Anita Mills (4 page)

“As to that”—the fellow bobbed his head affirmatively—“I am sure that Mrs. Grumm has some beef left. We slaughtered today.”

As soon as they were alone in the dingy taproom, Ellen rounded on Trent. “How you could eat a morsel in this place is beyond me, sir. And he did not say what he slaughtered, did he? I do not wish to stay here, my lord.”

“And I would go no farther tonight, ma’am.” A wicked gleam crept into the blue eyes. “Especially not in light of the newest development in this strange journey. I can scarce wait to see you in one of the Mantini’s sleeping dresses.”

“You insufferable—” Her retort was cut off by the appearance of Mrs. Grumm with a plate of cold meat and bread. Setting two mugs of ale on the table, the woman spilled them onto the soiled cloth. With a shrug, she wiped the rims with her finger.

“Anything else, Mr. Smith?”

“No—nothing save clean sheets.”

“Ugh!” Ellen vented her feelings as soon as the woman was out of hearing. “Really, sir, I wonder at you. I would doubt there’s a clean sheet to be had in this whole place.” She looked around her disdainfully and added, “I see no signs of other custom, but then no doubt the service discourages return visits.”

“Be still and eat, girl,” Trent recommended. “If you insist on insulting the old hag, there’s no telling what she will serve you.” He cut a slab of cold roast and slid it onto her plate. “Here—it does not taste bad.” Slicing off a thick hunk of bread, he transferred the meat to it and pushed it toward her. “It’s been at least seven hours since last you ate, and I would not be kept awake with your stomach growling at me.”

Gamely she picked it up and took a bite. Trent watched while she tried to chew the dry food and slid her mug across the table. “It’s ale, and I doubt you have ever tasted it before, but it will wash that down.”

Without thinking, she removed the handkerchief from her bodice and carefully wiped the rim before she sipped. When she looked up, she caught Trent’s wicked grin and followed his line of vision. “Oh.” Her face flamed as she hastily retucked the damp cloth back into place.

When Mrs. Grumm finally reappeared, it was with candles to light them upstairs. Trent drained the last of his ale and wiped his mouth with a frayed napkin before standing and stretching his tall frame.

“Ready, Ellen?”

She eyed him dubiously now, uncertain as to what he must think of her and yet unwilling to give herself away to the waiting Mrs. Grumm. “I—I suppose so,” she answered finally.

She trod the stairs with trepidation behind the marquess, afraid of what he might do. She sincerely hoped that she would be able to convince him that she was not fast and that she would not behave in an improper manner.

“Really, my dear, must you give it out that I snore?” he murmured as he shut the door behind them. “And if you are willing to share my chamber now, why the devil did you not do so at the other place?” He eyed the room with distaste. “At least there we should have been more comfortable.” He turned his back and bent to remove his shoes while adding, “And at that place, ’twas because beds were scarce. You certainly have not that excuse here.”

She stood rooted to the floor when he stood up and began unbuttoning his wrinkled coat. “You will find what you need in that box. Dobbs brought it up while we were at supper,” he told her conversationally as he draped the coat over a chair and loosened his wilted cravat. Tugging at it until it hung limply at his throat, he then turned his attention to removing his waistcoast. Her face flamed when he looked up and stopped.

“What are you doing, my lord?” she choked.

“Getting ready to seek my bed, and I recommend you do the same, Ellen.”

“I did not give you leave to use my name.”

He raised a black eyebrow as he began undoing the studs at his wrists. “A little late for such formality, don’t you think, my dear?”

“I am not your dear, either!” She wiped damp palms against the muslin skirt and faced him bravely. “My lord, you have the wrong impression if you think that I—that I …” Her voice trailed off as she realized she had his full attention.

“Do you not think I can tell a respectable female when I see one, Ellen?” he asked in amusement. “I have been funning with you, but my eyes tell me you are devilish straitlaced, my dear, and I certainly am not given to rapine.”

“But you are undressing!”

“Only this far, I promise. You would not want me to get into bed in my shoes and coat, would you? Think how uncomfortable we should both be.”

“I cannot share a bed with you, my lord!” she gasped, mortified.

“Well, since I see naught but this straight wooden chair, there doesn’t appear to be a choice, does there? Ellen—Miss Marling—if it becomes known that you have been alone in my company for an hour even, the prattlers will have it that the worst has happened, anyway,” he told her practically. “I advise you to take off your shoes and loosen your corset if you are wearing one, and crawl into bed. ’Tis late and we’ve a long way to go tomorrow.” He walked over to stand in front of her. She stared in fascination where he’d unbuttoned the neck of his shirt and black hair curled there. “Look—you are safe enough with me, Ellen. As I told you before, you simply are not in my style.” He picked up the chair where he’d draped his coat and carried it to the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaning this under the doorknob, my dear. I am not so obtuse that I do not know why you have insinuated yourself into my chamber, and I’ve no wish to be kept awake with your fears. You may sleep secure that any attempt to enter this room will waken me.”

“You do not like this place, either!”

