The Devil's Daughter

by Marguerite Bell

  “No, no,” she replied. “I merely sought to remind you of your duties.”

  “Well, now it is all one and the same thing! You have got me holed up here like a fox, and I have no knowledge of what is happening in London. For all either of us know to the contrary Aintree is already dead, and both Markham and Cavendish are implicated. My father will be in a state of mind beyond description, and my sister Fanny hardly able to put her head out of doors “And for all of this you blame me, my lord?” she asked him quietly.

  “I do! Oh, yes, I do! You have become a kind of a—a blight, an evil influence ”

  “And what of the lady over whom you fought the duel?” she asked him, in a quieter voice still, while her hands clasped one another very tightly in her lap. “Does she not bear some sort of responsibility for all that has happened to you?”

  “What, Melissa? Good lord, no! She is a—a woman of the town, a little more refined than most, perhaps—a beauty! Certainly, when I look at you I regard her as a quite outstanding beauty.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said, with tightly compressed lips.

  He looked momentarily ashamed of himself.

  “I apologise,” he said. “I am behaving quite outrageously and it is certainly not my intention to affront you. You have looked after me very well indeed, and as a matter of fact I regard you as an extraordinarily good nurse. I am by no means certain what I would have done without you after that—that debacle at Wimbledon.”

  “I am sure you would have managed very well indeed, my lord,” she told him with a certain irony.

  “That is where you are wrong,” he assured her. “Somehow or other you impressed me with the extraordinary strength of character which you have, and I actually felt inclined to lean on you—to clutch at you like a straw!”

  “A foolish thing to do when the straw is an evil influence,” she observed unsmilingly.

  “I only said that because I—I am in a bad mood this morning! Oh, hell!” he exclaimed, resting his head in his hands for a moment. “Hell and damnation! Why am I going on like this when I have something else to say? Before my brother can get at you! Before anyone else can get at you!”

  Harriet felt herself stiffening on her chair. Like an animal scenting danger she scented an outrage to her pride.

  “What is it, my lord, that you have to say to me?” she asked very quietly indeed.

  He raised his head and looked at her. There was reproach, and bewilderment, and even a kind of appeal in his eyes.

  “Why, dammit, what is there I can say to you except one thing? Are you so utterly unworldly that you don’t expect it! Are not prepared for it?”

  “I give you my word, my lord,” she replied to him, “that even if it means confessing I am excessively unworldly, and therefore probably a little stupid, I have no idea at all what it is you have to say to me.” As this was not entirely true she hoped the lie would be forgiven her. “No idea at all.’

  “Then you must indeed be very stupid.” He glared at her, shook his head because he realised he was behaving clumsily if not contemptibly, and then satisfied his honour by bringing out the request bluntly. “Will you marry me, Harriet? Damn it, you’ll have to marry me!” he added, “Especially after the way I behaved to you this morning!”

  Harriet rose from her chair very slowly and composedly and walked over to the window. Looking out at the sunlit brilliance of the garden she strove to concentrate on one aspect of it, a bed of wallflowers in the midst of which a graceful stone figure was silhouetted against a dark box hedge behind it.

  “I wouldn’t marry you, my lord,” she told him, considering the appealing outlines of the figure, and the surprising way in which the box hedge had been kept carefully clipped, “if there was no other man in the world from whom it was in the least likely I would receive a proposal of marriage. At the moment I can in all truthfulness assure you that there is no other man, and it is very likely I shall end my days as a most embittered spinster, concerned with the well-being of young people like the de Courceys, and attending to the wounds of gentlemen like yourself who get themselves injured for no practical reason whatever. But even if it meant confinement within the walls of a convent as an alternative to marrying you I would not marry you ... And now I think, perhaps, I had better look at your arm and satisfy myself that it is completely healthy!”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Two days later, at an hour when the sun was sinking most pleasingly behind the avenue of elms and the mellow red bricks of Hollowthorne were glowing like rosy apples in the last of the light, Harriet found herself walking in the garden and feeling no small degree of astonishment, as she inhaled the perfume of the borders, that she was still an occupant of the house and still in some sort of attendance on the Marquis of Capel.

