The LadyShip (19 page)

“I beg your pardon! I never imagined—that is, no such
thought ever entered my mind!”

He moved back to his previous position, but he was still
smiling. “No? I believe—I hope—you are telling me bounc
ers, Miss Bennett, for the thought most certainly entered
mine.”

She looked at him again, in a kind of puzzled wonder—
puzzlement that he should think of her as a lady and treat
her as such, and wonder that there was—wasn’t there?—in
him even the faintest echo of the turbulent emotions she
had been subject to on his account, not only in the last few
hours but over more years than she could clearly recall just
then.

But his steady, amused gaze was no use at all in put
ting her confused thoughts in order. She cast about wildly
for some alternative subject of conversation, but in this he
was of no assistance either, so that she heaved a sigh of grat
itude when, a moment later, the coach reeled into the yard of an inn and came to a halt. Lord Vernon got down from
his perch to open the door for her and announce that he re
quired a strong restorative before continuing the journey,
and anyway it was Allingham’s turn to freeze his fingers on
the reins.

Thus they repaired to the inn, which proved to be the
Crown at Steventon, a small but well-run house whose
landlord evinced no surprise at the advent of three travel
lers who had no apparent intention of stopping for the
night. If folk were fools enough to travel in snowstorms,
this worthy said to his good wife, it was no business of his
to suggest that they do otherwise.

Fortunately, the Crown’s cellars were well stocked, so
that while Willy saw to the change of horses—and lorded it
over the local stableboys about his mistress’s new-fangled
coach that was “all the crack” in more civilised parts of the
world—Lord Vernon dipped his fingers gingerly into a hot
brandy-and-water before tossing the rest of it back down
his throat and ordering another.

Allingham put down his own glass to watch this perfor
mance, and then, when Lord Vernon sat back in his chair
with a contented sigh and a smile at Miss Bennett, he
judged it time to make him aware of the presumed identity of Clarissa’s lover. This piece of news produced, as Allingham
had expected, no more reaction than a mildly sur
prised grunt from Lord Vernon and, also to be expected, the beginning of yet another apology from Miss Bennett, which his lordship promptly stifled.

“My dear Miss Bennett,” he said, “I cannot imagine that
Marcus will object to being cut out by any brother of yours,
so far be it from me to take offence! Does this, by the way,
make us related?” he asked hopefully.

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Elinor said, forced to smile at
Lord Vernon’s patent eagerness to ally himself with her
family. Grateful to him for treating her news thus lightly,
she refrained from attempting any further explanations
and instead wondered aloud if they ought to invite Willy
to ride inside for a few miles. But this sturdy youth, on
entering the parlour to inform them that her la’ship was
ready to proceed, would not hear of such a thing and
would not be budged from his duty—although he did ac
cept a third muffler to wrap around his head and a tan
kard of stout to fortify him for the short drive remaining to Oxford, where they would commence to make enqui
ries.

Thanks to a temporary break in the snowfall, which al
lowed a glimmer of pale moonlight to penetrate the drifting clouds, and a more heavily trafficked road, which had been
cleared by the wheels of several other vehicles, this journey
was accomplished in little more than an hour. Elinor sug
gested that their efforts might more likely bear fruit if they
sought news of their quarry at the inns along the Wantage
road, by which she supposed them to have come. Their en
quiries came to naught there, however, and they had no
better luck at the half-dozen inns chosen at random in the
city proper.

They stopped, somewhat discouraged, at the last of these
to fill a hamper with food and a container of milk for
Boney. It was then that Elinor thought to consider the state
of the roads ahead. It had begun to snow once again, as
steadily as before, and a question put to the landlord
elicited—by way of the ostler who had tended the last
south-bound coach—the information that the Banbury
road was in a bad way. However, the Manchester and Great
Northern roads—he had heard tell—were still passable.
Lord Vernon looked at Mr Allingham, who looked at Miss
Bennett, who admitted under pressure that yes, she did think it likely that her brother might have chanced a side
road far enough to intercept either of these more travelled highways north.

A stop at the first inn past the crossroads
with the Bicester road yielded the first piece of information they could call promising—that a young man calling him
self a physician and his female companion had indeed made
a stop there not three hours before. Much heartened, the
travellers then proceeded on their way, with Mr Allingham
doing the driving.

Elinor leaned her head back on the horsehair squabs as
the last light from the inn behind them flickered out in the darkness that
once again surrounded Her Ladyship.

Lord Vernon smiled. “Do not be disheartened, Miss Ben
nett,” he said. “If you really want to catch them, I daresay
we will have better luck farther on. I think your brother
might have been obliging enough to take his own coach so
that we would have had something more memorable than
‘a hired chaise, driven by a military man, with a young lady
as passenger’ to ask after. Personally, however, I am of the
opinion that it will be no great loss if we do not catch
them—except to my health, that is to say.”

Elinor laughed. “If that is an example of your incurable
romantic streak, Lord Vernon, I think I will continue to de
pend for flights of fancy on Mrs Radcliffe.”

“Did Marcus say that to you? He is no expert on the mat
ter, I assure you, being a notorious plodder himself.”

“Is he? He does not strike me so.”