“No, I do not, but I do not intend to sit up all night.” He picked up his cloak where Dobbs had laid it and drew out his pistol. “See, I have this right here beneath my pillow, all primed and ready. Now, take off your shoes and lie down so I can douse the light.” He folded back the covers and waited. “Well?”

“I—I cannot.”

“Ellen …” There was a hint of warning that his patience was coming to an end.

“I cannot sleep in the same bed with you.”

“Do I have to throw you in? Have you never slept with a sister or another female?” He watched her think about it. “Well, pretend we are brothers, then.”

“No!”

“Shall I take off your shoes and your corset for you? Is that what you want? Because I am not above doing it if it will get me a night’s sleep.”

“All right.” She swallowed hard to hide her embarrassment and edged over to the bed to sit. When he started to turn his back, she blurted out, “You don’t have to do that, my lord, for I never wear a corset.” Then she slipped her flat kid shoes off and lay down along the edge of the bed as though she were on eggshells.

“That’s better.” He moved to the other side and blew out the candles before lying down. “Now, let us pull up the covers, if you please. I am not so hot-blooded that I do not need any, no matter what you may have heard.” He sat up to rearrange the coverlet over them. “And do not be taking the whole—I cannot abide struggling for possession—and my brother was always wont to play tug-of-war over them at night.” He lay back down and turned away from her. “Good night, Ellen. You need not fear I shall ever tell the story, my dear.”

“E
ITHER YOU PRODUCE
the girl, or I want my settlement back, Marling. You have no notion of how mortifying it is to be deserted on one’s wedding night,” Brockhaven grumbled. “And do not be saying you’ve no notion of her whereabouts, either, for she cannot have just disappeared.”

“Really, my lord, I am unable to convey the extent of my disappointment to you. Naturally, as her parent, I am as concerned as you about the situation.” Marling mopped his brow at the thought of losing twenty thousand pounds. “You have my word that I shall notify you the instant I hear from her. Thank heavens you had the presence of mind to give out that she has taken ill.”

“Nevertheless,” the baron sniffed, “my own servants know it for a lie. If I am to save any face at all, she will have to be returned to me within the week, do you hear? I expect you to find her.” Angrily pushing his hat on his head, Brockhaven executed a stiff bow to Thomas Marling. “One week!”

“Aye, I understand,” his host acknowledged. “But I cannot guarantee that I shall even get wind of her direction by then.”

“One week,” his lordship reiterated with awful finality as he slammed out the door.

“Dear me, Thomas, but what an ugly little person he is. I can quite sympathize with Ellen for running away, you know. But then I never did favor the match,” Eleanor Marling reminded her husband.

“Twenty thousand pounds, Nora—twenty thousand pounds! What an ingrate you have reared!” Thomas Marling’s sense of outrage bordered on apoplexy. “She was Lady Brockhaven! Do not be forgetting that, my dear. She” was to be mistress to a great estate with a bloody fortune at her disposal.”

“You speak as though she were dead, Thomas.”

“Well, if I do not find her before she costs me the settlement, she might as well be, for all I shall care. Twenty thousand pounds! I shall not welcome her back in my house—not ever.”

His wife’s eyes widened at the vehemence in his voice. “But you cannot be such an unnatural parent as that!” she gasped.

“What a simpleton you are, my dear. Do you not realize how she has ruined the future of your other children? We have nurtured a viper in our midsts, Eleanor.”

“Pooh. The scandal will blow away long before Amy is to be presented, I am sure, and I should think that half the
ton
cannot but sympathize with poor Ellie. As for Julian, he never favored the match in the first place, and I cannot think he will consider his future ruined because Ellie could not stomach Brockhaven.” Eleanor Marling laid a placating hand on her husband’s shoulder. “And since Lucinda is but ten,” she reasoned, “she cannot be touched by the scandal at all.”

“Amy will not be presented, madam!” he snapped. “I did my duty by Ellen and see what it got me. Very likely I shall not have a groat when Sir Basil is finished with me.

“Nonsense, Thomas,” his wife sighed at his parsimony. “You know we are comfortably circumstanced. Besides, ’twas not duty but greed that prompted you to positively throw your eldest daughter at that old roue. I tell you now, Thomas, that I shall not sit idly by and let you sell Amy as you did Ellie.”

“And I will not have you encouraging her to rebellion as you did your eldest. You’ll not see me foot the bills for another Season for an ungrateful chit.”

“You will not have to,” Eleanor told him mildly, “for your notion of a Season is “quite inadequate, anyway. With Amy’s beauty, she will take in an instant, and I’ll not deny her the chance. I intend to give her over to your sister Sandbridge—I am sure she will know how to go about it with some style.”

“I forbid it.”

“And I have already posted a note to her. Without doubt, she will come as soon as she is able—and I should not like to hear the rare peal she’ll read over you. After all, Ellen is quite her favorite.”

“Aye, a blistering for my ears, I’ll be bound. ’Twas my hope to see it all settled before she found out.” He sank into a chair and eyed his wife with disfavor. “Aye, and she’ll make it cost me.”

