Taming of Annabelle (26 page)

‘Stay,’ said the Marquess. ‘I have not come for any dance. I am simply stopping to have some refreshment before I proceed on my journey.’

The landlord looked puzzled, and then his face cleared. ‘You’ll be taking her ladyship with you, loik.’

‘No,’ said the Marquess. ‘Her ladyship is at Hopeworth.’

‘Don’t you know, my lord? Her ladyship be
here
!’

‘Here! Where?’

‘Whoy at dance, to be sure, with vicar and all.’

The Marquess stood staring into space until the landlord began to wonder if his lordship’s wits were wandering.

‘Ah, yes,’ said the Marquess at last. ‘Get a fellow to fetch my saddle bags. I will change directly.’

‘Very good, my lord,’ said Mr Boyse, looking at the Marquess curiously. ‘Your room’ll be number noin.’

‘I shall only need the use of the room for changing,’ said the Marquess. ‘I shall not be staying the night, nor shall I be staying long at the Assembly. Tell them to have my
horse rubbed down, saddled and ready.’

The Marquess spent quite long over his toilet, arguing with his reflection in the dim looking glass. He owed it to himself, he thought savagely, to have one last word with her. He had sometimes
dreamt that she was pining for him at the vicarage, realizing all she had so thoughtlessly, cruelly and carelessly thrown away.

But to find her at a ball! It was the outside of enough. He would give her a piece of his mind. Yes, and that conniving vicar as well.

When he entered the ballroom, the dance was in full progress. Hands across, down the middle flew the couples in a country dance.

And leading a set on the far side of the ballroom, partnered by a fresh-faced country gentleman, was his wife.

As he watched, she stumbled slightly and her partner laughed and caught her round the waist to steady her.

‘Good heavens!’ Annabelle’s partner said, as he joined hands with her, ‘Who is that handsome man glowering in the doorway like Satan himself?’

Annabelle’s head snapped round. It was almost as if she knew who it would be in that split second before she turned her head.

She stopped stock still. ‘Peter,’ she whispered.

The other dancers stumbled into her and past her, looking at her curiously.

Annabelle completely forgot about her partner. She forgot about the dance. She walked slowly towards the Marquess as if there were no one else in the room.

She held out her hands to him, and, despite his anger, he found himself taking them and holding them in a tight clasp.

‘You came after all, Peter,’ said Annabelle, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Deirdre hinted you would, but I had begun to lose hope.’

‘I came only by chance,’ he said coldly. ‘I decided to give myself the luxury of telling you exactly what I think of you.’

Annabelle snatched her hands away. ‘Then you do not love me,’ she said. ‘Despite the fact that father explained about Miss Evans and Sir Guy and the trick they played on me.
You do not love me. And I,’ her voice caught on a sob, ‘I love you so much.’

‘What?’

She made a move to turn away but he swung her around.

‘What did you say?’ he demanded.

‘You do not know?’ She looked at him. ‘Did you not get father’s letter?’

‘Not that,’ he said, his eyes searching her own. ‘Did you say you loved me?’

Annabelle hung her head, all pride gone.

‘Yes,’ she said miserably.

The vicar bowled in from the card room a minute later to find the ballroom in dead silence. It seemed as if the whole of Berham county was standing in frozen silence watching the Marquess of
Brabington ruthlessly kissing his wife.

‘Here!’ yelled the vicar. ‘Is this a dance or a funeral? Come on, you fiddlers. Let’s have a lively jig. Gentlemen, ladies, to your places!’

The company came to life, the music struck up, Deirdre, Daphne, Diana and Frederica Armitage all dried sentimental tears from their eyes.

‘My children! cried Mrs Armitage, heading in Annabelle’s direction, trailing wisps of chiffon and lace.

‘Hey, leave ’em alone,’ growled the vicar, catching hold of his wife. ‘There’s been enough Haymarket scenes for one evening.’

‘Come away with me,’ said the Marquess to Annabelle. ‘Now! Let us spend the night together far away from this brood of Armitages.’

‘Oh, Peter,’ cried Annabelle, ‘only wait until I get my cloak!’

Soon they were jogging off through the night, an odd pair seated on one horse in all their ballroom finery.

Annabelle explained as they rode along about Sir Guy’s plot, and his subsequent humiliation at the hands of the vicar.

