Rebel Heiress (14 page)

Cedric swept the hope away with a casual remark. ‘Admiring the church? A crying shame, is it not, that they should have no vicar? Only see how the vicarage is falling down since the incumbent of Marchmont has added this cure to his own.'

So there was no vicar and no hope from him. And Cedric was right; although she had broken no bones, she had been badly shaken by her fall. Angry and anxious though she was, she could not help leaning more heavily on his arm. ‘My head,' she said, ‘it aches so …'

All solicitude, he guided her tenderly in through the open door of the inn where the landlord was hospitably awaiting them. At sight of Henrietta's pale face, he shouted for his wife, who came bustling out to offer sympathy and cold compresses. Henrietta accepted her attentions gratefully. Her headache was growing rapidly worse and when the landlady ushered her volubly into a cool little backroom she almost collapsed on to its narrow bed. The woman hovered over her anxiously for a few minutes, then left her with the assurance that a good sleep would put all to rights.

A bee buzzed outside the window; further off, doves cooed and a herd of cows lowed their way home to be
milked. Henrietta turned once, anxiously, on the hard pillow. She ought to
do
something. Then, worn out, she slept.

When Henrietta woke, wondering for a moment where she was, the little room was full of dusk. Uncertain shadows hovered in its corners and the noises of evening were merging into those of night. Outside the window, a bat swooped against the darkening sky. Henrietta was on her feet in an instant, remembering it all. She was at the Swan Inn at Cumber, alone with Cedric, whom she did not trust. Madness to have stayed here for a moment. She moved on silent, stockinged feet over to the bedroom door and paused there. Outside, she remembered, was the main room of the inn and she could hear sounds of bustle, Cedric's voice and then the landlord's and his wife's. A meal, she gathered, was preparing for Cedric, but he seemed to be rejecting a suggestion of the landlady's that she would take something to ‘the poor young lady yonder'.

‘No, no,' Henrietta heard him say. ‘Much best let her sleep till morning. She had a sad tossing of it and needs the rest.'

Henrietta's first instinct was to open the door, tell Cedric she was better and insist that a messenger be sent at once to Marchmont to fetch help. But something held her back. Was she being absurdly suspicious or was there something uncomfortably pat about this chapter of accidents? First the shortcut that had proved so long a way round, and then that Cedric, the admired whip, should have contrived to overturn his curricle. Of course he
had
taken a good deal of drink, but she had never known that to affect his driving before, and indeed had often heard him boast that he never judged his corners with such nicety as when he was, as he put it, a trifle bosky. Standing there in the twilight, she began to wonder if any of it had been accident at all. Could Cedric possibly have risked her life, and, to be fair, his own, so as to force her to spend the night with him in these compromising circumstances?

As for his promise that no one should know; what reason had she to trust him? And if it did get out, the story would destroy her socially; or rather, and here was the heart of the matter, it might compel her to marry Cedric. This, no doubt, was his intention. She shivered. If so, he must be desperate. She had never flattered herself that he loved her, and various interchanges she had witnessed between him and his mother had made her suspect that they were both of them in very much graver financial straits than they admitted. No doubt they had counted on her father's money to extricate them from their difficulties, perhaps had even borrowed on their expectations. Now, they must have it, even if it meant having her too.

Or was she imagining things? Of course she was. Cedric was a lightweight but no villain. She was being absurd. Her hand was on the latch, ready to open the door, when she heard the landlord's rumbling voice. ‘Could send a message easy enough,' he was saying. ‘The lad can take it if you'll lend ‘un one of your horses. ‘Tis but five miles if you take the ferry at Barnsley and ferryman will mind the horse while he goes up to the hall.'

Cedric's voice cut him short. ‘No need for that. There's no one there to be fretting over us. If there were, I'd ride over myself, only, as I told you, I do not like to leave my sister in case she should wake in one of her fits. And as for sending the boy, thank you just the same, landlord, I'll not risk one of my horses in the dark with a stranger for no need. Now, where's this capon you promised? I'm famished.'