Marling had never been able to stand up to his only sister. Even when they were children, she had dominated him and bent him to her stronger will. Now she would descend on him like some avenging angel to take him to task for forcing Ellen into a distasteful marriage. Damn the chit! Why could the girl not have accepted her lot? Why did she have to behave like a goose and bolt? Any fool could’ve told her she’d outlive Brockhaven and be a rich widow someday. And where the devil could she have gone? He could not swallow that tale about her escaping through the window—the damned thing was a full fifteen feet off the ground. Besides, even if she had, where would she have gone? She was a green girl with no knowledge of London. There was something havey-cavey about the business, he’d be bound. He snapped his fingers in inspiration. Just let Brockhaven try to get his money back—he’d accuse his lordship of doing away with her. Aye, let him get out of that. Turning his attention back to his wife, he glared at her and declared, “Very well, madam, let Augusta come. I shall not be here.”

“I did not think you would, Thomas, for I know you cannot stand her because she is usually right.”

Seventeen-year-old Amy Marling ventured into the room and looked from one parent to the other. It was obvious from the flush on her father’s face that they had been in a spirited argument. She ignored him to address her mother.

“I just saw Sir Basil. Was Ellie with him?” She paused at the warning in her mother’s expression. “Is something amiss, Mama?”

“Aye, something’s amiss!” Thomas Marling exploded.

“That depends of how you view the story,” her mother interposed, “for Brockhaven was here to tell your father that Ellen has run away.”

“Really! Then I hope she did it before he touched her. I know I could not have borne his fat fingers on me.” She gave a defiant toss of her dark curls when her father scowled at her. “Well, ’tis true—I’d never have gone through with the wedding.”

“This is not a fit subject for a young female. Go upstairs, miss.”

“Fiddle, Thomas. ’Tis time she knew what Ellen did for her. ’Tis true, my dear, that your father would have just as soon married you to Sir Basil to get the settlements.”

“And I should have,” Marling muttered sourly.

“Then I would have bolted, too, Papa.”

Faced with the censure of both wife and daughter, Thomas Marling launched into a tirade about the respect due the head of the household and then stalked off when he realized they were barely attending him.

As soon as he was out of hearing, Amy turned back to her mother. “But where can she have gone? And what will keep Lord Brockhaven from forcing her to return to him if she is found?”

“I do not know the answer to either question, my dear, but you must promise me that you will not give her away to your father if she contacts you.”

“As if I would!” Amy retorted hotly. “Mama, I couldn’t!”

Eleanor surveyed her middle daughter critically and liked what she saw. Once she had feared the lovely child would be too biddable in the hands of her scheming father, but no longer. And this time, Eleanor would not fail her. Amy would not have to take an aging and repulsive husband like Basil Brockhaven as long as there was breath in her mother’s body. A pity she had not been as firm of spine for Ellen. Aloud, she just agreed. “See that you do not, child. When Augusta gets here, I expect her to straighten him out on that head whether he stays to hear it or not.”

“Never say she knows about it.”

“She will when she gets my letter.”

“Oh, poor Papa!”

“Exactly.”

They were interrupted by the intrusion of twenty-year-old Julian Marling, a tall, handsome young man who favored his younger sister in looks. He stopped by the doorway long enough to ask, “Brockhaven gone? I cannot stand that man—fat macaroni that he is.”

“Oh, Julian! Tis famous. Eilie’s bolted!” Amy bubbled.

“Bolted? Capital! Knew she would not go through with it.”

“Yes, well, before you go too far, Julian, you’d best hear the whole of it,” his mother cut in. “No one has seen Ellie since Brockhaven would have it that she jumped out of a second-story window. He came to demand her return or his money back.”

“Papa ought to have thrown it in his face.”

“You know him better than that. He’s too pinchfarthing to do any such thing. If he finds her, he’ll send her back to Sir Basil.”

Julian flicked some lint from his navy-blue coat of best superfine before answering, “Not if I have anything to do with it, he won’t. I should have rather seen her an ape leader than tied to the old rake.”

“Much you did at the time,” Amy reminded him. “You were just like everyone else: you danced at her wedding!”

“I did not!” he retorted, stung. “If you must know, I didn’t stay for the dance because I couldn’t bear seeing the fat baron leer at her.”

“Children! There is enough blame to share, believe me. None of us did anything, and poor Ellie had to do the best she could. Oh, but I wish we knew where she was, whether she is safe, even. London is no place for a girl alone.”

“Now, Mama,” Julian soothed, “ten to one, she’s rented lodgings and is but waiting for Papa’s temper to cool. She’ll come home, you’ll see. Besides, if anything terrible had happened to her, we would have heard of it.”

Unconvinced, Eleanor Marling could only stare out the window into the London street. “Well, I cannot but hope you are right.”

“Mama, she’s all right. And when she does come back, Julian, Aunt Augusta will be here to see that she does not have to go back to Sir Basil. You know what Aunt Gussie can do to Papa.”