Miss Hartwell's Dilemma (25 page)

“I ought to take the ladder back,” he said as Lord Daniel put them on.

“Leave it,” advised Amaryllis. “It will only start another ghost story.”

They met no one on the way down the hill and through the dark, snowy village. When they reached the vicarage, Mr. Raeburn let Lord Daniel in and told him to wait by the fire while he escorted Miss Hartwell home.

“I will do myself the honour of calling on you in the morning, Miss Hartwell,” said his lordship stiffly, his teeth chattering.

“It is morning now. You had best wait till afternoon,” said the vicar kindly. “Come now, ma’am, Miss Tisdale is waiting up for you.”

Tizzy took one look at her white, exhausted face, her shivering cloakless form, and rushed her upstairs.

“Into bed quickly,” she ordered, asking no questions. “I have already put hot bricks in to warm it, and there is soup on the stove which I shall fetch up to you at once. Here, let me undo those buttons, your hands are shaking.”

In five minutes Amaryllis was in bed, curled up between the warm sheets. Fits of shuddering still shook her, from the cold that had crept into her bones and from remembered fear. When she closed her eyes Lord Daniel’s shocked face appeared before her, so she kept them open.

A fine revenge the Spaniard had attempted. If they had stayed in the oubliette till morning, if they had survived the bitter night, the news of his lordship’s nakedness would have been all over the county within days. For her interference, she would have been disgraced along with him.

A timid tapping at her door distracted her from the horrid contemplation of the ruin she had so narrowly avoided. Isabel entered, tripping over the hem of a nightgown twice her size.

“I heard you come in,” she said in a quavering voice. “Miss Tisdale said I could see you. Is Papa…is he all right?”

“Yes, my dear. He is spending the night at the vicarage with Mr. Raeburn.”

With a sob, the child ran to her and hugged her, burying her face in her shoulder.

“I thought those men would kill him,” she wept.

Amaryllis put her arms round the thin, trembling body and stroked her hair. “It’s all right, love, it’s all right,” she murmured. “Hush now. Come, creep under the covers with me, or your feet will freeze.”

Miss Tisdale brought in the hot soup and found them asleep in each other’s arms.

When Amaryllis woke, it was past noon, and Isabel was gone. Recalling at once that Lord Daniel was coming to see her that afternoon, Amaryllis dressed quickly and hurried downstairs. Miss Tisdale, Mrs. Vaux, Isabel, and Louise were in the dining-room. The girls seemed none the worse for their adventure. In their presence Tizzy and Aunt Eugenia restrained their curiosity, though Amaryllis could see that a hundred questions hovered on their lips.

Agitated at the thought of the coming interview, she ate little, though Louise reminded her that for her the meal was both breakfast and luncheon. Afterwards, Amaryllis went to her office and sat down at the desk. She took out some correspondence but was unable to concentrate, starting up at every sound to look out of the window.

It was not long before Lord Daniel appeared. At first she did not recognise him as he limped down the path.

Though his dress was always casual, he was now dressed in a strange assortment of ill-fitting clothes that must, she realised, have come from the vicar’s supply of castoffs for the poor. His hat was an old-fashioned three-cornered creation that he wore at a rakish angle that made him look almost piratical. Judging by his awkward stride, either his shoes were as ill-fitting as the rest or his feet were still sore from being frozen and then forced into the gardener’s galoshes.

His right arm swung slightly as he walked, though less than his left. Amaryllis hoped that was a sign of returning strength. She flexed her own arm, the one the Spanish servant had mistreated. She had not noticed before, her thoughts elsewhere, but it was sore at shoulder and elbow, and her back ached from her landing in the dungeon.

In the dungeon—where she had lain in Lord Daniel’s naked embrace, quietly, without protest and without shame. She felt the colour rising in her face. What was she to say to him when he walked through that door? What would he say?

She retreated behind her desk, sat down, and put on her spectacles. They made her feel much safer. Straining her ears, she heard the front door open and a murmur of voices. She listened for his step in the passage, but it did not come.

She wondered at the delay, and was beginning to grow angry when it dawned on her that Lord Daniel had gone to see Isabel first.

