Belinda Goes to Bath

by M C Beaton

  Her stomach gave an unladylike rumble. She wondered whether she could expect breakfast or if the marquess kept London hours and rose about two in the afternoon. Her stomach rumbled again and she threw back the covers, climbed down from the high bed, pulled on a wrapper, and went in search of Miss Pym. That lady’s bed was empty, so Belinda decided to dress and go downstairs.

  She rang the bell to summon the lady’s maid and spent an enjoyable half-hour choosing an ensemble. Belinda had had little interest in clothes in London and would not admit to herself that this sudden desire to be fashionably gowned was to compete with Penelope Jordan.

  She chose a cambric muslin gown, white with a small blue velvet spot and with a pelisse of blue silk trimmed with fur to wear over it. For her head, she selected the newest style in caps, a confection of muslin with the same blue velvet spot as her gown. Olive-green stockings, the very latest colour, were chosen as they, or rather one of them, would be seen, fashion demanding that any elegante should loop her gown over one arm to show one leg almost to the knee.

  Betty, the maid, heated the curling tongs and arranged Belinda’s hair in a simple but flattering style before putting the froth of a cap on top of it.

  On leaving the warmth of the bedroom where the fire had been burning brightly, Belinda was struck by the chill of the corridor. Through a mullioned window she could see snow falling steadily on the battlements. Both portcullises were lowered. It was amazing that they were still in use. Obviously the marquess did not expect or did not desire any further visitors.

  She hesitated at the top of the main staircase and looked about for a servant to guide her to the breakfast room. She began to wonder if breakfast was being served at all. It was only eight in the morning, and a disgracefully unfashionable hour for any lady to be up and about. But Betty had made no comment, and surely the maid would have said something.

  Then she saw a footman ascending the staircase and went down to meet him. To her query, he inclined his powdered head and said, ‘Follow me, miss.’ He led the way down to the first landing and then along a passage and threw open the door of a room.

  To Belinda’s relief, the sideboard was laden with dishes. She sat down at a small mahogany table. The butler came in carrying a tray with pots of coffee, tea and hot chocolate, but asked her if she would prefer beer. Belinda asked for tea and then chose kidneys, bacon, egg and toast. She marvelled at the efficiency of the marquess’s staff, who could produce all this food so quickly, but no sooner had she begun to eat than the door opened and the marquess came in. Breakfast had been prepared for him, and he had not expected any of his guests to be up so early, for he looked at her in surprise.

  He had obviously come in from riding, for he was wearing top-boots, leather breeches, a black coat, and a ruffled shirt. His hair was unpowdered and was indeed very red, a rich dark red, worn long, and confined at the nape of his neck with a black silk ribbon. He looked somehow more formidable than he had in evening dress.

  He sat down at the table and ordered cold pheasant and small beer.

  He said a polite good-morning. Belinda replied shyly and then he began to eat. Belinda had often heard it said that gentlemen were averse to conversation at the breakfast table, and so she ate in steady silence. She finally looked across at him, her eyes widening slightly, for he was staring at her in a way she could not fathom. It was a hard, calculating, almost predatory stare, the distillation of a long line of aristocrats who took what they wanted.

  Belinda flushed slightly and looked down at her plate.

  To the marquess, Belinda had become suddenly available. Any young woman who ran off with a footman could hardly be a virgin. She was not beautiful, but that mouth of hers was definitely disturbing.

  ‘Where is Miss Pym?’ asked Belinda, feeling the silence must be broken.

  ‘I found her exploring the barbican and demanding to see the old torture chamber. What an indefatigable lady she is.’

  ‘Why do you keep such a thing as a torture chamber?’ demanded Belinda.

  ‘For historical interest. I do not torture anyone, I assure you. There is also the dungeon, one of the towers which is said to be haunted …’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘By the ghost of a Miss Dalrymple, a Scotch lady, governess to the children of the second earl. It was said the second earl was too interested in the lady, and so Miss Dalrymple was found murdered in the top room of the tower. Rumour had it that the countess had stabbed her to death. Another rumour had it she had rejected the advances of his lordship’s valet de chambre.’

