The LadyShip (25 page)

Elinor pulled her hands free, and would have fled there
and then, but his look made her pause at least briefly. “We
are not the same people we thought we were, Mr Alling
ham. What we thought we knew has no application now.
Please try to forget those years.”

“That is precisely what I am trying to make you do, Elinor! Circumstances have changed, and I cannot but look at
that as a miraculous stroke of luck, for it must overcome
any scruples you may yet feel about your position—your
former position. I know I have ceased to feel them—
indeed, I realised you were not quite the woman I thought
you—no, that you were much more than I knew of you—in
the coach coming here, and I believe our changed circum
stances to mean we need, at the very least, no longer be so
scrupulously polite and distant as we have been. Do you
not understand that?”

“I understand that we may become better acquainted
now. We must, if Ned—that is, since your best friend ap
pears now to be our family. I hope that we also may be
friends, and not merely acquaintances as before.”

“Not merely friends either, Elinor. Do you know, I begin
to comprehend Vernon’s openness to new adventures? He
expects them to be happy ones, and so for him they are. I
am determined that they will henceforth be so for me—for us—as well. I shall be glad to help you in any way I can to
establish Lucy as you both wish, and I shall be glad to know
your brother better. But I will not do these things only to
win your gratitude, for I know you quite well enough to
know that your gratitude—even your friendship—no lon
ger holds any charms for me.”

“Well, I do not know you so well as that!” Elinor ex
claimed in desperation. “I do not comprehend how you
can be so certain, just because I was yesterday an innkeep
er’s daughter and today I am not, that things will perforce be different between us. It is no easy matter to change en
tirely the way one has viewed the world for all one’s
life—to throw it up on the chance of something better is too much of an adventure for me, I fear.”

She moved to the side a little, running her hand along the
top of the half-door of the stall, in a confused bid to escape
his all-too-persuasive reasoning, but he was quicker and put
his hand up on the wall to bar her way.

“It is not just a chance, my dear,” he said in a low voice.
“It is a certainty. I promise you.”

“No! I cannot believe that. Oh, please say no more! I can
not think now—I do not know what to say!”

With that, she broke away from him and ran out of the
dim stable, back into the sunlight. She was blinded by it for
a moment, but putting her hand up to her eyes, she realised
that it was not only the sun that blinded her.  Her eyes were
filled with tears.

Lady Dorothea Allingham
was not in the habit of making
journeys that required her to stay overnight on the road,
having discovered years before that however exalted a hos
telry might be in the opinion of more seasoned travellers,
she much preferred the dependable comforts and conve
niences of her own household to those of any place run by some other person than herself.

Thus it was a remarkable
event when she found herself on the London road two days
before Christmas—a time when her family and friends were
accustomed to come to her—keeping a sharp eye out for a
coaching inn highly recommended to her by one of those
friends.

She had warned Lord Vernon, furthermore, that if this
scheme of his did not come off, she would make it a point to contract a severe chill from the sheets of The LadyShip’s
ever-so-fine beds and to make him wait on her until she
elected to recover from it. Vernon had only laughed at this
and assured her that she might as well expect to come
down with a case of tropical fever, for that was as likely to
be lurking between Elinor Bennett’s cosy sheets as was
such a common English complaint as a chill.

“Very well, my dear,” Lady Dorothea had told him, “but
do you bring Marcus along at the proper time, for I shall not
linger there!”

When her ladyship’s lumbering coach pulled into the
yard of Miss Bennett’s establishment, however, it was made
immediately plain to her that this was indeed no ordinary inn. Ap
parently having arrived only minutes before her was a huge
yule log, being dragged across the yard by a contingent of
servants and neighbourhood boys, led by the strapping Ivor. Cloths had been laid down in the log’s path to the
door, where stood a young woman Lady Dorothea had no
difficulty in recognising as the proprietress. She took no
active part in the festivities, only viewing it all with af
fectionate interest and a smile on her lips, in a way that suggested the fond mother of a brood of high-spirited
children—a way that, Lady Dorothea conceded to herself, promised better than she had expected of both the lady and
the inn.

There was a moment between the shouts of the boys and
the gruff orders of Mr Nash—who was in nominal charge of
manoeuvring the log into the dining-room fireplace—be
fore the sound of another arrival came to Miss Bennett’s
ears, but then she made her way at once through the melee
to greet her guest, who was being assisted from her coach
by her footman and fussed about by an elderly abigail car
rying two bandboxes and Lady Dorothea’s tapestry bag. She had not, Elinor noted thankfully, brought her own
sheets.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” she said politely. “May I
show you inside? I fear we shall have to enter the building
by the side door, for as you see, there is rather a crush in the
yard.”

Lady Dorothea reached the ground, shooed away her
faithful retainers, and gave Miss Bennett a comprehensive inspection which, she observed, was endured stoically. She
liked what she saw, from the sprig of holly in Miss Ben
nett’s neat collar to the warm glow in her fine eyes. She had
feared to find a highly respectable but depressingly hu
mourless—not to say positively dowdy—woman, and was
pleased to find her lack of faith in her son’s judgement to be
entirely unjustified.

“How do you do?” she said, holding out one gloved
hand. “I take it you are Lady Elinor. I am Dorothea Allingham
.”

