by Amanda Elyot
She spoke! “No, my sweet Cassandra. No one has died, thank God!” The earl proceeded to explain the details of her accident and how long she had lain so still in the road before someone had fortuitously happened along.
“Would you do me the kindness of helping me to sit up, your lordship?” she asked.
Darlington regarded her dubiously. “If you are quite convinced you are able to do so.”
“Nonsense, Percy,” she replied softly.
“You sound like your Aunt Euphoria.” His heart soared to see her spirits rallying. Treating her with the utmost tenderness, Darlington propped her up against a down-filled bolster. She reached for him and he caught her upturned palm in his hand, kissing it, and pressing it to his stubbled cheek.
“Since I appear to be alive,” she said hoarsely, “would you now consider doing me another tremendous favor?”
“Send me to Samarkand for silks, or to Abyssinia for cinnamon, Miss Welles.”
Although she immediately discovered that it pained her ribs to do so, C.J. laughed. “There is no need for dramatics, your lordship, unless I am dying. And besides, I think cinnamon comes from the West Indies. But,” she added, reaching up to stroke his face, “perhaps a shave and a wash might do.”
Darlington sat on the edge of the bed and held her. “My love . . . I am so thankful you are all right,” he murmured into her hair. He kissed the top of her head and sat beside her. “That was a nasty spill you took, Miss Welles.”
They had been riding. She could remember fragments. A hare darting out of the brush . . . her mount shying, then rearing up. “How is the horse?” C.J. inquired. Her mind was still muddled and her thoughts were jumbled, one atop another.
“Gypsy Lady?”
She nodded. “You did not have to des—” She broke off, unable to bear the notion that the horse might have had to be put down due to her damned inexperience as a rider.
“She is as feisty and fit as ever she was, although I daresay she appeared as concerned for your welfare as I did. Instead of bolting once you had been thrown, she stood still, waiting for me to come and fetch you. When I no longer heard the sound of hoofbeats behind me, I knew something was dreadfully wrong.”
C.J. beckoned Darlington closer, then clasped her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Then I have both of you to thank for saving my life,” she whispered.
“You wonderful, wonderful girl. Miss Welles has awakened!” he shouted toward the door.
With another jubilant cry, Darlington greeted Mary, who entered the blue room a few minutes later bearing a steaming cup of chicken broth, followed by Lady Dalrymple carrying a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers. “Look! She is sitting up!” He retired from the room, leaving C.J. to the ladies’ ministrations.
Mary arranged the bed tray across C.J.’s lap, laying a pretty serviette across its woven wicker surface. “Now you must take some nourishment, Miss Welles,” she said sagely. “If not for yourself, you’ve got the babe to consider.”
“Am I . . . still . . . ?” C.J. feared giving voice to the thought that had just clouded her mind. Mary, who had seen no sign of blood on Miss Welles’s linen undergarments following her brutal accident, or any stains on the bedsheets during Miss Welles’s recuperation, nodded her head. “For aught I can tell, your son . . . or daughter . . . is unharmed.” Availing herself of one of Lady Dalrymple’s flowers, Mary filled a graceful silver bud vase with one perfect rose in a shade of palest apricot. “I’d been thinkin’ myself that you might like to have somethin’ pretty to wake up to, but seein’ as you are quite awake, you can enjoy it all the sooner,” Mary added, dropping an efficient curtsy.
“With your ladyship’s permission,” she said, turning to the countess, “I have been asked to assist at the birth of Mrs. Jordan’s babe. Dr. Musgrove has arranged for me to apprentice to Mrs. Goodwin, the midwife. Imagine me, your ladyship—at the bedside of such a great lady! She’s lyin’ in at the town house the Duke of Clarence gave her in Sydney Place.”
Lady Dalrymple waved a jeweled hand. “Heavens! How could I possibly deny such a request. What prestige, Mary!” The countess dabbed away a falling tear. “How soon they leave the nest!”
“Bless you, your ladyship, for your great kindness,” Mary gushed, practically dropping to her knees in genuflection before retiring from the room.
