A Kiss in the Dark (17 page)

“She is bound to find out sooner or later,” Cressida said. “We might as well tell her.”

Before lunch, Cressida had Miss Wantage and Beau called to the saloon to meet Lady Harold. Beau was favorably impressed by her beauty and averred that Lord Harold must have rocks in his head, by Jove. Miss Wantage was so thrilled at this scandalous story that she could hardly decide what tack to take. It was an excellent opportunity for lectures and condemnation of drunkenness and the morals of the younger generation. On the other hand, Lady Harold would be a countess when Lord Harold came into his honors, and it was well to have another house to visit.

“Poor child,” she said, taking Antonia to her bosom. “What a wretched time you have had, and no one to turn to. If only I had known! Fancy them keeping you locked in the attic like a dog. Why, if the house had happened to catch fire, you would have been baked alive up there. Lord Harold wants a sound thrashing. If I were a man, I would give him one. Poor girl.”

It was enough to send Antonia off into fresh bouts of self-pity. Other details of her ordeal came out. She had had to walk the five miles from Beachy Head in the dark, and someone—probably a dangerous murderer, or perhaps it was only a dog—had stalked her the whole way. She had blisters on both heels and had nearly died of starvation, for she hadn’t enough money to buy food.

“We must get this child to bed at once and call the doctor, Cressida,” Miss Wantage decreed. “What were you thinking of, not to have those wounds on her poor feet attended to? If they became infected, she might be crippled for life.”

“They are very sore!” Antonia said, although she had not mentioned them before, or displayed any propensity to limp.

Miss Wantage herded her upstairs and put her to bed. She had their meals served on a tray, thus allowing Beau and Cressida a peaceful luncheon.

“The chit sounds a perfect ninnyhammer,” Beau decided. “Naturally, Lord Harold was nervous as a tick on his wedding night. I daresay I should be the same. She is spoiled rotten, if you want my opinion. A pretty little thing, though.”

“She has no experience, Beau. We should not be too hard on her.”

“I would not be too hard on Lord Harold. Only look what she has put him through, all his masquerades—and where has he been laying his head while she is in your attic as snug as a bug in a rug? Probably curled up in some tree trunk or cave, like a dashed bear.”

The afternoon dragged by slowly, as time does when one is waiting for something. Miss Wantage and Lady Harold never stirred from the bedroom. When Cressida went upstairs, she found them both sound asleep; Antonia in the bed and Miss Wantage in the chair, with her mouth hanging open and mild snorts issuing from it. It seemed best to leave them thus. At dinnertime there was still no reply from Mr. Brewster.

Cressida and Beau were just leaving the dinner table when there was a knock on the door, and Muffet came to announce Mr. Brewster.

“Good evening, milady,” Brewster said with a bow he had practiced ten times in front of the mirror before leaving home. It was a very model of elegance, and he was extremely annoyed that Beau should destroy it by choosing that moment to walk into the saloon and capsize him in mid-bow.

“Sorry,” Beau said, setting Mr. Brewster back on an even keel.

The incident upset Brewster to such a degree that he forgot the apology he had memorized and said with a scowl, “Sorry I am so late in coming. What must Mama do but take into her head she wanted to visit Mrs. Peabody, who lives halfway to Brighton, and, of course, I got stuck to accompany her. If your note is about Melbury, he is back right enough, but he only landed in last night around ten and has not left my place since. He admits he had a word with Tory at your kitchen door before coming to me, but she would not let him in.”

This explained Tory’s positive assertion that Melbury was in the neighborhood, but that was not why Lady deCourcy had summoned Brewster. She opened her budget to him.

Brewster listened, then spoke. “So this is where she has run to ground. Harold will be vastly relieved to hear it. He has run me ragged these two days looking for her. The fact is, he called on me for assistance the evening of the day we met in Beachy Head, ma’am. Looked like a turf cutter, with a couple of days’ growth of beard and his jacket as black as—well, he had been sleeping in a barn. And it was a very good jacket, too. Stutz.”

“Then he is with you!” Cressida exclaimed.

