by Mary Balogh
And now, if only Katherine would come, he could tell her everything. She would be angry, dreadfully so. But surely she would be glad for him too. Once her anger had passed its first heat, she would share his excitement. She might even stay, at least for another day or two. Then perhaps he could accompany her to London and leave her at the home of her aunt while he journeyed to France to find his mother.
He did not know what he was going to do about Clive Seyton. He did not know what the procedure was under such circumstances. He would have to find himself a good lawyer, he supposed. And he did not know when he should confront the man with his knowledge. Certainly not before he had spoken to Katherine and worked everything out with her. Truth to tell, he had not given much thought to the more unpleasant aspects of his discovery. He was still caught up in the euphoria.
Would she never come?
When Lord and Lady Toucher had joined him at the breakfast table and they had exchanged civilities for a while, Nicholas grew impatient. He turned to the butler, who was replacing lids on the hot dishes.
“What time has the carriage been ordered for Mrs. Mannering?” he asked.
Russell looked back at him in some surprise. “The carriage has not been ordered, sir,” he said. “I understand that Mrs. Mannering is to leave on the stagecoach at noon.”
“On the stagecoach?” Nicholas said. “Are you sure, Russell?”
“I think it quite a shame things turned out the way they did,” Lady Toucher said. “She seemed a genteel-enough young lady.”
“Seemed?” said Nicholas. “Is she not genteel?”
“We heard only last night,” Lady Toucher continued. “My brother had been close-lipped about the whole thing out of deference to dear Thelma’s feelings, I suppose. Did you not know, Sir Harry? It seems that Clive was forced to dismiss Mrs. Mannering for misbehavior. Lord Uppington caught her and a lover together, you know, and tried to beat the man off with his whip. But it seems that Mrs. Mannering did not want such kindly meant help. She threw herself in front of her lover and got caught by the whip herself. And that poor half-witted son of the Pickerings also attacked his lordship. He must have been keeping watch for her. A very sordid affair indeed.”
“Indeed,” Nicholas echoed.
“When the poor marquess went that night to punish the lover, he was ambushed and beaten for his pains,” Lady Toucher said. “Clive had no option but to give Mrs. Mannering her notice, of course. I am amazed that he was kind enough to allow her to stay for a week. She cannot have been a good influence for Thelma.”
“I see,” Nicholas said. “So Mrs. Mannering is to leave on the stagecoach. Has anyone given any thought to how she is to reach the village, Russell?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir,” the butler replied with a bow.
“You will see that Dalrymple’s curricle is ready before the door by eleven,” Nicholas said. “And let me know when Mrs. Mannering comes down to breakfast. I shall be in the chapel.” He got up abruptly from his chair and left the room.
“Well, bless my soul,” Lady Toucher said to her husband, “I always did think that Sir Harry had something of a tendre for Mrs. Mannering.”
Nicholas could not pace inside the chapel. Although it had not been used as a church for many years, there was still an unmistakable atmosphere of holiness about it that demanded reverence. He sat on a faded wooden chair and tried to force his mind to relax.
Poor Katherine. Why had she not told him the truth? He had even accused her of some heartlessness toward the Pickerings in not telling her story to the earl. And all the time she had had the same doom hanging over her head as they. What a very independent woman she was. Was she afraid that he would create a big stir on her behalf to vindicate her character and restore her employment? Rather than owe that to him, she had kept quiet about the whole thing and borne the burden alone.
He would make it up to her. He would persuade her to stay, and then he would see how Clive Seyton and the Marquess of Uppington would react when he presented her as the future Countess of Barton, mistress of Barton Abbey.
Nicholas became convinced eventually that the butler must have forgotten about him. Even if the stagecoach did not leave until noon, surely Katherine should be up by now. Of course, it was possible that she would not come down to breakfast. Probable, in fact. She had not done so for the previous five days. He had forgotten that. And now that he thought about the matter, he realized that she had probably been ordered to keep to her room. Surely she would not slip away without anyone’s noticing. But she must have a trunk too heavy to carry with her. He left the church and hurried into the house.
