Bath Tangle (29 page)

He laid his hand over her clutching fingers. ‘But I think I should,’ he said gently. ‘Haven’t you said from the outset that nothing but misery could come of the marriage? Your ward, Marquis, according to our information, eloped this morning with your betrothed.’

‘
What?
’ Rotherham thundered, making Fanny wince. ‘Are you trying to hoax me?’

‘On
such
a subject? Certainly not! They set out in a chaise and pair, and were bound, it is presumed, for Gretna Green.’

‘By God, I’ve wronged that boy!’ exclaimed Rotherham. ‘So that’s why I wasn’t permitted to enter Mrs Floore’s house! Gretna Green, indeed!’ His brows drew together again. ‘Good God, they will never get there! I’ll swear all the money the young fool had was the fifty pounds I gave him! Why the devil couldn’t he have asked me for a hundred while he was about it? Of all the addle-brained cawkers – !
Now
he’ll find himself aground before he reaches Carlisle!’

Fanny’s hands fell from the Major’s arm. Fascinated, she stared at Rotherham.

‘He appears only to have booked the chaise as far as to Wolverhampton,’ said the Major, contriving by a superhuman effort to preserve his countenance. ‘Possibly – he has foreseen that he might find himself without a feather to fly with, and means to proceed thence by stage-coach.’

‘God grant me patience!’ ejaculated Rotherham wrathfully. ‘If ever I knew such a slow top – ! Does he know no better than to take a girl to Wolverhampton –
Wolverhampton
, my God! – and then to push her into a stage-coach? And I don’t doubt I shall be blamed for it, if all comes to ruin! How the devil could I guess he was such a cod’s head that he wouldn’t know better unless I told him?’

‘Perhaps,’ said the Major, who had sat down again, and was giving way to his emotion, ‘he f-felt there might be a little – awkwardness in applying to you for instruction!’

One of his sharp cracks of laughter broke from Rotherham. ‘He might, of course!’ he acknowledged. Another thought brought back the frown to his brow. ‘What’s Serena doing in this?’ he demanded. ‘You’re not going to tell me she has gone along to chaperon Emily?’

‘No: to bring her back!’ said the Major. ‘She has ridden in pursuit of them.’

‘
And you let her?
’

‘It was not in my power to attempt to stop her. I only learned of it this afternoon. It was far too late to try to catch her. I can only trust she’ll come to no harm.’

‘Serena?’ Rotherham’s lip curled. ‘You needn’t be anxious on her account! It isn’t she who will come to harm. So she means to bring Emily back, does she? I am obliged to her!’

He came slowly away from the window, a brooding look in his harsh face, his lips tightly gripped together. He saw that Fanny was watching him, and said curtly: ‘No doubt she will be home presently. I shouldn’t tease yourself about her, Lady Spenborough, if I were you: she’s very well able to take care of herself. I won’t wait to see her.’

He held out his hand, but before she could take it the Major had risen, and picked up from the table Serena’s letter. ‘You had better read what she wrote to Lady Spenborough,’ he said. ‘I fancy it makes the matter tolerably plain.’

Rotherham took the paper from him, directing a searching glance at him from under his brows. Then he bent his gaze upon the letter, and began to read it, his face very grim. But he had not proceeded far before his expression changed. The set look disappeared, to be succeeded by one of mingled wrath and astonishment. He did not speak, until he came to the end, but he seemed to find it difficult to control himself. At last he looked up, and Fanny’s heart instantly jumped into her mouth, such a blaze of anger was there in his eyes. ‘I
will
wait to see Serena!’ he said. ‘I must certainly thank her in person! So busy as she has been on my behalf!’ He rounded suddenly on the Major: ‘And who the devil is this Goring she writes of?’ he demanded.

‘I have never met him, but Lady Spenborough tells me he is Mrs Floore’s godson, and a most – er – sober and respectable young man,’ replied the Major. ‘We must depend on him to bring her safely back.’

‘Oh, we must, must we?’ said Rotherham savagely. ‘She is a great deal more likely to bring him back – on a hurdle! Any man who lets Serena lead him into one of her damned May Games can’t be other than a bottlehead!’ He broke off, jerking up his head, his eyes going swiftly to the window. The clop of a horse’s hooves, which had been growing steadily louder, ceased suddenly. Two quick strides took Rotherham back to the window. He flung it up, and looked down at the vehicle drawn up outside the house. There was a tense pause; then Rotherham said, leaning his hands on the window-sill, Serena’s letter crushed in one of them: ‘Her ladyship – in a hired hack!’