  She had talked to his brother, Lord Bruce Wendover, and discussed her position in some detail with him. Only an hour or so earlier they had sat among the roses and examined the situation with a good deal of earnestness. Lord Bruce was of the opinion that Harriet had been shamefully used, and he did not even consider she merited reproof of any kind for having taken it upon herself to affect the outcome of the duel between his brother and Greville Aintree. On the contrary, he seemed to think her action indicated extraordinary presence of mind—which Harriet herself disagreed with completely, since she knew only too well that she had been motivated by blind and quite unreasoning panic. She had wanted to see neither of the two men involved despatched by the other, and she had behaved as she would have behaved under a number of similar sets of circumstances. For instance, if the young de Courceys had been taking an airing in their governess-cart and the horse had bolted she would have darted out unhesitatingly into the road to stop it had she seen it approaching. But the case of Lord Capel and Mr. Aintree was a very different matter. Lord Capel had been wounded and Mr. Aintree was probably already dead ... And it was all due to her and her over-hasty reactions.

  But Lord Bruce shook his head very firmly.

  “I cannot possibly agree with you,” he said. “If you had not interfered my brother might very well be dead, as he himself seems to believe. And as for Aintree, well, we have no knowledge as yet that he is dead.”

  “But the surgeon very plainly entertained little hope of saving him.”

  “All the same, confirmation of his death is one thing, and the fear that he might die is quite another. And as for Richard ... well, he had no business to be fighting a duel in the first instance! And if what you say about his wards is true, then he had certainly no business to be fighting a duel while no provision whatsoever had been made for them and their future. And this is something I cannot understand. How did he come to be the accepted guardian of such a bevy of young things? It is quite unbelievable to me!”

  “Robert is old enough to attend the university, but the other two are quite young,” Harriet admitted. “But in any case Lord Capel denies that he accepted the guardianship willingly—or even that he accepted it at all. Which makes the whole thing seem very strange indeed.”

  “It seems devilish strange to me,” Lord Bruce agreed. “It is so unlike Richard to take on such a charge, when I’ve never known him dote on anything younger than an opera singer in the female line, or a frequenter of Cribb’s Parlour in the male. However,” looking somewhat embarrassed as if afraid that his observation had been in rather poor taste, she having little or nothing in common with an opera singer of the order his words conjured up, “it is possible he was under some sort of an obligation ...but I cannot imagine how that came about. Richard is exceptionally cautious about becoming involved in anything in the least likely to recoil on him.”

  Harriet found it easy to believe that. The Marquis’s proposal of marriage had been made because his conscience had dictated it, but it had been perfectly clear to her that his fears of the trapdoor closing on him had depressed his spirits to such an extent that, had anyone other than herself been involved, she might have been a little sorry for him.

>   Fortunately for him she had put him out of his misery with no delay whatsoever.

  She said suddenly, and with faint curiosity in her tone:

  “It would have been different, of course, if Lord Capel had been a trifle older, or if he had been married! A married man, with the support of a wife, would have been better able to cope with a set of completely strange wards. Although on the other hand his wife might raise objections, and will very likely do so when—when Lord Capel does eventually marry!”

  At the back of her mind was the thought that, at some time or other in his life, judging him to be somewhere in the region of thirty, or perhaps thirty-two or three years of age, a suitable wife for Lord Capel must at least have been thought of, and perhaps strongly proposed, by some member of his family. Lady Fanny, for instance, was hardly likely to have been completely inactive when it came to the selection of a future sister-in-law.

  Lord Bruce shrugged.

