed such goings-on. I want you to be the first to know that I am to be married! I told you so, and you wouldn’t believe it. But right after you left, my darling Robert spoke to Mama.
Eleanor’s heart sank. She would have expected Elizabeth Brotherton to forbid the match, not because Robert was young and wild but because he didn’t have the high title she craved for her daughter.
She said no, of course. I knew she would. Mama never lets me do what I want and she doesn’t like Robert because he isn’t a horrid old marquess. I told Robert not to even bother asking for her permission but he said he might as well do the right thing for once. Mama said I’d shown I was too young to be out so I was going to have to come back in again until next year. No trip to Bath and no more evening parties till we go to London. So we leave tonight for Gretna Green.
Cousin Elizabeth hadn’t disappointed after all. She’d behaved with predictable narrow-minded stupidity and driven Caro to rebellion. With rising dismay Eleanor read her way through an account of the juvenile couple’s elopement plans to the sorry conclusion that proved Caro’s lack of readiness for marriage.
By the time you read this, I daresay I shall be married and should sign myself
Caroline Townsend.
P.S. Finally I’m leaving Somerset.
P.P.S. I’m so happy!
P.P.P.S. Love is delicious. You should try it.
Eleanor tore upstairs and started packing. A decade of visiting all over England had given her an extensive knowledge of roads, distances, and travel arrangements, and a much better grasp of timing than Robert Townsend and his feckless friends. According to Caro, she and the four young men would travel first to Lord Kendal’s family estate to borrow a carriage. Eleanor had cast her eyes to the ceiling when she read that Robert lacked sufficient ready money to travel post all the way to Scotland. There was little chance they would arrive at the border for another two days. When they did, Eleanor intended to be there, to prevent this most disastrous of matches.
“Off already, my dear?” was all Mr. Hardwick had to say when she went to his study, garbed for the road.
“Caro needs me.”
“The little girl? Did her foot get worse?”
Explanation was futile. “I shall take the carriage to the Red Lion and engage a post chaise. I’ll write and let you know when to expect me home.”
Unlike Robert Townsend, Eleanor always had a supply of guineas in the house, ready for a journey. Sixty-odd miles by post would be expensive and curtail the purchases she’d planned for her London wardrobe. Caro’s future was worth the loss of a gown or two.
She entered the Red Lion Inn, where she was a frequent and well-respected customer. “Good morning, Clitheroe. I need a carriage. I’m going to visit my cousin near Carlisle.” No need to mention Gretna and give rise to undesirable speculation. And no need to explain the absence of a traveling companion. Her own standing in the county, her frequent travel, and advanced age should be enough to quell impertinent questions.
“I’m sorry Miss Hardwick. You should have sent word,” the landlord replied. “This gentleman just engaged the last one.”
She hadn’t even noticed the large figure lingering in the shadowy hall. “Good morning, Miss Hardwick. Fancy meeting you here.”
She almost betrayed herself into expressing the moment’s joy she felt at seeing his reassuringly large figure. He’d come after her! “Mr. Quinton. What a surprise.”
His expression conveyed no reciprocating pleasure. She’d never seen Max so grim.
“You know this gentleman?” Clitheroe asked. “Happen he’s headed for Carlisle, too. Pity you couldn’t share the carriage but it wouldn’t be fit, what with you being alone without your maid.”
“Certainly not.” So he hadn’t come to find her. In fact he must be on the same mission as she.
“If you’re concerned with propriety,” he said curtly, “I can take you as far as the next change where you can hire your own chaise.”
Clitheroe nodded at the happy solution and Eleanor had to admit it made sense. “Very well, Mr. Quinton. I accept your offer. I’m sure I can hire my own carriage at Burton.”
The advantage of speed when traveling post was balanced by the cramped quarters offered by the light carriage. Especially when one had to share it with a large man with whom one was scarcely on speaking terms.
She was the first to break a charged silence. “I take it we are on the same mission.”
“Why else would I have undertaken a two-hundred-mile journey?” His voice was flat and brisk, quite unlike his usual amiable tone.
“Robert Townsend is no longer your ward.”
“I still feel a responsibility.”
“So you should. Caro told me she and Robert kept you informed of our plans so you could get close to me. You used a pair of foolish children, as you quite rightly called them.”
“I wondered if that was the reason you left Somerset without even doing me the courtesy of responding to my proposal. Last time, at least, I was not abandoned without explanation.”
She was on treacherous ground here, and she knew it, so she attacked. “As a result of your callous manipulation, my poor little cousin will be trapped into a terrible marriage and her reputation ruined.
And it’s your fault.”
“And I accept my share of responsibility. Had I paid more attention, I would have noticed things between them had progressed so far.” He regarded her steadily and she refused to meet his eye, staring forward at the fustian wall of the chaise. His attention had been on her. Hers had been equally absent from her cousin and she felt her failure deeply.
“However,” he continued, “Robert offered for Miss Brotherton. He told me he would when I scolded him after the ball. I came to tell you the next morning but you were still abed. When the pair of us called the day after, you had left.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Eleanor absorbed the fact that she might have saved her cousin. “Oh Lord. And now she is ruined.”
“If she’s ruined, her mother must share the blame. They are both young, it is true, but Robert is of good birth and has a healthy fortune, as I am in a position to know. Not only did she turn him down flat, she refused to let him see Caro again. Her intransigence precipitated the elopement.”
“My cousin acted stupidly, I agree. She should have postponed the engagement but let them continue to see each other. Very likely the infatuation would have run its course.”
“Exactly! We think alike. We can only hope for things to go well with them. It’s true I took advantage of the information Robert learned from Caro.” His voice dropped. “You can blame me for the deception, but I was a man in love.”
“You ordered him to court her! Do you know how soiled it makes me feel that I was in any part responsible for their coming together? I thought I could forgive the sordidness of your wager. But this. It is too much.”
“You misunderstand the matter. That had nothing to do with you. I suggested Robert cultivate Miss Brotherton’s company because I thought an innocent flirtation a more wholesome occupation for him than losing his fortune at cards.”
“Oh!” she shrieked. “So he is a gamester! My poor Caro!”
“No! Not a gamester. At least I hope not. And surely not irredeemable. Perhaps marriage will steady him.”
The Second Seduction of a Lady Page 6