Hardly a moment later there was a knock on the door, and Mary reappeared with a calling card on a silver salver. “Your ladyship, Captain Keats has come to call again,” she whispered. “Shall I admit him?”
Darlington appeared in the doorway. “Now that Miss Welles is awake, I am certain that she would care to thank the captain for his assistance following her nasty spill the other day.”
The officer entered quietly, took a chair beside Darlington, and inquired after the invalid’s health. C.J. gave him a puzzled look; then a glimmer of recognition dawned, and a smile crept across her pale features. “Captain Keats. The very man I have meant to speak to,” she said weakly. “Kindly convey my good thoughts to the Fairfax family, with particular commendation to Miss Susanne. I am quite fond of the girl.”
“In point of fact, Miss Welles, I was on my way to pay a call upon the Fairfaxes when I encountered you in such danger. I shall pass on your felicitations to the family, and to Mrs. MacKenzie upon her return from Scotland.”
“Mrs. MacKenzie?” C.J. was completely baffled.
“Four days ago, Miss Welles—the day of your dreadful accident—Miss Susanne Fairfax eloped to Gretna Green with Major Kenneth MacKenzie of the Seaforth Highlanders. I had just heard the news and was on the way to see the family when I saw Lord Darlington kneeling by something in the center of the road, and stopped my carriage.”
C.J. was dimly aware of the journey she had taken in the officer’s coach, lying across as much of the cordovan leather seat as possible, with her head resting in Darlington’s hands, drifting in and out of consciousness. “I cannot thank you enough for your chivalry, Captain Keats. Were it not for your assistance, I dare not think where I might be today. You have indeed been our knight in shining armor.”
The officer smiled proudly. “I am the third son of a baronet, who bought my colors for me, despite Mrs. Fairfax’s confidence that I am nothing but a poor churchmouse, or a scurvy fortune hunter.”
C.J. brightened. “See. And I knew you to be a gentleman.”
The captain bowed. “I am pleased that my brief visit has been able to cheer the patient. My heartiest congratulations on your recovery, Miss Welles,” he said before leaving her chamber.
A plan was forming in Darlington’s mind. If the decidedly parvenu Miss Susanne Fairfax could flout convention and risk the ostracism of her family’s acquaintances to marry the man of her choice, why then could not a peer of the realm wed the woman who was his heart’s desire? Perhaps he would have to sell off a portion of his property—even lose Delamere and need to retrench—but events of the past week had forced him to face his future. He would formally offer for her not to extricate her from the situation in which he had placed her, but because he could not imagine living out the rest of his days without her, a lifetime plagued with regret and recriminations. His happiness, he now knew, rested in the bed but a few feet from him.
He rose from the chair a changed man. “Miss Welles, if you will permit me to leave your bedside, I have every intention of making you a happy woman.” Cheered to the core by her expectant glow, he added, “I am off to my barber’s!” The earl departed C.J.’s bedchamber to the silvery sound of her laughter. Never had he heard music more delightful.
“And not a moment too soon!” quipped the countess, who availed herself of the vacant chair by C.J.’s bed and took her “niece’s” hands. “I have been tardy in properly thanking you for saving my life, Cassandra.”
“There was no other alternative, Lady Dalrymple. No thanks are necessary.” C.J. swallowed the last of her hot broth.
“Nevertheless, I have been remiss. But have taken the steps necessary to
rectify it.”
C.J., still finding it difficult to maintain an unmuddied thought process, gave the countess a curious look.
“Some weeks ago, I visited my solicitors,” Lady Dalrymple began. “At the outset of our interview, Mr. Oxley and old Mr. Morton were quite convinced I was addled, since, apart from my dearly departed Alexander, I have no other children and yet I had come to them with the express purpose of discussing my heir. After my illness, and yet again since your accident, I was reminded how precious is the gift of our time on this green and gilded sphere. I know no other way to thank you, Cassandra, for the joy you have brought to me since our paths had the good fortune to cross. I instructed Oxley and Morton to draw up formal papers of adoption, naming you as my heiress. After my death, although you will be unable to become Countess of Dalrymple, you will inherit my wealth and my personal effects, including the emerald ring I have oft caught you admiring. And as no records can be produced stating that you are not Bertie Tobias’s only child, the solicitors agree that your inheritance of Manwaring is unchallenged. My brother is quite fond of you, Cassandra. I feared I would have to bring him ’round to the wisdom of my view, but once the papers were drawn up, I am told that Albert signed them with a characteristic dramatic flourish. Everything is now legal and binding.”
