“Why did you not request a meeting?” I demanded, shocked at such a desultory attitude. Mrs. Irvine had procured our driver for us. I knew nothing about the man, except that he seemed a good-enough whip for someone who had spent his adult years aboard a ship.
“You said deliver the note. I delivered it.”
“You did not deliver it to Lord Marndale.”
“He was aboard. The lad at the desk said he would see that his lordship got it. Never worry your head about it, missie. He’ll be here before you’re ready to cast off.”
Mrs. Irvine began yawning into her fist and suggested we “hit our bunks.”
“Lord Marndale will be here any moment. He would have a fast team,” I countered.
At twelve-thirty she suggested it again. I was angry enough to consider it, but surely he could not be much longer. At one o’clock I agreed. Obviously something had gone amiss. Lord Marndale must have stepped out to visit friends, or was in a drunken stupor for all I knew. I left a message for him at the desk, explaining where he could find his daughter. We woke Lady Victoria, and all three of us went up to the single room I had hired. The inn provided us a truckle bed for our guest.
I lent Lady Victoria my best lawn nightie, which she took without even saying thank you. Then she just stood there like a statue, waiting for me to undress her.
“Be sure you hang up your gown,” I said, and undressed myself.
She gave me a sulky look but managed to get out of her gown and into the nightie and even hung up her clothes. Her next imposition was to hop into my bed.
“I shouldn’t think the three of us will fit in there,” I said. “The truckle bed is for you, Lady Victoria.”
“But I can’t sleep in that rickety little thing,” she laughed.
“It will be better than the floor, don’t you think?” I assisted her out of my bed and nodded to Mrs. Irvine to hop in against the wall. I took the other place and watched with amusement while Lady Victoria examined the truckle bed. She walked around it three times, like a dog around his blanket, then climbed in.
“It’s lumpy,” she complained.
“You will want to remember all these inconveniences before you run away again,” I told her.
“You’re right. You
are
a lady,” was the last phrase she spoke.
I pondered her meaning for all of five minutes before my mind wandered off to more interesting matters. What could be delaying Lord Marndale? What never entered my mind was that he had called out the constable and sent a crew out scouring the roads for us. The first intimation of that delightful surprise occurred at three o’clock in the morning, when I was awakened by a loud pounding at the door.
Chapter Three
I leapt from the bed in terror and lit the taper, calling “Who is it?” In my dazed state I envisaged a blackguard with pistol and knife ready to rob and kill me. The pounding drowned out my voice. The next thing I knew fists gave way to a battering ram, and someone began hammering the door down with a piece of heavy furniture. Surely a thief in the night would not be so brazen! I spotted Victoria on the truckle bed and knew my caller was no thief. Worse, it was Lord Marndale.
After three or four assaults the door remained intact, but the lock gave way. Lord Marndale was accompanied by a veritable army of minions, some in livery, some in fustian, and one wearing a constable’s hat. His lordship’s temper was hot enough to burn the shell off an egg. His hair fell over his forehead, perspiration dripped from his brow, and the stuffing from the chair he was using as a battering ram left a film of brown dust on his evening suit. The elegant marquess looked for the world as if he had robbed a scarecrow of his jacket. He dropped the chair with a loud thump and pointed a finger at me. “Arrest that woman, officer. She has abducted my daughter.”
The foolish constable came blundering forward, stumbling over the chair at the doorway, and took hold of my arm. The racket had roused the other patrons, who stuck their heads from their various doors. Men in nightcaps, ladies with their hair in rags, and one gleaming bald scalp popped out like cuckoos from a row of clocks, all goggling at my room. The scene was too ludicrous to inspire terror. “Get out, oaf!” I said, and shook the constable off. “I wouldn’t kidnap that bold chit for all the money in the mint.”
Mrs. Irvine and Lady Victoria were awakened by the commotion and joined their shrieks to the general melee. My lungs, strengthened from long holding forth in the classroom, could be heard above the hubbub. I turned a fiery eye on Lord Marndale
.
“It is about time you got here, sir.”
He ignored me and rushed to the truckle bed to draw his daughter into his arms. I heard tender outpourings, asking the hussy if she was all right and if we had harmed her. My temper was up at his attitude, and I went after him.