Waiting was unbearable. She was halfway to the door when it opened and he came in. She stepped backwards until she was leaning against the desk. He appeared as ill at ease as she felt. He stood there, twisting his hat in his hands, his wrists protruding from the sleeves of the too-short coat. He mumbled something that she took to be a greeting.

“Good day, my lord,” she answered with tolerable  composure.

“Are you...I trust you are not much bruised?” he blurted out.

“Not seriously, thank you. How is your arm?”

“Improving.”

She wanted to ask about his feet. The memory of how she had warmed them back to life stopped her. The impropriety of her action appalled her, but she seemed to feel again the icy touch between her thighs, bringing a shiver of excitement she had not felt the night before.

“Miss Hartwell,” he broke the silence that had fallen between them, “your vicar has urged me to ask you to marry me, as soon as may be.”

His voice sounded strange, half-strangled, and a flush stained his thin face as she looked at him in outrage.

“Mr. Raeburn has Gothic notions of propriety,” she said coldly. “I should not dream of following his advice.”

“But indeed, I had every intention of asking you anyway.” He stepped forward eagerly.

She put up her hands as if to ward him off. “I assure you it is unnecessary. I do not consider myself compromised in any way, nor need you fear that Mr. Raeburn will spread the story. He is a clergyman and a true gentleman.”

“I want to marry you. It is the only honourable thing to do.”

“Honourable! And was it honourable to abandon your wife in a foreign country?” The Spaniard’s narrative, lost in the terror of the night, flooded back to her. “Was it honourable to leave her in a position where her only alternatives were death or dishonour? Yes, I heard Don Miguel’s words, my lord. Would God I might have closed my ears to them, but I heard them. Little wonder that you shut yourself away in the country, ashamed to see family or neighbours. And you want to marry me? Do you suppose that by treating me well you will wipe out your mistreatment of your first wife? Why should I marry you?” Because I love you, her heart cried out, but the words did not reach her lips.

His face was white now, the dark brows drawn together in a scowl. “If you wish to believe de la Rosa’s words, I cannot prevent it,” he said with a sneer.

“If it is not true, why do you hide from society like a craven?”

“Are you not in hiding yourself, Miss Hartwell? George has told me the sorry tale of your own little scandal. Why did you not face society and fight it out, instead of retreating to a life of drudgery?”

“At least I earn an honest living.”

“If you marry me, you will escape the drudgery.”

“I do not need to marry you to escape. I am going to marry Lord Pomeroy, and I have no conceivable need of you. I beg you will leave at once, my lord, and I pray we may never meet again.”

In two strides he was at her side. He swept her into his arms and kissed her savagely. She fought him with all her strength and suddenly he released her. His arm hanging useless at his side he left, without a word, without a backward glance.

Amaryllis sank into the nearest chair, buried her face in her hands, and wept.

Chapter 19

For two days, Miss Tisdale and Mrs. Vaux treated Amaryllis like a fragile porcelain doll. They asked no questions. She did not know how much they guessed or had been told by the vicar, but she was grateful for their forbearance. Often, in silent misery, she embraced them and was comforted as if she were eight years old again.

Early on the third day, a note arrived from Bertram. He was back at the castle and longed to see her. Unless he heard to the contrary, he would pick her up at eleven and take her driving. She sent the groom back bearing her acceptance and turned to the anxious ladies with a calm smile.

“I have been behaving like a spoiled child,” she confessed wryly. “You are too good to me, dear Aunt, dear Tizzy. I shall marry Bertram and do my best to make him a good wife.”

They smiled and sighed with relief and reminded her of his faithfulness, his kindness and generosity, his indulgence of her waywardness.

“Shall we have a double wedding, Tizzy?” she asked, then added teasingly, “No, you shall have your day of glory, for I want to be married by Mr. Raeburn, and he cannot officiate at his own wedding.”

Mrs. Vaux decided it was not the moment to point out that Lord Pomeroy would undoubtedly expect to be married at Tatenhill, since his father was ailing. The fewer disadvantages Amaryllis saw to the marriage, the less likely she was to be overcome by one of her distempered freaks and to risk losing so eminently satisfactory a bridegroom as his lordship.