C.J. regarded her benefactress with a widening stare of dawning comprehension. “Aunt Euphoria . . .” Her voice cracked with emotion.
“’Tis no less than you deserve, Cassandra—to become the Marchioness of Manwaring. And though he is capable of finding a more than adequate conclusion to his current conundrum, your new status has the happy effect of relieving the Earl of Darlington—if he is astute enough to realize it—of the agony of being forced to choose between love and duty.”
“I—I don’t know what to say, Lady Dalrymple—other than thank you. This is indeed the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me,” C.J. said with stunned appreciation. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Where my brother and I travel next,” the countess said simply, “we shall require neither lands nor title.”
The two women embraced, C.J. feeling warm and secure in the dowager’s arms. “I love you not for what you have done for me, but for who you are, Aunt Euphoria.”
“I could very well say the same about you, Niece.” Lady Dalrymple kissed Cassandra’s forehead, then smoothed her hand over C.J.’s brow with a maternal caress. “Cassandra Jane Welles, you have undergone more travails since the day you arrived in Bath than most young ladies experience in a lifetime. I grow quite fatigued myself just thinking on it. Now let us both take some rest,” she whispered, then left the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.
As C.J. finished the last of her broth, she noticed a folded note placed under the saucer. Curious, she opened the unfamiliar seal and read its brief contents.
There was no alternative. She must travel to London by the very next Royal Mail.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wherein our heroine embarks upon an eye-opening tour of London town and is reunited with one of her benefactors.
THE GLEAMING, pale yellow mail coach rumbled along the outskirts of Bath bound for London. C.J. had not counted on how sore she had become from lying abed for so long. Her ankle joints were still somewhat swollen, and her spine from stem to stern, as well as her rib cage, ached with each bump in the uneven road. Every rut over which the carriage wheels clattered at their breakneck pace was the father to a fresh spasm of pain. Compounding all, she continued to suffer from the ill effects of morning sickness, and her stomach lurched every time the coach did.
Having charmed the driver into permitting a fifth passenger, as she was quite slender and traveled with naught but a carpetbag, C.J. found herself wedged between two rather taciturn gentlemen, a nephew and uncle, apparently, on their way to London to visit their hatters and tailors.
On the opposite seat, it was another story. A husband and wife, who had evidently been married for some years, began their quarrel at the crack of the coachman’s whip outside Leake’s booksellers and had not ceased squabbling since. He complained that she used rouge to paint her face in a fruitless effort to appear youthful. She parried with a gripe about his thrift. Had they a carriage of their own, they would not be forced to endure intolerably cramped quarters with strangers. The husband riposted: had she less of a penchant for bonnets, jewels, and other finery, they would have a tolerably fine equipage. And so it went, for several miles. C.J. pretended to be asleep, which was a shame because the Wiltshire countryside was lovely to behold. The verdant scene outside the unshuttered window offered an uninterrupted view of grazing sheep and cattle enjoying their quotidian existences unconcerned with the rush and bustle that necessitated the Royal Mail’s haste to traverse their pastoral domain.
As they neared Salisbury Plain, the uncle, a Mr. Carlyle, raised a gloved hand and gestured out the open window. “Stonehenge,” he said to his nephew. “Coming up ahead. It’s a vista not to be missed at this time of day.”
The nephew, who would have had to lean over C.J.’s body to partake of the view of the prehistoric megaliths and lintels, glanced at his pocket watch. “Why, we have several hours to go before sunset.”