  ‘And have you seen this ghost?’ asked Belinda.

  ‘I have not the necessary sensibility to see ghosts, Miss Earle.’ His eyes teased her. ‘Would you like me to show you the tower?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, and perhaps Miss Pym would like to come as well.’

  ‘But I do not know where Miss Pym is at present,’ replied the marquess, ignoring the fact that he had only to summon his servants and ask them to look for her. ‘We shall go now, as you have finished your breakfast.’

  Belinda nodded and rose but she felt uneasy. The marquess, although his manner towards her had not particularly changed, seemed to exude a strong air of sexuality. She glanced uneasily at his flaming hair and wondered if he had a temper to match.

  Hannah Pym saw them enter the courtyard together and withdrew behind a buttress. She had no wish to intrude. The marquess appeared to be chatting amiably to Belinda. She was pleased to note that Belinda was keeping quiet and obviously not treating the marquess to any of her frank disclosures of the night before. It was as well Hannah could not hear their conversation.

  ‘None of the rooms in the walls are used now,’ the marquess was saying. ‘As I explained, they are merely kept in order for historical interest. Would you like to see the torture chamber first? We have a very fine rack.’

  ‘No, I thank you,’ said Belinda with a shudder, blissfully unaware that she was the first lady who had not demanded enthusiastically to see it. ‘I am not the type of lady who enjoys public hangings, nor do I get a thrill from viewing antique instruments of torture. Nor do I see medieval castles as symbols of an age of chivalry and glory, but instead relics of an age of oppression.’

  The curtain walls of the castle that enclosed the castle houses had four massive towers. There was a gatehouse and barbican, chapel, dungeon and torture chamber. The castle houses where the marquess lived were set in the courtyard inside the walls, rather like the buildings of Oxford College.

  The marquess led the way to the tallest of the towers. Snow was falling gently, and Belinda shivered with cold. She was wearing heelless silk slippers, considered de rigueur for the fashionable lady, and she could feel the damp from the snow seeping through their thin soles.

  ‘This is Robert’s Tower,’ said the marquess. ‘Robert, Earl of Jesper, built it with the prize money he gained at Poitiers. They were great fighters, the Jespers, and when they weren’t going on Crusades, or fighting the wars of various kings, they were claiming to find infidels on the Welsh and Scotch borders and murdering them as well in the name of Christianity. There are five storeys in the tower: a dungeon, three vaulted chambers, and an upper guard chamber with a store-room underneath.’

  He stood back to let Belinda mount first. Suddenly self-conscious, she dropped the skirt of her gown instead of looping it over her arm to show that one leg.

  She paused on the first landing until he joined her. He pushed open the door. Belinda entered.

  She found herself in a large chamber, vaulted in two bays, and lit on two sides by tall, single-light ogee windows. Two grooms were sitting by the fire and rose at their entrance.

  The marquess waited patiently while Belinda looked quickly around. The remains of breakfast lay on a deal table.

  Then she walked out of the room. The marquess followed her and closed the door behind them.

  ‘I thought you said the rooms were unoccupied,’ whispered Belinda.

  ‘They are,’ said the
marquess, surprised. ‘They are only used by the outdoor servants.’

  ‘And are not servants people?’

  ‘My radical Miss Earle, when I said they were no longer used, I meant by either myself or my guests.’

  ‘You are reputed to be a recluse.’

  ‘Not I. Merely fastidious.’

  Belinda climbed up the next flight of stairs. ‘Now this,’ said the marquess, joining her on the landing, ‘is the haunted chamber.’

  He was interested to see Belinda’s reaction. In an age when gothic novels were in vogue, most young ladies, on being shown the tower room, would pretend to have seen the ghost; a few took the opportunity to faint into the marriageable marquess’s arms. The thing about this Miss Earle, thought the marquess, was that although she was by no means beautiful, he found her large eyes and that passionate mouth immensely attractive. And her directness was refreshing. It was not a pity she was Haymarket ware; it was a definite asset as his intentions were rapidly becoming dishonourable.