“Where may I find Audrey?” he asked the butler.
“I shall send her to you, sir,” Russell said.
The answers Audrey had to his questions, though, were far from comforting. Mrs. Mannering had gone, she said. All her belongings had been taken from her room too.
Nicholas had already turned to speed to his room before the maid finished speaking. There was still an hour until the stage left. She could not have left any other way. He would catch her yet before she left.
“Sir,” Audrey said timidly, “Lady Thelma’s maid says that she has gone too.”
Nicholas stopped in his tracks. “Lady Thelma?” he said with a frown. “Gone? Do you mean out for a ride?”
“No, sir.” The girl was twisting her apron around one finger. “She has taken clothes and other things with her.”
The foolish girl was running from Uppington, Nicholas thought, and Katherine had gone with her. And if they were running away, they had probably not waited until some respectable hour of the morning. Was that why Katherine had not stayed longer in his room last night? Thelma was going to come and tell her all about the ball, she had said. Damnation!
“Have you seen Moreton, Tate?” Lord Poole asked as he passed them in the great hall. “We were supposed to ride this morning. But he hasn’t been to breakfast and he ain’t in his room.”
“No, I haven’t,” Nicholas replied, “but I don’t think you will find him in the house.”
Lord Poole disappeared, muttering something about finding Stoughton and whiling away the time until luncheon with a game of billiards.
“Thank you, Audrey,” Nicholas said, dismissing her with a nod. There was only one thing to be done, it seemed. He had nothing against his cousin Thelma beyond the fact that she was somewhat insipid. She certainly deserved better than a marriage over the anvil. Especially since it was probably unnecessary. He did not think Uppington would be quite as eager to marry the girl once he heard of her suddenly reduced circumstances. And perhaps her father’s plans for her would not be quite as ambitious either.
And he was certainly not going to allow Katherine to be dragged all the way to Scotland on such a mad journey if he could do anything about it. He found the earl in the library.
“Ah, here you are,” he said languidly, wandering into the room and closing the door behind him. “I wonder if you are aware, my lord, that your daughter is making a journey?”
“What’s that?” Lord Barton said, looking up from some papers spread before him. “The girl’s probably still in bed. Last night was an exciting one for her, you know. I announced her betrothal to Uppington. Hope you slept well, Tate.”
“Oh, quite, I thank you,” Nicholas said, waving one dismissive hand. “But I have reason to believe that your surmisals about your daughter’s whereabouts are wrong. It is my guess that she is somewhere on the road between here and Gretna Green with Mr. Sidney Moreton and Mrs. Mannering.”
“What!” Lord Barton was on his feet in one bound, his fists slamming down onto the desk. “Eloping? With Moreton? The girl would never be so mad. Is this some joke, Tate?”
“I would suggest that you send to the stables to find out what carriage is missing,” Nicholas said.
Lord Barton was in a towering rage when news came back from the stables that Mr. Moreton’s traveling carriage had been taken out in the middle of the night an
d had not returned. Mr. Moreton’s own horses and coachman had gone with it. But the earl was ready to take the advice of the cooler Sir Harry Tate. It was as well that no one else in the house be told of what had happened, he advised. The travelers had a start of several hours, but it was not impossible to overtake them if Lord Barton took his lightest carriage, changed horses frequently, and stopped only for very short intervals to eat.
In fact, Sir Harry was kind enough to point out, he had a curricle all ready and waiting for him at that very moment. If Lord Barton cared to fetch a coat and his purse, they could be on their way almost immediately. They merely needed to leave the message that his lordship had to leave on urgent business and would be away perhaps for a night. Sir Harry would be glad to speak to Lord Toucher himself, and to Charles Dalrymple, about borrowing his conveyance.