“Sunset, bah!” commented his uncle, reaching for a pinch of snuff. “This is the time when the sun casts the finest shadows.” He leaned as far back against the rear of the coach as he could. “Here you go, miss,” he said, offering C.J. the chance to look past him out the carriage window.
Although her glimpse of Stonehenge was but brief, C.J. was measurably affected by its power and mystery. Though the sun was now high in the sky, it had rained early that morning and the smaller inner stones, because they were still wet, appeared to be blue, lending the awesome circle an even deeper magic. “It is . . . truly breathtaking, sir. Thank you kindly.” Her enjoyment of Stonehenge, however cursory, temporarily relieved her mind of the anxious thoughts that beset her and what she might do upon her arrival in London.
The Royal Mail coach reached its final stop sans further incident, and C.J. gave the outrider the address that had been written on the cryptic note. He was quite insistent that she not achieve her destination on foot as it was not in the city’s most savory location and assisted her in acquiring the services of a reputable hackney to bring her to Whitechapel High Street in the heart of East London.
Shortly before dusk, C.J. was helped to dismount from the hackney and immediately stepped in a mudpie. At least she hoped it was mud. The driver did not fail to remark upon her obvious unfamiliarity with the surroundings in which he was depositing her—not merely the copious quantities of mud and manure, but the confluence of urban stench and filth in one of the oldest districts in London.
Assuring the hackman that she was well provided for, C.J. began to wander about the bustling—and odiferous—center of commerce, searching for the mysterious address.
“GONE?!” LADY DALRYMPLE EXCLAIMED, examining the state of C.J.’s rumpled bedclothes. “When did you last see my niece, Mary?”
“Not for several hours, ma’am,” the girl replied, fearing retribution for her inattentiveness. “As she needed her rest, I thought it best not to disturb her. Clearly, I was wrong,” she added, her eyes welling with tears. Almost reverentially, she began to smooth the sheets and counterpane. “Holy lamb of God!” she cried, discovering the crumpled note amid the bedclothes. “Miss Welles has gone to London!”
“Mary, how do you know?” asked the countess incredulously.
“It’s right here, in this note. The one that came to the door so early this mornin’. I brought it to Miss Welles with her bowl of broth when she woke.” She handed Lady Dalrymple the scrap of paper. “It says somethin’ about Miss Welles’s amber cross and a mystery to be solved.” There was a shocked pause as the countess regarded the lady’s maid with great astonishment. “Miss Welles taught me my letters,” the girl said, with a mixture of pride and sadness at the sudden departure of her beloved mentor.
&n
bsp; “She must have gone to this address,” Lady Dalrymple reasoned, turning the parchment over and over in her hand. “Mary, ring for Collins. We must prepare to travel to London. I shall dispatch a note to Lady Chatterton and inform her that if we locate my niece, we shall be able to attend her masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens after all. You shall help me see to our disguises, Mary.”
“If I may be so bold, ma’am, should not his lordship be informed as well, as regards Miss Welles’s disappearance? For certain he will be quite concerned. I can run to the Circus with the note,” Mary offered helpfully. There was little time to lose.
DAVIS, THE EARL’S ANCIENT MAJORDOMO, was surprised at his lordship’s insistence that the tiny serving girl be shown up to the library rather than be asked to leave Lady Dalrymple’s note at the door.
Mary’s arrival had caught him preparing to depart posthaste for Canterbury to obtain a costly Special License from the archbishop. He had already wasted enough precious time, and the dispensation would eliminate three consecutive Sundays of reading the banns, during which his aunt would undoubtedly waste no time in registering her own objection to his marriage to Miss Welles. Lady Oliver had fumed enough when Lord Digby, in a remarkable volte-face, had told her that his wife and daughter were quite undone by all the embarrassment and gossip following the announcement of Lady Charlotte’s betrothal, and thus had agreed with alacrity when Darlington requested to withdraw quietly from their arrangement.
“I do not know this address,” Darlington told Mary, studying the handwritten note. “Clever of its author, though, to pose a rhyme.”
“Will you come with us to London?” the maid asked. “Her ladyship said something about a party at ‘Vox-ill’ something—a fancy dress ball.”