  Belinda stood in the middle of the room and looked slowly around. This room was not even used by the servants. It was bleak and cold, with the wind howling mournfully in the chimney.

  ‘Was this Miss Dalrymple’s room?’ asked Belinda.

  The marquess nodded.

  There was a small chamber off the main room, a garderobe, a medieval lavatory with a stone seat over a hole, which gave a clear view downwards of the former moat, now drained. She returned to the main room, which had a scrubbed table and two massive carved chairs.

  Perhaps it had not been so grim when the unfortunate governess was in residence, thought Belinda. She would surely have had some of her own possessions about her.

  ‘I did not think they had governesses in medieval times,’ said Belinda.

  The marquess shrugged. He was disappointed in Belinda’s lack of reaction. ‘She was not called a governess. She was merely a female of fairly good birth who was there to educate the very young children. Do you sense her presence?’

  Belinda shook her head. ‘I sense desolation, that is all. What a cruel time to live!’

  ‘I sometimes think no more cruel than our own,’ said the marquess. ‘Look from the window.’

  Belinda looked out. The snow had stopped falling. Far down below, beyond the castle walls and the fields and farms and cottages, was a crossroads. And at that crossroads stood a gibbet with three rotting bodies hanging in the wind.

  She shivered. ‘But that is the justice of the English courts,’ she said, half to herself.

  ‘I envy you your belief in the fairness of English justice,’ he said. ‘One of those hanged was a half-starved youth of sixteen. He stole a sheep. The other two are murderers, and yet he met the same fate. But we become too serious. Would you like to climb to the roof of the tower?’

  Belinda replied reluctantly that she would. She felt she had been discourteous in not admiring this part of the castle enough and was trying to make up for it.

  They climbed higher and higher until they came to a low door that led out on to the roof of the tower.

  ‘Go to the right,’ said the marquess. ‘You will obtain a good view of the castle buildings and the gardens.’

  Belinda did as she was bid. She clutched the parapet and looked down at the jumble of chimneys on the roofs of the castle buildings, at the formal gardens behind them, buried in snow. The wind rose suddenly and she drew back, stepped on a pebble and gave her sprained ankle a savage wrench.

  She let out a moan of pain. The marquess caught her round the waist and supported her. ‘Your ankle,’ he exclaimed. ‘I had forgot. I should never have let you walk for so long on it. Allow me to carry you.’

  Belinda protested feebly but he lifted her up easily in his arms and made for the staircase. ‘Hold tightly around my neck,’ he commanded. ‘The stairs are narrow.’

  Her heart began to thud painfully and she found it hard to breathe. He was holding her so very tightly and the feel of the hardness of his body against hers was doing bewildering things to her senses.

  The marquess reached the bottom of the staircase. It was very dark there. Before he opened the door, he looked down at her and met a wide-eyed gaze. On impulse, he bent his head and kissed her on the lips. It was the first kiss Belinda had ever received and she thought dizzily that it was wickedly delicious, rather like one’s first ice cream.

  And then it was over. He freed her lips and said in a husky voice in which surprise and passion were mixed, ‘You enchant me.’ Then he opened the door and, still holding her tightly, strode across the courtyard.

  From a window overlooking the courtyard, Hannah Pym looked down on the pair in deep satisfaction.

  From the window of her bedchamber farther along, Penelope Jordan also saw the marquess and Belinda and bit her lips hard to stop herself from crying out. She had been schooled from birth to learn that only the vulgar showed an excess of emotion. Ladies must never laugh out loud or show anger or passion of any sort. To produce a few affecting tears to demonstrate fashionable sensibility was in order, as was the occasional swoon. Of course, a type of laughter was permitted, the silvery laugh, taught by one’s music teacher, which began on a high note and rippled down the scale.

  As she watched, the marquess set Belinda down and indicated her ankle. Then he put an arm about her waist and helped her into the house.

  Penelope let out a slow breath of relief. That clever minx had affected to be suffering badly from that sprain and had cleverly manipulated Frenton into carrying her. But the marquess surely could not favour the few charms Miss Earle had above her own. Miss Earle had unfashionably high cheek-bones as well as an unfashionably large mouth.