“Devil a bit of it. There was no way of hiding him and getting him cleaned up without the nosy-Parker servants discovering it. What we did, we eased open a window and slid him into Melbury’s place, as Melbury was away at Bath. That is why Melbury is staying with me now. I did not want him to learn Harold is at Cove House, or he would cause some sort of mischief. Harold has been lying low during the day and prowling about at night looking for his good woman.” He turned to Beau, adding, “He is sorry about that knock on the skull, Montgomery. Hope it hasn’t shaken a brain loose.”

“It was loose already. You have only to ask Sid.”

“Sid who?”

“Lady deCourcy’s name is Cressida. Sid, for short.”

“Ah. Charming,” he said with a frown that denoted disapproval of the name. “Er, about Sissie—”

“Sissie who?” Beau asked.

“Harold’s wife, Tony. Antonia. I don’t see why all the ladies are using men’s names this year. Dashed confusing. Will Tony see him? I have a note here from him making his apologies for the monumental disaster of the treacle moon. I wish she will see him, for I am running out of excuses to keep Melbury from going home. Besides, Harold is trying to dump the whole fiasco in my dish, if you please. I told him, one tot of brandy to relax. What must the gudgeon do but gargle down a cupful. Nervous as a martyr at the stake, of course, staving off the moment. Can hardly blame him. Feels a dashed fool, and so he is. Anyhow, he is a reformed character, so if you would give Sissie this billet doux—” He handed Cressida a grimy note, folded in four.

“Leave it to Melbury not to have any decent stationery,” he said. “Harold scribbled this on the back of a bill or some such thing. Let us hope Sissie has the sense to have him back, for she will never hear the end of it from all the old cats in the neighborhood if she don’t.”

“I shall give her the note myself,” Cressida said, and ran off to deliver it.

In the rose guest chamber, Miss Wantage guarded the young bride. Sandy lolled at her feet. He batted his tail on the floor to welcome Cressida. Miss Wantage lifted a finger to her lips. “Shhh! I have just got her to sleep.”

Cressida held up the letter and said in a whisper, “Good news. This note is from her husband. He wants to come and make it up with her.”

“The villain!” Miss Wantage charged. “We must not let her go. You will not credit what the beast put her through, Cressida. Drunkenness, common brawling in a public room, arrest—all this on his wedding night, if you please, while his innocent bride waited, trembling, for his return. She is well rid of him.”

“I hope you have not been speaking to Antonia in this vein, giving her a disgust of her husband,” Cressida said.

“I? How should I know what had happened? It is Lady Harold who told me. I merely agreed with her that she had married a scoundrel and must be rid of him at all costs.”

“Lord Harold is not a scoundrel. He is a frightened boy who had a glass of false courage before going to his bride and fell into an argument.”

“That will be for Lady Harold to decide,” Miss Wantage declared. Sandy, as if sensing some argument, emitted one yelp and was silenced by Miss Wantage.

“So it will,” Cressida said, and shook the lady’s shoulder, despite Miss Wantage’s dire warning that the consequences would be on her head.

Antonia’s eyelids fluttered open, and she sat up. “Oh, Lady deCourcy. Is it morning already?”

“No, it is still evening. I have news for you—a letter from Lord Harold,” she said, preferring the grimed paper. “He has been looking high and low for you.”

Antonia snatched eagerly for the letter and opened it. Her face first turned bone white, then, as she read, a rosy flush suffused her cheeks and her eyes misted up,

Miss Wantage patted her shoulder consolingly. “There, there, my dear. You do not have to see him. We shall give you safe harbor here.”

“Of course she will see him,” Cressida said. “He is her husband.”

“In name only,” Miss Wantage pointed out with a satisfied smile. “He had not had his way with her yet. It is not too late to undo the damage. She can have the marriage annulled.”

Antonia was already scrambling out of bed, with Sandy leaping at her in an ill-bred manner. “You are very kind, Miss Wantage, but I think I ought to see Harold, for he is so very sorry and miserable without me.”

“They can all string a good line when they have to,” Miss Wantage warned. “Remember his drunkenness and brawling—and that on the honeymoon, when he was on his best behavior. One trembles to think how he will behave later.”

Antonia looked unhappy. “Harold does not usually drink too much, and is really very well behaved as a rule. He was just nervous, you see.”

“Is that what you will have to put up with every time your lord and master chooses to be nervous?”