“Harmed
her?” I demanded.
To escape her papa’s wrath, or perhaps just from a love of attention, she burst into tears. “It was horrid,” she gasped. “And only look where she is making me sleep, Papa, in this horrid cot.”
“This is outrageous!” Lord Marndale exclaimed, rising to turn on me like a virago.
“Indeed it is, sir. It is outrageous that your daughter hid herself in my carriage and has battened herself on me quite shamelessly, causing me no end of bother and expense. I have sat up half the night waiting for you to come and retrieve her, to say nothing of her ordering expensive food which she did not eat. If you think for one moment I was about to be put out of my bed as well, you have another think coming.”
Lord Marndale looked quite stupefied, whether at my tone or the fact that I stood before him and his army in nothing but a nightgown, I do not know. I realized by his raking gaze at that point that I was undressed and grabbed my new silk dressing gown about me. It is a charming peacock blue color, with a long fringed sash and notched lapels, like a gentleman’s jacket.
“Get this rabble out of here at once. At once, I say,” I commanded, head high, eyes flashing.
Lord Marndale became aware of the rest of the audience and turned to the constable. “Thank you, officer. I can handle it from here.”
“Will you be wanting manacles and a cell, milord?” the constable asked, subjecting me to a close examination.
“Don’t be an ass,” I said, shoving him out the door.
“A chair and a whip, perhaps ...” Lord Marndale murmured, regarding me warily.
I slammed the door, thus lowering the curtain on the night’s entertainment for the audience.
Lord Marndale looked surprised though not greatly so. “Now perhaps you will do me the honor of explaining what you are doing with my daughter, madam, after I explicitly told you to mind your own business,” he said loftily.
“That is precisely what I am trying to do. I did not abduct her, and I would thank you to tell your constable so. She concealed herself in my carriage. I didn’t know she was there till we had nearly reached Farnborough.”
“At what time was that?”
“After ten.”
“Then you have had ample time to return her.”
“Yes, sir, I had the time but not the inclination to subject my elderly companion to further jostling after dark.” Mrs. Irvine sniffed at being called elderly, but she sniffed in Lord Marndale’s direction. “I sent a note off to you at once. I have been waiting to hear from you for hours.”
“I wasn’t at the inn. As soon as I discovered Victoria was missing, I raised the alarm and went out looking for her.”
“Then it is strange you did not find her, as you knew I was en route to London and apparently had fingered me as the culprit.”
“I discovered you were from Bath. They mentioned it at the inn. I thought London was dust in my eyes.”
I gave an incredulous snort. “Surely dust in the eyes of a blind man is redundant.”
“What was I to think?” he demanded in a loud voice. He lowered a slash of black eyebrows into a scowl, to try to intimidate me. “You had been trying to lure her away. Are you abbesses so short of girls you have taken to scouring the countryside for innocent maidens?”
I was not aware at the time of the slanderous meaning of the term “abbess,” but Mrs. Irvine, of course, was privy to it and called him to account. “Now see here, you jackdaw, who are you calling brothel keepers?” she demanded. “I’ll have you know Jennie is a school mistress, and I am a decent widow. It’s a rake like yourself who knows all about abbesses.”
“Then why were you trying to lure Victoria away at the inn?”
“That was a misunderstanding,” I rushed in. “Your daughter will tell you....”
The minx let her lower lip tremble. “It was partly my fault, Papa,” she said. “They didn’t beat me.” I could only stare at her lukewarm commendation.
“Did you conceal yourself in Miss Robsjohn’s carriage, Victoria?” he asked her.
I assumed he had got my name from the inn, as well as my city of origin. “Yes, Papa,” she said, gazing at him with those big eyes where tears were gathering adorably.
Lord Marndale took himself by the scruff of the neck and braced himself to do something he obviously found extremely difficult. He apologized. “I must beg your pardon, Miss Robsjohn. It seems I have wronged you. In my anxiety I went ripping off without thinking what I was about. I am wretchedly sorry.”