Bertram picked her up promptly. It was a still, cold, sunny day. Much of the snow had melted, but the air was wintery chill. He was driving his curricle, so she wrapped herself in her warm cloak, refusing to think of the last time it had been used.

Bertram tucked a fur rug about her knees. He looked particularly handsome as he grinned down at her, asking solicitously if she thought she would be warm enough. His many-caped driving coat fitted to perfection. His hat was set at a jaunty angle, and his boots gleamed with blacking as his team of chestnuts gleamed with much currying.

She smiled with a rush of affection and assured him she would do very well. He gave the chestnuts the office, and they set out towards Halstead and Colchester. She asked after the earl and his mother and told him about Miss Tisdale’s betrothal and Mrs. Vaux’s plans for finding a small house.

Not unnaturally he found this encouraging, but he waited until they had passed though the busy streets of Halstead before he broached the subject on the tip of his tongue. “Amaryllis, have you made your decision? Will you marry me, my darling?”

“I must tell you something first. I ought to have told you long ago. When you hear it, you may wish to cry off.”

He looked at her in alarm.

“It is my father. I told you he is in America. Bertram, he has opened a shop. A hardware store, he calls it. He is an ironmonger.”

His lordship shouted with laughter, making the horses twitch their ears and shake their heads.

“Viscount Hartwell an ironmonger!” he exclaimed. “What an excessively respectable occupation for the old reprobate. Oh, I beg your pardon, Amaryllis, but I never for a moment thought he would come to so honest an end.”

“But you cannot wish to be married to the daughter of an ironmonger,” she said, with a glance of reproach for his levity.

“If he opened up shop in Leeds I might be concerned for my father’s sake. With the Atlantic Ocean between us, I have not the least qualm in the world about begging yet again for your hand.”

Amaryllis’s heart sank. She realised that unconsciously she had hoped he would cry off. He was not particularly high in the instep, but he would soon be Earl of Tatenhill. He had a duty to his family. Society might forgive her for having been a schoolmistress. They might forgive the viscount for running off with the daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. They might even forgive one of their own for turning to trade to keep body and soul together, but they would certainly look askance at a countess with all three instances of bad Ton against her.

Bertram did not care. For a moment the thought cheered her. She looked up at him and met blue eyes full of self-confident hope and a trace of amusement. The words trembled on her lips, the words that would make her his forever.

“I cannot!” A vision of dark eyes filled with pain and anger hid him from her. “I cannot. I love someone else.” She leaned forwards, head bowed, curling around the agony in her heart.

He pulled up the horses, put his arm round her shoulders, and held her against him. “Winterborne?” he asked gently.

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Does he know?”

“No. I don’t know. We quarrelled most dreadfully. How can I love a man who is so impossible? I do not know if he even likes me.”

Bertram offered her his handkerchief, but her eyes were dry. He turned the curricle and drove back through Halstead in a thoughtful silence. After a while, hoping to distract her, he began to tell her about the latest ghost to haunt Hedingham Castle. He described the ladder found in the oubliette, the missing galoshes, the clothes discovered mysteriously inside the locked keep.

Every word stabbed her with memories of that horrifying night, with fear that someone might unravel the mystery. “There is no clue as to whom the clothes belong to?” she asked with heightened colour.

“They are very ordinary gentleman’s apparel, of good quality but in no way distinguishable from any others. No fancy waistcoat, no monograms, no card case in the coat pocket.”

She could not suppress a sigh of relief and he turned on her instantly.

“Amaryllis, you know something of this. Do not deny it. I hope I can tell by now when you are gammoning me. What happened?”

She lowered her eyes, but she knew that her flushed cheeks were giving her away.

“‘Fore God,” he said savagely, “if he has hurt you I shall make him pay for it, whether you love him or not.”

Shaking her head, she laid her hand on his arm and forced herself to speak. “No, he was badly hurt himself. Not physically, at least not seriously, but…I cannot tell you, Bertram. It is not my story.”

His jaw was clenched, and she saw a muscle jumping in his cheek. He kept his eyes on the road and presently spoke in a deliberately calm voice. “I hope I have said nothing to mislead you. I have learned something more of him since last I saw you, and I must believe him more sinned against than sinning.”