The Danbury Scandals (11 page)

‘No, of course
not, but...’

‘Then it is
settled. We are engaged?’

She felt
trapped, like a wild bird caught to be caged and made to sing its master’s
tune. Was he right about the scandal? Even if she cared little about the gossip
on her own account, was it fair that the rest of the family should suffer for
something she had done? If she was in a trap, it was her own fault. And was the
prospect of being married to Mark so distasteful? He seemed gentle, kind and
attentive, and he professed to care for her, so why was she hesitating? Could
it be because of a man who had thought nothing of her honour and reputation, a
nobody who considered only his own pleasure? She should not even be thinking of
him.

‘And that is
the best you can do in the way of a proposal?’ She smiled up at him, teasing
again, simply to lighten the atmosphere, to release the bands of tension which
seemed to be strapped around her chest, preventing her from breathing. ‘I am
disappointed in you.’

He laughed with
relief and caught her in his arms to kiss her. She did not resist, but neither
did she respond with any enthusiasm, though he did not appear to notice that.
‘Oh, my darling, we will do very well together.’ He tucked her hand beneath his
arm and grinned like a schoolboy. ‘Shall we go to Westminster? The Duke of
Wellington is due to arrive there soon and the world will be there to greet
him.’

‘Yes, I should
like that, but Mrs Ryfield is using the barouche.’

‘We don’t need
that. My cattle need an airing; I’ll drive you in my curricle.’

‘Without a
chaperon? After all you have been saying?’

‘We are cousins
and as good as engaged; it wants only the announcement in The Times. Besides,
we are unlikely to meet anyone who matters.’

The trap had
closed; there was nothing more to be done. She smiled wryly to herself; so much
for all her determination to marry only for love. But perhaps love would come;
she was very fond of him and there was nothing about him to dislike. If only
she could forget a pair of laughing brown eyes and a mouth which had claimed
hers with such devastating effect. But she must forget.

She went up to
her room to change and then joined Mark at the front of the house where two
magnificent horses stood harnessed to his curricle. She smiled as he helped her
up and climbed in beside her; she would learn to love him.

At first she
was nervous that he might try and drive too fast for the prevailing conditions,
but he was most careful and she began to relax and enjoy the outing, marvelling
that so many people could be gathered in one place. Before they had come within
half a mile of Westminster, the press was too great even for the curricle. They
left it in an inn yard and walked.

‘Hold on to my
arm.’ He smiled, tucking her hand beneath his elbow. ‘I do not want to lose
you.’

Somehow he
managed to push his way through the throng and they were right at the front
when the Duke’s carriage came in sight, amid resounding cheers which went on
and on and almost deafened her. She felt Mark tug on her arm and turned towards
him. His mouth was moving, but she could not hear what he said. and, shrugging,
gave up trying. She pushed her way forward, craning her neck for a glimpse of
the great man. He was not particularly handsome and she could see why they
called him Old Hooknose, but he had fine eyes and a way of looking about him
which seemed to take in everything at a glance. His smile turned to a frown
when the people brought the coach to a halt and began taking the horses from
the shafts, vying with each other for the honour of pulling it.

The crowd
surged forward, carrying Maryanne along with it. It was not until she turned to
speak to Mark that she realised he was not behind her. She tried to turn and go
back, but the press of the throng would not allow it; she had to let herself be
carried along or be trampled underfoot.

Before long she
lost a shoe but could not stop to retrieve it and then her bonnet came off and
disappeared under the feet of the cheering mass who surrounded her. She was hot
and near to panic, but if she fainted she knew no one would help her and she
would be trampled to death. She hobbled along, no longer interested in the
coach and its occupant, her only thought to keep upright until the crowd
thinned out enough for her to stop and find some other way back to Mark.

The crowd grew
thicker than ever and the roads were lined with even more spectators, cheering
wildly; she could not even drop out to the side. Her shoeless foot was hurting
her and she could hardly breathe. ‘I must not swoon,’ she told herself. ‘I must
not.’