He shut the window with a slam, and turned. Fanny sprang up. ‘Serena? Oh, thank God! Oh, what a relief!’

She then shrank instinctively towards the Major, for the look Rotherham turned on her was bright and menacing. ‘Don’t thank God too soon, Lady Spenborough! Serena is in a great deal more danger now than she has been all day, believe me!’

‘No, no, stop!’ she cried. ‘What are you going to do to her?’

‘Murder her!’ he said, through shut teeth, and went hastily out of the room.

Fanny started forward, but the Major caught her arm. ‘No, my dear! Let be!’

‘Hector, go after him!’ she said urgently. ‘His face – Oh, he looked like a
fiend
! Heaven only knows what he may do in such a wicked passion! You
must
do something! Hector, it is your duty to protect Serena!’

‘So I might, if I thought she stood in peril of her life,’ he replied, laughing. ‘What I do think is that I should make a very bad third in
that
quarrel!’

Meanwhile, Rotherham, running down the stairs, reached the entrance floor just as Serena walked past Lybster into the house. Under the stiff, curling brim of her tall hat, her face was a little pale, and her eyes frowning in a look of fatigue. She laid her whip down on the table, and began to strip off her gauntlets. ‘Is her ladyship in, Lybster?’

‘In the drawing-room, my lady. Also –’

‘Ridden that short-backed mare of yours to a standstill, Serena?’

She looked round quickly. ‘Ivo! You here?’

‘Yes, Serena, as you see!’ he said, advancing upon her. ‘Not only here, but extremely anxious to have a few words with you!’

‘Dear me, in the sullens again?’ she asked, her voice light, but her eyes watchful. ‘Are you vexed because Emily did not abandon our expedition on the chance that you might arrive in Bath today? How absurd of you!’

‘My girl,’ said Rotherham dangerously, ‘it will be just as well for you if you stop thinking me a bleater, whom you can gull by pitching me your damned gammon! Come in here!’ He pushed open the door into the dining-room, and to Lybster’s intense disappointment pulled Serena into the room, and shut the door in the butler’s face. ‘Now, Serena!
Now!
’ he said. ‘What the
devil
have you been doing? Don’t lie to me! I know what expedition yours was!’ He unclenched his left hand, and showed her the crushed letter. ‘Do you recognize that? Then tell me the truth!’

She said indignantly: ‘So, not content with browbeating Emily, you have bullied Fanny into giving you my letter, have you? Well, if I find you’ve upset her, you will very speedily wish you had remembered with whom you would have to deal, if you came raging into this house! I am not a wretched schoolgirl, wilting under your frown!’

‘You are a meddlesome vixen!’ he told her angrily.

Her eyes flashed, but she choked back a pungent retort, struggled for a moment with herself, and finally said, in a voice of determined calm: ‘No. This is no moment for a turn-up, Rotherham. If you have read my letter, it may be for the best. Of course you are angry – though why you should make
me
your scapegoat God knows! Never mind that! I can stand a knock or two. Ivo, what a
fool
you have been! You may blame yourself for what happened today! Don’t vent your wrath on Gerard! I’ve sent him back to London with such a flea in his ear as he will not soon forget, I assure you!’

‘You have, have you? How much – how
very
much – I am obliged to you! Go on!’

‘You are more obliged to me than you know! You may dismiss Gerard from your mind: Emily is no more in love with him than I am! Had you had enough sense to have come to Bath, without heralding your arrival in a letter anyone but an
idiot
would have known must scare the child out of what little wit – out of her wits! – she would never have spared Gerard a thought! She seized on him merely as a means of escape. Really, Ivo, you have handled this like the veriest whipster!
You!
You have the vilest temper in creation, but I’ve never known you lose it with a nervous young ’un! Couldn’t you guess that if you let Emily see it, she would behave exactly as would a filly you had spurred? She turned you into a positive ogre – and you could have made her adore you! Instead, you frightened her – and the devil’s own task I have had, all the way from Gloucester, to convince her she has been a goose! I can’t tell whether I’ve succeeded, but I can’t do any more! The rest is with you! Be gentle with her, and I think all may be well!’