“How does he strike you, Miss Bennett?” Lord Vernon
asked, with obvious and disconcerting interest.

Elinor looked away for a moment. “As a very kind and—
and amiable sort of person.”

His lordship raised both eyebrows at this, and Elinor, not
wishing to be drawn into expanding on this entirely inadequate assessment of Marcus Allingham, imposed on Lord
Vernon’s easy manners to venture an indiscreet question of
her own.

“Will you tell me, my lord, if Mr Allingham—that is, why
he offered for Miss Dudley, if he was not, as I suppose him
to mean, in love with her?”

Lord Vernon appeared to consider this, but Elinor was
visited by the suspicion that he was rather considering
what she might like to hear from him. “He told me he does
not have the temperament to fall in love,” he said at last.

“Is that true?”

“I do not believe it, but whether it is true or not, Marcus
believes it. I am not certain how he may be convinced
otherwise—short of his falling in love, of course.”

Elinor felt herself reddening again, but happily the golden glow of the night lamps masked her colour from even so as
tute an observer as Lord Vernon. She determinedly put
Marcus Allingham out of her mind and asked his lordship if
she might pull out some pillows and blankets for him, but
he professed no desire whatever to sleep, being far more in
terested in continuing their delightful conversation of that
morning. Elinor then busied herself instead with filling a
bowl of food for Boney on the floor of the coach.

“How is it that you are not married, Miss Bennett?” Lord
Vernon asked her, unexpectedly.

She was able to make a joke of this at least. “I have not
had the time, my lord!”

“But never tell me you have not had the opportunity,
Miss Bennett!” he returned.

Elinor smiled, thinking of the parsimonious squire, who
passed so many evenings nurturing a single tankard of ale in
the taproom of The LadyShip. “There are opportunities
and opportunities, my lord. Those which knock too insis
tently at my door are not necessarily those I would wish to
take advantage of. In any case, I must see my sister, Lucy,
established creditably before I may consider my own fu
ture.”

“Why? Miss Lucinda is very young and very pretty. She
will have no shortage of suitors—witness young Felix’s
rapid capitulation to her charms! Felix is not quite as foolish
as he appears, I should in all fairness tell you. You need
have no apprehensions if this sudden infatuation of theirs
outlasts the present adventure. His only fault is an inability
to decide what to do with himself. Perhaps he may take a
fancy to be an innkeeper!”

“Hardly a gentleman’s occupation,” Elinor said.

“From your description of your father, the profession
does not appear to be closed to gentlemen. And you have
done quite well in making a lady out of your sister—even if
you think you must hide your own qualifications for that
title behind an apron and a businesslike manner. Or is there
some other reason for this masquerade of yours?”

“No, of course there is not!” Elinor protested. “I mean, there is no such masquerade. It is only that I cannot think
only of myself, and I do not wish Lucy to be left alone, as
she would be if I were to marry before her.”

“But she has a brother as well. Whatever the outcome of
this day’s work, he would provide for her, would he not?
And you—as a married lady—could sponsor her most ad
vantageously in society.”

“No, my lord—whom should I be able to marry, to do
that? Lucy has been well educated, and her friends now are
of a different world entirely from mine—from The LadyShip
. Even if I married, I could not offer to introduce her
into so fine a society as they may. She will go to Bath and be
properly presented—but not by me.”

“By whom, then?”

“Well, I do not know as yet. I had hoped, when Ned
came home, that we might between us come up with a so
lution to that difficulty. Ned must have met a good many of
ficers during his service in the Peninsula who have sisters
and mothers.”

“A remote hope, nonetheless. Come, Miss Bennett, tell me what plot you are really hatching! Have you some dis
tant connexion you hope to apply to? I might be of some
assistance to you in that.”

Elinor studied Lord Vernon in the flickering light. For a
moment, she considered pouring the whole story out to
him, relying on his discretion, but even more on his ac
quaintance with other members of the peerage, to give her a clue to the identity of Lucy’s unknown father. However, although his brown eyes regarded her encouragingly, she
could see no way to broach her story directly. She varied it
a little.

“Lucy has a kind of connexion,” she told him. “The lady
after whom the inn was named, in fact. You see, a titled
lady, in whose service my father once was, lent him the
funds to build the inn when he wished to retire from his po
sition with her. He did not tell us her name, however, and I
did not know until after his death that he had come by The LadyShip in that manner.”

Lord Vernon wrinkled his brow. “I cannot recall any
such story—although of course, I can make discreet enqui
ries, if you wish, about this lady. What was your mother’s
family?”

“I am unaware of any family on either side, I’m afraid.
There was some mystery about their marriage, you see—I
believe my mother had been engaged to someone else be
fore that, someone who died at sea.”

Lord Vernon’s look became even more thoughtful at
this. “But there was no actual scandal attached to the mar
riage?”

“I am not aware of any.”

“Were your parents also your sister’s?”

Elinor stared at that. “Why do you ask?”

He smiled. “Unobservant as I am, Miss Bennett, even I
could not help but notice that you and your sister are very
dissimilar in appearance. I thought perhaps your father had
been married before—it is not unknown, and hardly a thing
to be ashamed of, you know.”