I wanted only to have done with the whole unseemly business. “Next time you will know where to lay the blame,” I said, with an icy glance at his wayward daughter. “And perhaps you will even recognize a lady the next time you meet one.”
“Victoria, you will apologize to Miss Robsjohn,” he ordered.
“Sorry, ma’am,” she said with a playful curtsy.
“You are forgiven. No harm done. You had best get dressed, Lady Victoria. Your father will take care of you now.”
“What she wants is a good thrashing,” Mrs. Irvine advised. “Keelhauling is too good for her.”
Lord Marndale ignored her and turned to me. “Naturally I wish to reimburse you for any undue expense you have incurred,” he said.
The price of a plate of uneaten macaroons and two cream buns hardly seemed worth bothering with. “It was nothing.”
“But she shared your room.”
“The cost of a truckle bed is negligible,” I assure you. Perhaps you will wait outside while your daughter changes. I promise you we will not sneak her out the window.” I didn’t mean to let her away in my best lawn nightie. He left, and Lady Victoria gave me a sheepish smile. “I am sorry, Miss Robsjohn,” she said.
“Mrs. Irvine has also been inconvenienced by your stunt,” I said coldly. She apologized to Mrs. Irvine as well.
“Oh, that’s all right. It was quite exciting, having men bursting into our room. Quite like old times,” my irrepressible companion smiled.
“Mrs. Irvine was in the navy,” I heard myself say. It didn’t seem worthwhile to explain further. I glared Mrs. Irvine into silence and helped Lady Victoria dress. Inside of ten minutes she was presentable. I opened the door and found Lord Marndale leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed. He had combed his hair and made some attempt to remove the dirt from his jacket. He came forward, full of more apologies.
“This is very kind of you. I am indeed sorry for all the bother my daughter has caused. I’ll speak to you later, Victoria,” he added, with a cross glance at her. She looked fairly bored at his threat.
“The sooner the better,” I told him.
“Daughters this age are the very devil, especially when they have no mother.”
I ignored that blatant bid for sympathy. “All the more reason for their fathers to keep their wits about them,
n’est-ce pas?”
“A hit. A palpable hit!” He smiled and crossed his arms, as if planning to linger a while.
I noticed that his eyes were roving with interest over my tousled hair and dressing gown. It was an unnerving experience, especially after his talk of abbesses. This man was no stranger to lightskirts, to judge by the assessing light in his eyes.
I yanked my dressing gown more tightly around me and said coolly
,
“It is nearly morning.”
Lord Marndale apologized once again and said good night. I closed the door and drew a deep sigh. “Well, that is that. Fancy that bold chit saying we had not beaten her, as though we had done every other horrible thing imaginable. And her father is as bad.”
“Worse!”
“You didn’t have to make such a Judy of yourself, calling him a rake.”
“He oughtn’t to have called
me
an abbess.”
“Well, he is a marquess, you know, and they feel the world is theirs. You probably hurt his feelings.”
“You couldn’t hurt his feelings with a hatchet. I know his sort.”
My working mentality still clung to me. This awe of the upper classes had to be beaten down before I got to London. “He was checking up on me, Mrs. Irvine,” I scolded. “Asking where I was from.”
“That’s the only sensible move he did make. If you had any children of your own, you’d know how upset he was.”
“You don’t have any children. What makes you an expert?”
“We
elderly
ladies have seen much of the world,” she replied, with a rebuking look at my former description.
“I only said it to justify not taking her back to the inn. Not that I feel I did wrong in writing to him instead! I expect we will be the talk of this inn by morning. So pleasant to look forward to.”
We talked a little longer about the incident. “We’ve kicked this horse to death. Let us hit the tick,” Mrs. Irvine said.
We returned to our beds and eventually to sleep. As I dozed off it darted into my head that if by any chance we happened to come across Lord Marndale in London there would be no cause for embarrassment on my side. The shoe was on the other foot now. If he was a gentleman, he ought really to repay my kindness to his daughter in some manner. A trip to the theater, perhaps, or a drive in the park. But then it was unlikely we would meet him. Where was such high society to be found, I wondered.
As events turned out, we encountered the marquess and his daughter long before we got to London. But first I had the remainder of a night’s sleep.
Chapter Four