‘
O God!
’ uttered Rotherham, in a strangled voice. ‘What have I ever done to be cursed with such a marplot as you, Serena? So you’ve convinced her that I’m not such a devil as I made her think! I thank you! And I thought that if there was
one
person I could depend upon to urge the wretched girl on no account to marry me, it was you! I might have guessed you would bullfinch me if you could!’

‘
Rotherham!
’ exclaimed Serena, grasping a chairback. ‘Are you telling me – are you
daring
to tell me – you
meant
to scare Emily into jilting you?’

‘Of course I meant it!’ he said furiously. ‘You think I’m clever in the saddle, do you? Much obliged to you! A pity you didn’t remember it earlier! Good God, Serena, you can’t have supposed that I wanted to marry that hen-witted girl?’

‘Then why the
devil
did you offer for her?’ she demanded.

‘It only needed that!’ he said. ‘Serena, I could break your damned neck!’

She stared at him in bewilderment. ‘Why? How was I to guess you had run mad? Anyone would think it was
my
fault you lost your head over a pretty face!’

‘I never lost my head over any but
one
face, God help me! My temper, yes – once too often! I offered for Emily because
you
had become engaged to Kirkby! And if you were not a paperskull, you would have guessed it!’

‘It’s a lie! I only wrote to tell you of my engagement after the notice of yours had appeared in the
Gazette
!’ she said swiftly.

‘And you thought that because you hadn’t told me of it I didn’t know? Well, I did know! You cannot live in a man’s pocket here, my girl, without setting tongues wagging! From three separate sources did I hear of your doings!’

‘If you choose to listen to gossip –’

‘No, I didn’t listen to it – until I knew who it was who had appeared in Bath!
Then
I did more than listen! I got the truth out of Claypole!’

‘You didn’t so much as remember Hector!’ she stammered.

‘Of course I remembered him!’ he said scornfully. ‘I remembered something else too! – that unknown person whose name you refused to divulge, when I first visited you here!’

‘Unknown person?’ she repeated blankly. ‘Oh, good God! Mrs Floore! I had not
seen
Hector then! Ivo, what a
fool
you were!’

‘I was a fool,’ he said grimly, ‘but not in believing that Claypole spoke the truth!’

‘And you became engaged to Emily merely because
I
– Ivo, it is beyond words! To use a child very nearly young enough to be your daughter as a weapon of revenge on me – I wonder that you dare to stand there and tell me of such an
iniquity
!’ Serena said hotly.

‘It wasn’t as bad as that!’ he said, flushing. ‘I meant
then
to marry her! If that curst Adonis of yours had won you, what did it signify whom I married? I must marry
someone
, and Emily was as good as another – better! I knew I could mould her into whatever shape I pleased; I knew she would be happy enough with what I could give her; I knew the Laleham-harpy would jump at my offer. And I knew you would hate it, Serena! Oh, yes, infamous, wasn’t it? I did it because I was mad with anger – but I never meant to play the child false!’

‘And what, most noble Marquis,’ enquired Serena scathingly, ‘made you change your mind, and decide instead to be rid of her?’

He set his hands on her shoulders, and gripped them, holding her eyes with his. ‘Years ago, Serena, you fancied yourself head over ears in love with a devilish handsome lad! I didn’t think then that he was the man for you – and when I saw you both together here, I was even more certain of it! But when I heard of his reappearance, and of the reception he got from you, I was shaken as I never was before, and hope to God I never shall be again! But the instant I saw the pair of you I knew that I had rolled myself up to no purpose at all! I don’t know what madness seized you, but I do know that you don’t love Kirkby, and never did, or will!’

She wrenched herself away. ‘Did you? Did you, indeed? Perhaps you thought I loved you!’

‘No – but I knew that I still loved you! I could see you would break with Kirkby – Lord, Serena, if I hadn’t been in such a damned tangle myself I should have laughed myself into stitches! My poor girl, did you really think you could be happy with a man that would let you walk rough-shod over him? For how long did you enjoy having your own, undisputed way? When did you begin to feel bored?’

‘Let me tell you this, Rotherham!’ she flung at him. ‘Hector is worth a dozen of you!’

‘Oh, probably two or three dozen! What has that to say to anything?’

‘It has this to say! I am pledged to him, and I shall marry him, so let me recommend you to lose no time in reinstating yourself in Emily’s good graces! How
dare
you talk to me like this? And to think I didn’t believe the things Emily poured out to me today!’ She paused, almost choking. ‘You deliberately tried to make that girl cry off!’