Henrietta had heard enough. Her suspicions were all too well justified. Cedric had no intention of their plight becoming known before morning. She moved silently away from the door and over to the window. No use to appeal to the landlord and his wife. Cedric had taken care of them with his story of her fits. Doubtless they would ascribe anything she might say to her being ‘queer in the head like' as she had heard the landlady murmur sympathetically. ‘And such a pretty young lady, too.' No, if she was to get out of this fix, she must do so by herself. She sat down on the bed and put on her shoes, then went back to the window and opened it to its fullest width. It was a narrow squeeze, but she just managed to slip through, and found herself standing, quickly breathing, among hollyhocks.

She stepped off the flower bed on to a little path that ran round the side of the house. The air was heavy with the smell
of roses, and a rambler dropped its petals down the back of her neck. Passing a lighted window, she looked in and saw Cedric taking the wing off a chicken. His back was towards her, but she hurried past and round to the front of the house. To her relief, there was no side gate to betray her with its creak. Her path led straight out on to the road. The village was quiet now; candles glimmered here and there in cottage windows, people were home for the night.

A signpost stood in the centre of the village green and she hurried towards it, the landlord's words echoing in her ears: ‘'Tis but five miles if you take the ferry at Barnsley.' Soon she was walking quickly down a green lane, turning from time to time for an anxious backward glance. Suppose Cedric should change his mind about leaving her to sleep till morning and find her gone? Would he risk following her? She very much hoped not, but quickened her step just the same, grateful that her deep sleep, and now the evening air, had cured her headache. She still felt stiff and shaken from her fall, but perfectly capable of walking five miles, or more if need be. Her only anxiety was lest it grow quite dark before she reached the ferry, and she rejoiced as never before at the long English twilight. In Boston, it would have been full dark by now, but here she reckoned that she had at least an hour more of dusk, and after that might well be able to find her way by the light of the moon.

She walked on briskly for a while, soothed by the evening noises and savouring the comfort of being alone. The lane led up a small hill, through sweet-smelling meadows, and then into a little wood, where, to her dismay, it split in two. This time there was no signpost and no house in sight. She paused for a moment, irresolute, then took the slightly wider of the two branches. But as she started along it her courage began to fail her. Suppose she should be benighted before she reached Marchmont Hall? What a story that would be for gossip to feed on. But she was committed now and there was nothing for it but to go on with a good heart, if a slightly lagging step. Her shoes, new for the day's outing, had worn a blister on her left heel, and she paused for a moment to try and ease it, and heard, as she did so, the sound of a carriage approaching rapidly from the way she had come. Could it be Cedric? Dared she risk being seen? As she hesitated, uncertain whether to stand her ground, to dive into the hedge and hide, or to try to beg a lift,
the carriage swung into view and rattled past. Then, at a shouted order, it pulled up a little way ahead.

She had her shoe on again by now and limped forward. The coachman had gone to the horses's. heads while a man's figure leapt lightly out of the door on her side of the carriage. He came towards her through the dusk.

‘You are like to be benighted here, ma'am. Can I have the honour of assisting you?'

She started at the voice, so well remembered. But how could it be? Surely she was imagining things. And yet … ‘Good heavens!' she said. ‘Mr. Rivers?'

‘Himself. And very much at your service. But have I had the pleasure?'

It was no surprise, if no satisfaction, to find that he did not recognise her. ‘Why should you remember me?' She made it casual. ‘We met but once, and briefly, on the Plymouth road.' Extraordinary, and extraordinarily painful, that while he had forgotten her, she remembered him with every fibre of her being.

‘The Plymouth road? Why, it cannot be … Miss Marchmont?'

‘Yes. We seem fated to meet under strange circumstances, sir. I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am, this time, to see you. Is it hoping too much to think you on your way to Marchmont Hall?'

‘That is certainly where I am bound.' No wonder if there was a note of reserve in his voice. ‘Am I to have the pleasure of driving you there?' He handed her into the carriage, and once again she felt that strange, betraying thrill of pleasure at his touch.