  “When Richard does marry he will no doubt surprise us all, but it has long been understood—or perhaps I should say hoped for, since I am convinced he has done nothing positive about it—that the Lady Rowena Harmsworth will become his affianced bride and the future Marchioness of Capel so soon as he becomes aware that it is incumbent upon him to marry, and that a man in his position cannot evade such an issue indefinitely. She is the daughter of the Earl of Headcorn and a great beauty, and they have known one another for years.”

  “I see,” Harriet murmured.

  “But of course,” Lord Bruce continued, “the situation could become a little delicate if and when Richard explains to her that he has already acquired a certain amount of responsibility in the shape of these de Courcey children. And naturally, if he is to marry, he will have to make a clean breast of the situation.”

  “Naturally,” Harriet agreed.

  Lord Bruce glanced at her. His eyebrows drew together a little.

  “But it is you who are causing me a great deal of concern, Miss Yorke,” he told her. “Through no fault of your own you have become involved in the most unpleasant aftermath of an exceedingly rash piece of behaviour on my brother’s part, and I do not quite know how to advise you. You could return without any further delay to Lowthan Hall and the young de Courceys, but as we have no real knowledge of the condition of the unfortunate Aintree I hardly think that is the wisest thing—having due regard to ail the circumstances and, in particular, Richard’s predicament—you could do. Your own interests would undoubtedly be well served if you hesitated no longer and left Hollowthorne tomorrow morning, but Richard’s would not. If Aintree is dead then arrangements must be made for him to leave the country, and it is important that no one apart from ourselves and his closest friends should have the least idea where he is hiding at the present time. I know he dislikes very much the thought that he is forced to hide away here, and I believe that if it were not for my father he would not care very much for his own safety and wellbeing. But my father does have to be considered, and you do see that anyone who could provide clues to Richard’s whereabouts, and who could be questioned—?”

  “By the law officers, you mean?” Harriet said.

  “Well, yes ... There is no doubt about it, the Runners will be on to him if Aintree dies and possibly he is already dead. In which case they will be looking for him already, and since it will have become known that you have spent some time in his company Harriet smiled wryly.

  “I do seem to have become involved, don’t I?”

  “But I do beg of you don’t let it worry you!” Lord Bruce laid a hand gently over one of hers, where it rested in her lap. “On no account must you worry too much about your own involvement in this sorry affair! When I said that it will become known that you have spent some time in my brother’s company, what I actually meant was that the purpose of your visit to him in London will have become known, and naturally it will excite a certain amount of curiosity. But whatever happens I will personally see to it that you do not come out of this with even the slightest shadow on your reputation! I give you my word on that!”

  Harriet thanked him, but she was a little at a loss to understand how he could prevent her reputation from becoming sullied if the full story of the events of the last few days ever became known and provided a titbit for gossip in many aristocratic homes throughout the country—to say nothing of the London clubs. And at the thought of her own impetuosity and stupidity she felt herself squirming a little. Lord Bruce gave her hand another squeeze.

  “Promise me you won’t worry your head about all this,” he said.

  Harriet smiled at him a little blankly.

  “I promise you, my lord, that I shall never find it easy to forgive myself for the outrageous way in which I consider I have behaved,” she replied. “Lord Capel would be far better off than he is at this moment if I had stayed quietly at Lowthan Hall and continued to bombard him with my letters. At least they were comparatively harmless, and growing a little tired of receiving so many he might one day have replied to them.”

  Lord Bruce shook his head.

  “Richard is the one who is at fault. Richard betrayed a trust.”

  “But the odd thing about his betrayal,” Harriet informed him, “is that I am entirely convinced that he was never at any time aware that he was acting in a reprehensible manner. Which does seem to indicate that he was the victim of a rather serious error.”

  “I will have the whole matter out with him,” Lord Bruce promised, and then recollected that he had various duties to perform within the house, and begged her to excuse him.