Lady Dorothea’s crest on the door of her coach had pre
pared Elinor for this intelligence, and she looked her guest
over as comprehensively as Lady Dorothea had her hostess.
Elinor, too, liked what she saw. Her ladyship was well-insulated from any passing nip in the air by an ermine-
trimmed velvet pelisse and a matching bonnet; she carried
a huge fur muff and wore a frown, which was, however, given the lie by the lively interest in her blue eyes as she took in her surroundings. She was several inches shorter
than Elinor, but she more than compensated for her lack of
height by a determined posture and a commanding manner
of speech. Elinor admired her resolution, but feared that it
augured ill for them both if—or when, for it seemed
inevitable—the subject of Lady Dorothea’s son arose be
tween them.

“I am not Lady Elinor here, ma’am,” she said. “Miss Ben
nett is the manager of The LadyShip, to which you are most
welcome. Will you stay the night as our guest?”

“I will stay,” pronounced Lady Dorothea. Looking
around to find her coach already on its way to the stables
and young Teddy waiting patiently—despite having been
torn away from the Yule festivities—to assist in carrying
her bags inside, she resumed her formidable frown and
sailed before her hostess into the inn. There, however, she was greeted by a host of delicious smells emanating from
both the kitchen below and the wreaths of holly and ivy
strung along the walls and hanging from the beams. Vases of evergreen boughs occupied every available flat surface,
and in the doorways hung “kissing baskets,” basket-shaped
bunches of greenery filled with red apples and decorated
with candles and red ribbons, with a sprig of mistletoe sus
pended beneath.

Lady Dorothea came to a halt, and when she had taken in
this festive scene, she looked again at Elinor, her expression considerably softened.

“Do you know,” she said, “we have not had this kind of
thing at Brookfield for years. I had forgotten how much charm it gives a room just to add a green branch or two.”

“Do you not celebrate Christmas at Brookfield, Lady Dorothea? I am certain Lord Vernon told me he would be
spending the holiday there.”

“Oh, Vernon brings his own holiday spirit with him, as I daresay you have already discovered. I meant, we have not
hung wreaths or made puddings—except in the servants’
hall—for years. Not since Marcus was a boy, that is—and af
ter my husband died, it seemed...unnecessary.”

“We find it essential,” Elinor said, smiling.

Lady Dorothea found herself smiling back. “So I see!
This is quite a family occasion, I suppose. Is my godson
somewhere hereabouts, by the way? He has been very little
where else lately, according to his mother, who entertains
the liveliest dread that he will take up as a mail-coachman
next.”

“If you refer to Felix, yes, he is here. I believe he was
among the party wrestling with the log. I expect you did
not recognise him in my brother’s clothes, which he bor
rowed for the occasion.”

“Ah, yes—I thought one of the voices in that chorus had a familiar ring. Perhaps when he is presentable again, you
may send him up to see me, Miss Bennett. I should like also
to meet your brother and sister.”

“I regret that my brother has gone to Redding with Lord Vernon,” Elinor said, leading the way upstairs to Lady
Dorothea’s room. “He will not return until tomorrow. Lu
cinda will naturally be pleased to make your acquaintance.
But will you not rather take your dinner with us this eve
ning, ma’am? We would be most happy to have you join us,
and we may all enjoy a comfortable talk.”

It was not lost on Lady Dorothea that Miss Bennett—
rather, Lady Elinor—had displayed no curiosity about her
new family corresponding to Lady Dorothea’s about the
Bennetts, nor had she sought to know what had brought
Lady Dorothea to The LadyShip. She did not know whether
this sprang from modesty or from indifference on Elinor’s part. She would approve the former, but the possibility of
the latter made her feel more than slightly aggrieved, a feel
ing not alleviated by the further thought that Miss Bennett
was going to force Lady Dorothea to introduce the subject.

In all this, however, Lady Dorothea misjudged Miss Ben
nett, who had over the last fortnight succeeded in for
getting—or nearly so—her existence as Lady Elinor and
retreated into plain Miss Bennett again. She knew in the back of her mind that she could not keep up this masquer
ade for very long, that she would have to choose between
her two identities. Contrary to Lady Dorothea’s initial im
pression, it was neither modesty nor lack of interest that
prevented her from making this choice. She was fearful of
the possible consequences of it.

For now—or at least for Christmas, which might well
prove the last she would be able to spend in the old, com
fortable way—she preferred to be Elinor Bennett. Far from
forcing Lady Dorothea to explain her visit, she had rather
not hear her reasons for it—not yet. Leaving her guest, therefore, she went in search of Mrs Nash to assure herself
for the third time that the haunch of venison being prepared for dinner was well under way.

Unfortunately, Elinor’s desire to extend her previously
comfortable existence for as long as possible was not be to granted her. Lady Dorothea did come down to dinner, was presented to Lucy, greeted Felix with an amused tolerance
of his obvious infatuation with Lucy and anything else con
nected with The LadyShip, praised the comfort of her bed
chamber, and generally made herself so much at home
amongst them that Elinor could not help reflecting that she
might after all prove a pleasant mother-in-law. This idea she
rapidly put down, only to have another rise in its place
when she observed Lucy and Lady Dorothea with their heads together over the sliced oranges and sugar cakes served up to end their meal.