Ten minutes later the curricle, with Nicholas holding the ribbons and Lord Barton seated beside him, was bowling down the driveway in the direction of the lodge. Matters were not quite as secretive as they seemed, Nicholas realized. It was soon going to be obvious to those left behind at Barton Abbey that he and the earl were not the only ones missing. But the plan was the best he had been able to come up with on the spur of the moment.
Indeed, he thought a little guiltily, he cared less about the reputation of Thelma than he did about catching up with Katherine so that he could tell her everything and somehow persuade her to forgive him and agree to marry him. And that was going to be no easy task. Let the man beside him worry about Thelma. In fact, it might be to her advantage to emerge from this day’s business with a somewhat tarnished reputation. There was a greater chance that she would be allowed to marry the man of her choice without having to go to Scotland for the purpose.
Damn Katherine Mannering! Why had she not simply told him what she was about to do? She had made love with him the previous night, listened to his marriage proposal, implied that she would hear his explanations and give him an answer over breakfast, and all the time she had known that she would be fleeing immediately after the ball.
Sometimes he could cheerfully wring her lovely neck. This happened to be one of those times.
Chapter 24
Kate and Thelma were sitting rather glumly in what passed for a private parlor in the Red Lion, an inn that was clean and respectable enough, but that was not one of the main posting houses on the road to London. A pot of tea and three empty cups stood on the table.
“That wheel will never be mended,” Thelma was saying for surely the dozenth time since they had been stranded a few hours before. “And we all might have been killed if that hedge had not been so thick that it prevented the rolling of the carriage. And Papa will catch up with us here, before we have gone much more than twenty miles from home. He will ring a thundering peal over my head and I shall have to marry Lord Uppington.”
Kate’s patience was wearing thin. But she tried to hold on to her temper. She tried to put herself in Thelma’s place and imagine her anxiety. Mr. Moreton’s carriage had lost a wheel, and the danger to their lives had not been exaggerated by Thelma. Even the hedge would not have saved them if the coachman had not already slowed the carriage ready to enter a village. As it was, they had been unharmed. There had just been a great deal of screaming from Thelma, who was convinced that highwaymen were responsible, and a great deal of loud, consolatory words from Mr. Moreton. And they had had to walk a few hundred yards to the inn.
“I can understand your worrying,” Kate said soothingly. “But that last point should not concern you at all. No one can force you to marry Lord Uppington. Besides, it is very unlikely that he will wish to marry you after your attempt to elope with Mr. Moreton.”
“Do you really think so?” Thelma asked hopefully.
They lapsed into silence again. Kate was in no mood to keep the conversation alive. She was feeling mortally depressed. Had he meant it last night when he had asked her to marry him? She had wanted so badly for him to mean it that she had persuaded herself that it could not be true. She wanted to be Harry’s wife. And he must love her just a little, surely. He could not have loved her the way he had the night before if he had merely been taking advantage of her presence in his room and her willingness.
When he had not pressed for her answer but had said that he must tell her something first the next morning and must then leave her for a few weeks, she had immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was regretting hasty words. She had had to protect her own feelings thus. But her assumption no longer seemed reasonable. Harry did not strike her as an impulsive man. And one would have to be very impulsive indeed to propose marriage to a woman and regret it the moment after.
She had not even told him she was leaving. He would naturally assume that her answer was no. And she would never see him again. She had stupidly, rashly given up the chance to marry the man she loved. She had, inexplicably enough, loved two men within a few weeks and had made love with both. The first had abandoned her the morning after, and the second she had left the morning after. Well, she could no longer call Nicholas a heartless wretch without labeling herself at the same time.
“Whatever can Sidney be doing?” Thelma said, jumping to her feet and beginning to pace the room. “Do you think the wheel will be repaired soon, Kate? Oh, I hear another carriage approaching. It is Papa. I know it is Papa.”
“It is coming from the opposite direction,” Kate pointed out. “This is the main road to London, you know. There is bound to be a fair amount of traffic on it.”
“Ohhh!” Thelma wailed. “We are not even on our way north yet. Does it really take so long to repair a wheel? Would you not think that Sidney could hire another carriage?”