  Left alone, Harriet commenced to pace about the garden, until in the fading light her concentration was rudely shattered by a disturbance on the other side of the hedge beside her, which overlooked the main highway skirting the property. A vehicle was approaching along this narrow country road, to the accompaniment of a rattle of carriage wheels and the thud of horses’ hooves; and as Harriet peered through a gap in the hedge she caught a glimpse of a particularly smart equipage which passed within a couple of feet of her, and a minute or so later turned in at the drive gates and started to proceed towards the house.

  Harriet felt an urge to remain well hidden in her tucked-away comer of the grounds, but curiosity overcame her after a short while and she made her way cautiously back to the house by means of some little used and overgrown paths, in time to see the carriage making its way between the sentinel like elm trees, and finally coming to rest before the entrance porch of the house. A groom leapt from his horse and the carriage steps were let down; a door emblazoned with a coat of arms was' flung open, and on to the ill-kept sweep before the front door descended Lady Fanny Bingham, the upstanding feathers on her modish hat dipping and swaying eccentrically with every slightest movement she made, her gloved hands fluttering dramatically and her silken skirts swirling about her.

  Harriet recognised her immediately, and without the smallest difficulty. For although she had only seen her on one previous occasion her likeness to her brother, the Marquis, was almost absurd, and she had precisely the same air as the Marquis as she stood looking up at the closed door of the house and plainly regarded the fact that it had not opened to her immediately as a justifiable cause for impatience. She called sharply to her groom to attack the knocker afresh, and when at last Rawlins opened the door a very few inches she upbraided him in no uncertain terms for keeping her waiting on the doorstep.

  “Upon my word, Rawlins,” she remonstrated, “I was beginning to be certain you were all dead! Indeed, I was positively convinced of it! What in the world were you about, behaving as if the house was under attack and an enemy likely to gain entrance?” More sharply still she demanded: “Where is my brother? Where is Lord Bruce?”

  Lord Bruce made it unnecessary for the butler to so much as attempt a reply by limping out on to the doorstep. If he felt any pleasure at the sight of his sister he managed to conceal it admirably; but his greeting was polite and courteous enough.

  “Why, Fanny! My dear Fanny, what b
rings you here? Don’t tell me there is bad news of Papa?” with a sudden show of anxiety. “His health is not as good as usual—?”

  “No, no.” Fanny waved at him a hand encased in lilac kid. “Nothing in the least like that. To the best of my knowledge Papa is in excellent health, apart from his gout. But I have a piece of the most upsetting news to impart to you which has brought me all the way from London without pausing for a single change of horses. I am utterly exhausted and I have never been more concerned in my life. Pray stand aside from the doorway and allow me to collapse into the nearest chair...”

  Lord Bruce moved hastily aside, and his sister entered the ancient hallway with a further swirl of her skirts and a mad disturbance of the feathers on her hat. Harriet, who had hidden temporarily in the shrubbery close to the house, approached the front door steps with a good deal of caution and timidity, and was just in time to overhear Lady Fanny’s high-pitched, hysterical revelation of the extent of the disaster that had befallen the family before the parlour door closed and further revelations were confined to the inside of the oak-lined parlour.

  But Harriet had heard enough to have a certain amount of sympathy with Lady Fanny. Apparently the very worst thing that could possibly happen, to the Marquis of Capel at any rate, had happened. Greville Aintree was dead, and Lady Fanny had it on the very best authority.

  Harriet was so deeply shocked and disturbed that she hardly knew what to do for a full five minutes after the information had reached her ears. Lord Capel would be gravely upset, she knew, and as for herself—she felt the very next best thing to a murderess.

  She stood there in the silence of the hall, actually wringing her hands, and wondered what in the world she could do if the rest of her life was to be in the least supportable. To deprive a man of his life! It was such a very dreadful thing to have happened, and the most dreadful thing about it was that the knowledge would haunt her all her days, and there was nothing she could do about it—nothing at all!—that could wipe out her guilt or alter the situation in the very least.