  She rang for her lady’s maid and put that servant through a gruelling hour and a half – choosing clothes, brushing her hair and trying it in different styles, seeing if rouge would improve her beauty and then deciding it would not, trying on olive-green stockings and then rejecting them in favour of pink, until at long last she was nearly satisfied with her appearance.

  Penelope shivered slightly despite the warmth from the bedroom fire. She was wearing a very thin spotted muslin gown under a pelisse of black lace trimmed with narrow bands of sable. On her pomaded curls the maid finally placed one of the latest turbans, decorated with two scarlet plumes to match the scarlet spot in the muslin. Penelope carefully examined her elbows, her beautiful eyes narrowing as she thought she detected a sign of red roughness on them. She carefully applied some white lead, but the two white patches stood out, so she applied more white lead to her upper arms and drew on a thin pair of scarlet gloves that reached to just below the elbow.

  Then she made her way to her parents’ rooms. They were in their sitting-room, breakfasting in front of a roaring fire. Her father was dining on shrimp and old ale, his favourite breakfast, while her mother had wafers of toast and tea.

  ‘You must make ready to accompany me downstairs,’ said Penelope, cross because both were still in their undress. ‘That Earle female is like to snatch the prize from me.’

  ‘Hardly likely,’ said Sir Henry. ‘She is nothing out of the common way and a man as high in the instep as Frenton would not prefer the charms of some female from the stage-coach to yourself.’

  ‘I am persuaded she is clever and cunning. I have just seen him carrying her across the courtyard. She must have pretended to have hurt her ankle again. Rally to me! There is no time to be lost.’

  Hannah made her way back to the sitting-room she shared with Belinda and found that young lady sitting in an armchair while the doctor examined her ankle. ‘Another bad wrench,’ said the doctor. ‘I shad strap it more tightly, but you must now lie in your bed with the ankle raised on a cushion.’

  ‘It is much better now,’ pleaded Belinda. ‘I shall be so very bored if I have to stay confined to my bedchamber.’

  ‘Lord Frenton,’ said the doctor, strapping Belinda’s ankle, ‘must be anxious for you all to recommence your journey. You should oblige your host by recoverin
g as quickly as possible.’

  Hannah noticed a shadow of disappointment fall over Belinda’s expressive eyes.

  She waited impatiently until the doctor had taken his leave, and then asked eagerly, ‘What happened? Did you really sprain that ankle again?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ said Belinda. ‘He took me to the top of the tower to look at the view and I trod on a pebble and wrenched it again. He kindly offered to carry me, nay, insisted on it.’ Her eyes began to shine.

  ‘And …?’ prompted Hannah.

  ‘He … he … kissed me.’

  ‘The deuce!’ Hannah looked alarmed. ‘That was very fast and forward of his lordship. Your companion is laid up and your relatives are not here to protect you. Would you like me to ask him his intentions?’

  ‘No!’ said Belinda. ‘I can handle my own life, Miss Pym. He seems much taken by me and even said I enchanted him.’

  ‘Fine words don’t butter any parsnips,’ said Hannah crossly. ‘An experienced man of the world can say anything he likes. Hark you, Miss Earle, the servants tell me that he is as good as engaged to Miss Jordan.’

  ‘Well, that’s as may be,’ said Belinda doubtfully, ‘but could it not be that I have struck him all of a heap?’

  ‘Marquesses with every female in the land after ’em don’t get struck that easily,’ said Hannah cynically. ‘Hey, what’s happened to that young lady who didn’t want to marry?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Belinda wretchedly. ‘I wish I had never told you. Now it all seems soiled.’

  ‘Are you in love?’

  ‘How can I tell? I have only met the man.’

  ‘I tell you what I will do,’ said Hannah. ‘I will observe his behaviour towards you and let you know whether his intentions are indecent or honourable in my opinion. Would you like that?’

  ‘No! Well, maybe yes. But I don’t have to promise to listen to you.’

  ‘Now,’ said Hannah, ‘I suggest you get to bed and spend the rest of the day there and I’ll get two footmen to carry you down to dinner. What else did he talk about?’