Kate sat for a couple of minutes longer, but the pacing and fidgeting and sighing of her companion drove her to her own feet eventually.
“I shall go outside into the stableyard and see what I can find out,” she said. “Perhaps if the delay is going to be much longer we can take a walk along the village street. You will feel better in the fresh air.”
“No, I will not,” Thelma wailed. “Papa will be here soon.”
Kate opened the door of the parlor and stepped outside into the passageway. She was in sight of the taproom, where the occupant of the newly arrived carriage was standing talking to the innkeeper, facing half toward her. She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. Harry? He had come?
But even as the thought flashed into her mind, she frowned and looked more closely. No, he was not Harry. Her brain must be addled. But he looked very like: the same height and dark wavy hair, the same strong features. But this man was younger, little more than a boy, in fact. And his face was open and pleasing. He did not have the arrogant, slightly bored expression that was usual with Harry.
Kate must have been standing and staring for several seconds. If the passageway had not been somewhat dark, she would surely have been observed. She gave herself a shake and walked forward, intending to go around the two men and out into the stableyard beyond. The innkeeper’s words stopped her, however.
“Here is a lady traveling out of Dorset,” he said. “She can tell you if I am right or not. Do you know Barton Abbey, miss? Would you say it is a little more than twenty miles away?”
Instead of answering, Kate turned sharply to look again at the stranger. From this close his resemblance to Harry was even more remarkable. Only his eyes were quite different. They were brown instead of blue.
“Oh,” she said, “you must be going to find Sir Harry Tate. Is he your brother?”
“Unfortunately I do not know this man,” the stranger said with a very pronounced French accent. “But if he is an acquaintance of yours, ma’mselle, I regret that I am not his brother.” He bowed elegantly and smiled broadly at her.
Kate had a feeling of unreality. She must be in the middle of some bizarre dream. He was Nicholas Seyton. The same smile exactly. The same voice, except that the French accent was not quite identical. But different-colored eyes. No, he was not Nicholas. His
figure was too slight and boyish.
“Yes,” she stammered, “Barton Abbey is little more than twenty miles distant.”
“Ah,” the stranger said with another smile, “then I shall be able to reach there by tonight, yes?”
Kate nodded.
“May I present myself, mamselle?” he said. “Anatole Duplessis, son of le Comte de Beaumaris at your service.” He bowed again.
“And of Annette, former Viscountess Stoughton,” Kate said in a dream.
He looked at her, his expression arrested. “But how did you know this, mamselle?’ he asked.
“Because I know your brother,” she said, a frown between her brows. “You are almost as alike as two peas in a pod.”
“Pardon, mamselle,” he said, “you mean this Sir Harry . . .?” His hand circled the air expressively.
“No,” she said. “I mean Nicholas Seyton.”
He looked at her, his hand suspended in the air for a moment, and then took her firmly by the elbow and led her across the taproom to the fireplace. The innkeeper went regretfully about his business.
“You know Nicholas Seyton?” the Frenchman asked. “Is he not dead?”
“No,” Kate said. “He is at Barton Abbey.”
“Can this be so?” Anatole Duplessis was looking intently at her, bent toward her as if to catch her every word as soon as it left her lips. “But when word reached my mother in France that the old earl was dead, and we—my father and I—persuaded her finally to come and see her first son, my half-brother, we discovered that the new earl is a man who himself has grown children. How can this be, when my brother was the heir of the old earl?”
Kate swallowed. Reality was beginning to return to her. “I am sorry, sir,” she said. “I should not have said so much. I have no right. But I do assure you that your brother is still alive. He will explain the whole story to you when you see him tonight.”
The Frenchman leaned toward her still. But he too seemed suddenly to be restored to the present. He smiled brightly. “Mon Dieu!” he said. “Maman must know this. I cannot believe it. He is alive! But pardon, mamselle. I am showing extreme bad manners to detain you thus when we are strangers. Please excuse me.”