‘Shall you think me very impertinent' — he took his seat beside her and the carriage began to move forward — ‘if I say that I find this encounter still more surprising than our last one?'

‘I cannot blame you for anything you think of me.' Her voice
would
tremble. ‘I only wish I knew how to explain —'

‘Oh, explanations …' He shrugged it off. ‘Naturally, you can rely on me to say nothing of this encounter. Only' — he paused for a moment — ‘if I do not know how you came to be walking along the King's Highway in the dark, I shall find it the more difficult to explain our encounter when we reach Marchmont.'

This was all too true. She sighed. ‘It is not, I fear, a very edifying story, but if you will bear with me, I think I will tell it you.' After all, what better did Cedric deserve of her?

‘I am your most obedient audience. We have, by my reckoning, half an hour at least before we reach your home where, I have no doubt, you are most eagerly-awaited.' And then, seeing that she was having difficulty in getting started, he went on. ‘Do young American ladies often go out for moonlight walks? I cannot believe that your Aunt Abigail would have approved of it.'

She was so delighted to find that he had actually remembered what she had told him about Aunt Abigail that she had to pause again to collect herself. But he had given her her opening. ‘I was not out for a walk. We were driving, Cedric Beaufrage and I, back from the review at Sandhurst, when we met with an accident.'

‘You surprise me, Miss Marchmont.' His voice was dry. ‘Whatever else might be said of Lord Beaufrage, he is generally reckoned a pretty crack whip.'

‘Yes, it surprised me too. He took a corner too fast coming into Cumber and broke his splinter bar.'

‘And what happened to you?'

‘I fell into a strawberry bed. I fear I must look as if I had done so, though I am none the worse, save for a shaking. But the curricle was beyond repair until morning. And Cedric said there was nothing for it but to spend the night at the Swan in Cumber.'

‘You surprise me more and more. Was there no one could be sent for help?'

‘Yes.' She was committed now to telling him the whole of it. ‘That was just what made me begin to wonder. You see, at first I felt so shaken that I was glad enough to lie down for a while, and to tell truth I fell asleep for an hour or so. When I woke up I heard the landlord telling Cedric he could easily enough send a boy to Marchmont. And Cedric said there was no need, we would do well enough where we were. So then, of course, I began to think something was amiss.'

‘As well you might. So what did you do?'

‘I climbed out the bedroom window — it was on the ground floor, most fortunately — and came away. I was looking for the ferry at Barnsley when you found me.'

She sensed his smile, warming in the darkness of the carriage. ‘I am sorry to have to say it to so heroic a young lady, but
you had missed your way. You were on the main road for Marchmont, which goes five miles further round. I fear you would have been sadly weary before you reached home. As it is, we shall be there shortly, and I think I know what story we shall tell. You and Lord Beaufrage met with the accident exactly as you describe it, but most fortunately, just as you were wondering what to do, I came past and, of course, offered to take you up with me. Lord Beaufrage, equally of course, could not leave his beloved curricle, and has stayed at the Swan until it is repaired. So here we are, you and I, driving pleasantly together through the dusk.'

‘Admirable. But what of Cedric, and your man?'

‘Oh, James does what I tell him, and as for Lord Beaufrage … Well, in the morning, I will very kindly volunteer to ride over to Cumber and find out how he goes on. I think when I return I can promise you that he will tell the same story as I do.'

‘Oh.' She considered this for a few minutes. ‘I … I beg your pardon, but you will not
fight
him, will you?'

‘I? Fight Beaufrage? I'd as soon call out a mayfly. No, no, never fear for that, I'll frighten him enough without having recourse to pistols. I — well, have my reasons for not wishing to go out with my Lord Beaufrage.'

She was still wondering what these could be when the carriage turned in at a pair of ornamental gates and up a noble sweep of driveway. They wound their way through shadowy parkland and came to a halt in front of the long, black bulk of a house. Rivers leapt out quickly and gave her his hand to alight. As he did so, big doors swung wide and Lady Marchmont's figure appeared on the threshold, illuminated by light from within.