Cressida managed to hold on to her temper, but she saw she must be rid of Miss Wantage. “Miss Wantage,” she said, “will you just check with Muffet and see that he has locked all the doors? We do not want a repeat of last night’s trouble, and it is coming on dark.”

Miss Wantage was always ready to put her own comfort and safety in front of anyone else’s and was gotten rid of in this manner.

Antonia turned a pale face to her rescuer. “Do you think she is right, Lady deCourcy? She is so much older and wiser. I know she has only my welfare at heart. She has been very kind to me—-but I do love Harold.”

“Miss Wantage is indeed older, but she has never been in love, Antonia. If you want to end up like her—”

“Oh, no! I shall answer Harold’s note telling him I understand. I think I did understand before, really, but was just miffed that he ruined our honeymoon. He says we will start all over.”

“I shall give Brewster your note to deliver, and Harold can write back with the details of when he can come for you.”

“Yes, that will be fine. And you will see that Sandy gets back to the castle until I return?”

“Of course.”

Cressida kept a sharp eye on the door to see that Miss Wantage did not come bustling back to undo her work. Antonia scribbled off a note with many x’s on the bottom, folded it, and gave it to Cressida for delivery.

“I shall get dressed again to be ready for him,” she said. “If you could just send your woman to assist me, Lady deCourcy.”

“I shall send Jennet.”

“That will be fine. I do like Jennet. She is very good with coiffures.”

Cressida took the note to Mr. Brewster.

“I know Harold is dead eager to get on with it,” he said. “To save coming back, I believe I can take a guess when he will be here. Twenty minutes for me to get to Melbury’s place, an hour for Harold to get himself cleaned up and get the rig harnessed, a half an hour to return, and there you are. Say two hours in round figures, for you may be sure some little thing will go wrong to hold him up.”

“He won’t want to drive his carriage about the neighborhood, will he?” Beau asked. “In case someone recognizes it, I mean.”

“No one will get a good look at it at night,” Brewster replied. “I shall tell him to leave it at the main road, for the servants from the castle would recognize it, and it makes a great thundering racket on that pebbled drive. Harold will come on foot up the drive. Can you have Sissie ready in two hours, Lady deCourcy?”

Lady deCourcy would have agreed to have her ready in two minutes. She wanted the girl out of the house before Miss Wantage could get at her again. She agreed. Brewster made another of his exquisite bows, uninterrupted this time, and left.

“We can no longer complain of long, boring evenings,” Beau said, smiling. “It is like an elopement, with the romance and the secrecy and all. By Jove, I think I shall elope—if I can ever find any lady foolish enough to have me.”

“It will be tricky getting Antonia smuggled out when we have three of Dauntry’s footmen guarding the doors,” was Cressida’s reply. “I shall suggest that she leave before they get here. She can wait for Harold on the main road. Of course, she cannot go alone. We should accompany her. Actually, I am curious to meet Lord Harold.”

“Sounds a bit of a nig-nog to me.”

Miss Wantage soon joined them. “Muffet has all doors secured,” she announced, and soon turned the conversation to the more interesting topic.

“It is strange Lord Harold did not come in person to deliver that grimy old letter,” she averred. “It was so filthy, I hated to see her touch it. I daresay he is foxed. I don’t know how Lady Dauntry could have handed that innocent child over to such a villain. And where is Lady Harold’s chaperon during all this melee?”

“She would hardly take a chaperon on a wedding trip,” Beau said.

“Her dresser, then. Lady Dauntry ought not to have sent the child all the way to the Lake District without any female companion.”

“That is the way I should like to travel on my honeymoon,” Cressida said.

“But you are hardly a young girl, my dear. Certainly a lady of your age need not fear being meddled with by men—though you really ought to have had Crump put a lock on your door while he was here, for there is no saying where a ravening lunatic will strike. Well now, what shall we do this evening? Would you like a game of Pope Joan? Not for money, of course. I don’t approve of playing cards for money, but just for the sport of the game.”

“Where is the sport if you cannot pocket a few sous?” Beau said, and picked up a journal.

Miss Wantage delivered a few homilies on the vice of gambling. Before she had finished, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. E’er long, Muffet showed Lord Dauntry in.

Cressida looked at him with vexation in every line of her body. As if a footman at every door were not enough! How the devil was she to get Antonia smuggled out with Dauntry sitting in her saloon?