‘You all right,
miss?’ said a voice at her elbow.

She screwed her
head round towards the speaker. He was dirty and scruffy but he seemed
concerned for her. ‘I... I...’ She felt herself sliding down into a jumble of
bodies and legs, heard the man beside her shout, and then nothing as darkness
claimed her.

Adam, on the
back of his great bay, surveyed the mass of bodies, looking for the glint of
steel or the dark barrel of a pistol, for a stirring in the mass or someone
creating a space about him, a movement which went against the tide. Others, in
the body of the crowd, pretending to be part of it, were doing the same thing
and he scanned the heads looking for their signal. He heard the shout and
spurred his horse forward, but it was not the trouble he had been expecting.
Maryanne’s inert form, without bonnet or shoes and with hair tumbling about her
shoulders, was being hoisted above the heads of the crowd and passed from hand
to hand.

‘Give her to
me.’ He urged the bay into the throng and reached down to take their burden
from them. He propped her up in front of him, holding her inert body steady
with one hand while he held the reins in the other. ‘Keep alert,’ he said to
one of the men, a disreputable-looking individual who seemed to have forgotten
that a moment before he had been hobbling along with the aid of a stick. ‘I
will rejoin you in a minute.’

Maryanne, in
that grey dawn between sleeping and waking, thought she must be dreaming; she
could have sworn the voice was Adam’s. Her eyelids fluttered. ‘I fainted.’

‘Yes. Sit
still.’ It was Adam.

Her head lolled
until it found something firm to lean against. It was comfortable there and
though her feet were burning the pain in them had eased. In fact, nothing hurt
her now and all she wanted to do was sleep in his arms. It was a ludicrous
situation and she began to giggle weakly.

‘I am glad you
are in such good humour,’ he said, attempting to be stern. ‘You know you could
have been killed?’

She stopped as
suddenly as she had begun; considering all that had gone before, it really
wasn’t very funny after all. ‘I know, and I was very frightened, and I’m truly
grateful you came along to rescue me.’

‘What were you
doing in that crowd?’

‘We went to see
the Duke arrive.’

‘We?’

‘Mark and I. We
were separated. He will be very worried about me.’ She tried to turn towards
him, and his grip tightened.

‘Sit still.’

‘But I must go
back to him.’

‘You’ll not
find him until the crowd has dispersed.
Mon Dieu
, the man is an
imbecile. What possessed him to take you into that crowd on foot?’.

‘It wasn’t his
fault. I went forward and didn’t realise he hadn’t followed me. We left the
curricle in an inn yard.’

‘Which inn?’

‘I don’t know
its name, though if I saw it again I might recognise it.’

They arrived
outside a tall narrow house in a new terrace facing the river. A tall,
broad-shouldered man about Adam’s own age came out of the front door and down
the steps. Adam handed her down to him. ‘The young lady has been in a scrape
with the crowd,’ he said, by way of explanation.

The man, who
was actually a little older than Adam and fair-haired, took her weight easily
while Adam dismounted. She struggled to be let down and he chuckled. ‘This is
an unexpected pleasure but, I pray you, do not wriggle so, or I shall drop
you.’

‘I’ll take her
now.’ Adam held out his arms for her. ‘I’d appreciate it if we might have the
use of a room. And perhaps a little brandy.’

‘Of course.’

‘This, by the
way, is Miss Maryanne Paynter. And once again she has intruded into my
affairs.’ His smile belied the unkindness of his words.

‘I assure you,
sir, that I had no wish to do so,’ she said, but it was impossible to be
dignified when she felt like nothing so much as a rag doll. ‘And you may put me
down, I am perfectly able to stand.’

‘I think not.
Your stockings are torn to ribbons and your feet are bleeding.’