‘If he is still in town,’ said the Marquess, ‘I will call him out. But Annabelle, you do not know the worst of it. I am to leave for Portugal in a fortnight. I thought you were
lost to me so I volunteered to rejoin my regiment.’

‘You would have done that in any case,’ said Annabelle, ‘and I do not care, for I am going with you.’

‘You cannot! You do not know the hardship, the death, the misery.’

‘I do not want to be without you ever again,’ said Annabelle.

‘We will talk later,’ he replied, holding her tightly as his horse stumbled.

‘My poor Caesar is at the end of his tether,’ he said. ‘I have ridden him too hard this night. Look, yonder is an inn of sorts. We will need to put up there. I was going to
stay with a friend, but I want you all to myself, so this inn will have to do.’

He reined in at an evil-looking inn which crouched under its heavy roof of ragged thatch beside the road.

‘There’s a light in the tap,’ he said. He swung her down from the saddle.

A bleary-looking landlord came out to meet them, blinking at the sight of their glittering evening dress.

He had a room, he said apologetically, but he did not think it fit for the quality. If they would only ride on a few miles they would come to a regular posting house.

But the horse was too tired to go any further and the couple too happy to mind where they slept. The Marquess sent Annabelle up to the bedchamber while he attended to his horse and saw it
stabled for the night.

Annabelle looked around the room with a shudder. The plaster was old and cracked. The four-poster bed had dusty hangings and a whole family of worms seemed to have been sinking their teeth in
the woodwork over the centuries.

But, she decided, when she went with her husband to the wars, she would need to become used to worse than this.

The Marquess came in, stooping his head under the low lintel of the door.

‘This is awful,’ he said, as he surveyed the neglected chamber. The blackened beams were so low that he could not straighten up. ‘Let us find somewhere else.’

But she simply held out her arms to him and he caught her to him and promptly forgot about everything else.

Some time later, he freed his lips reluctantly and told her to make ready for bed as he was going to have a wash at the pump in the yard.

Annabelle happily undressed and climbed cautiously into bed, wearing only a thin petticoat. The sheets felt cold and damp and she wished he would hurry up.

At last he arrived back, wearing only his shirt and breeches which he proceeded to strip off. ‘My sweeting,’ said the Marquess, his voice muffled as he pulled the shirt over his
head, ‘I am going to make love to you until I can no more, for we have wasted so much time.’

‘I wish you would hurry,’ said Annabelle. ‘’Tis monstrous cold.’

He divested himself of the rest of his clothes, blew out the candle, and said with a laugh, ‘Prepare my lady, for I am about to set you on fire.’

He ran lightly across the room and leapt on the bed, still laughing as he rolled over and caught her to him.

There was a great creaking and groaning and suddenly the bed quite simply collapsed, the mattress dropping through the frame onto the floor and sending the chamber pot rolling to the other side
of the room.

They lay clutching each other as the four posts of the bed slowly caved in and the canopy fell down on top of them.

‘Oh, Peter,’ wailed Annabelle, ‘we cannot possibly make love now. What are you doing? Stop it! No, don’t. Do it again. Oh,
Peter
!’

The Assembly was nearing its end. Frederica had fallen asleep with her head on Diana’s shoulder. Deirdre had danced every dance, her red ringlets flying.

Squire Radford settled himself down comfortably next to the vicar in the refreshment room, and indicated Deirdre with a nod of his head.

‘That’s the next Armitage to wed,’ he said, ‘or I’m not mistaken.’

‘Hey!’ The vicar, who had drunk overmuch and was feeling the effects, looked blearily at his daughter.

‘Oh, no,’ he said, ponderously, shaking his head. ‘I’m worn to Hinders with all this love business. Next one will be an arranged marriage. That way I’ll have a bit
o’ peace and quiet. Think Brabington’s happy now?’

‘Oh, very happy,’ said the Squire.

‘In that case,’ said the vicar thoughtfully, ‘I hope my Bella told him how it was all thanks to me that they’re together again. Hope she told him that, Jimmy!’

‘And thanks to me,’ put in the Squire.

‘Hey? Ho! Yes, yes, yes, but you ain’t the girl’s father.’

‘I don’t see . . .’

‘Well, I hear Jefferson’s selling some o’ his hounds and a grateful Brabington just might sport the blunt.’

‘May the Lord have mercy on your mercenary soul,’ said the Squire piously.

‘Amen to that,’ said the vicar of St Charles and St Jude.