He carried her
up the steps and into the house and to her shame she ceased to struggle. She
heard a voice behind them say, ‘Take her up to the blue room. I’ll ask Jeannie
to bring some hot water. Miss Paynter will need to wash and change her
clothes.’

‘Where am I?’
she demanded. ‘I must go back to Mark...’

‘He can wait,’
Adam said grimly. ‘And this is the home of my good friend Robert Rudge.’ He
carried her effortlessly up the stairs and into a well-furnished bedroom, where
he put her on a sofa and sat down beside her.

She became
suddenly aware of the pickle she was in. Alone in a bedroom with a man! If she
had been in trouble before, it was nothing to the disgrace she would be in if
this got out; the gossips would have even more to keep their tongues wagging.
It would condemn her to social purgatory forever.

Before she
could do anything to remedy the situation, there was a knock at the door and
Mark went to open it to a servant who held a bottle of brandy and a glass. Adam
took them from him and returned to Maryanne. He poured a generous measure of
the spirit into the glass. ‘Here, drink this.’

She sipped it
and pulled a wry face.

‘All of it. It
is good French cognac.’ He smiled; did she know what the sight of her like that
did to his insides? She looked like one of the hundreds of little urchins who
ran about the streets of Paris, barefoot and in rags, scurrying about that
beautiful city made ugly by the atrocities committed there, and making a living
in any way they could. They had been alone in the world, except for the
companionship of each other and that had ceased when richer pickings were
offered. They had no scruples; it was everyone for himself. It was where he had
learned to keep his wits about him, where he had discovered you could trust no
one, where he had been turned from a well brought-up twelve year-old to a
cynical, unloved and unloving adult, and all in the space of four years. By the
time he was sixteen he was a full-grown man.

Not that
Maryanne was cynical and unloving - he did not believe that - but she was
alone. And she needed her wits about her to survive, because none of the
Danbury family cared a jot for her. Could he, in all conscience, leave her to
their tender mercies? But he had to, not only now when he should be out with
the crowd, doing his duty, but later when he had to keep his promise to the
Count. If only he could be in two places at once!

‘That’s
better,’ he said, as she drained the glass. ‘Would you like something to eat?’

‘No, thank
you.’ She paused to look up at him. ‘I am sorry to be so much trouble to you.’

‘It is my
pleasure and privilege to serve you.’ Better speak formally because he wanted
to kiss her again and that ought to be resisted. ‘I have to leave you, but I
want you to stay here until I come back.’

‘But I can’t! I
must find Mark; he will be out of his mind with worry.’

He gave a wry
smile. ‘It will do him no harm, might even teach him to take more care of you
in future.’

‘You are being
unfair! I said it was not his fault, it was mine. He would never knowingly lead
me into danger; he loves me.’

‘Does he, now?’
The sardonic smile lifted the scar on his eye. ‘And what about you? Do you love
him?’

‘I... I don’t
know.’

He chuckled.
‘Then you do not, for if you did you would surely know it.’

‘You think so?’
She sounded eager and wistful at the same time and he longed to throw caution
to the winds and take her in his arms, to tell her that he would teach her
about love. But he couldn’t; he had no time and no right to; and what did he
know about the subject anyway? He was saved from making a fool of himself by a
light tap at the door, and a girl, slightly older than Maryanne, bustled in
carrying a bowl of warm water and towels.

‘We shall soon
have the young lady looking herself again, Captain.’

‘Good.’ He
turned to Maryanne. ‘
Madame
Clavier will look after you.’ He smiled and
stood up to leave. ‘I know how anxious you are to rejoin your escort, but I
must counsel patience until I return. Now I have to deal with more pressing
matters.’

Anxious to
leave him and return to Mark? If he only knew the truth! ‘How long will you
be?’ she asked.

‘Rest assured,
no longer than I can help. Stay here until I come back, then I will make
arrangements to have you taken home.’ He went to the door, but turned back as
he reached it, opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind, turned
on his heel and left.