The Danbury Scandals (16 page)

He looked
genuinely puzzled. ‘Impossible? Maryanne, my dear, nothing is impossible, given
the will and the money to do it. You are not worried about what it will all
cost, are you? When all’s said and done, I won that race, and Father, as the
heir, will have to pay old Henry’s debts, even if it does stretch him a bit.
Father will fork out for the wedding too, being your guardian. Besides, you
will have your inheritance in a couple of months.’

She stopped to
stare at him, looking for any sign of the Mark who had been so kind to her when
she first joined the family, the Mark who seemed to be so careful of her
reputation, the Mark who had professed to have ‘feelings’; but his grey eyes
looked back at her and failed to stir anything inside her at all. She turned
and ran back to the house, intending to go to her room, but at the head of the
stairs she changed her mind and went along the corridor to the Dowager
Duchess’s room. She knocked and was admitted by a nurse.

‘Grandmother,
may I come and talk to you?’

‘Of course, my
child; got you down, have they? All that humbug, pretending to mourn,
pretending respect, when there isn’t one of them wouldn’t have put a knife in
Henry’s back when he was alive if they’d had the courage, concocting virtues
for him and forgetting the vices which made them hate him, glossing over the
fact that half the ladies swathed in black down there are mothers to his
bastard children. Hypocrites, the lot of ‘em.’ She indicated a chair by the
bed.

Maryanne was
shocked. ‘You can’t mean that, Your Grace.’

‘Oh, I do.
They’re all alike.’ She paused to get her breath after the longest speech Maryanne
had ever heard her make. ‘Except James. Didn’t fall in the usual Danbury mould
for some reason.’

‘How was he
different?’

She laughed.
‘Stubborn. Independent. Couldn’t make him conform. Goodness knows what he’ll be
like now he has the reins in his hand, but I hope he is astute enough to pull
the irons out of the fire.’ She sighed. ‘Thank God I’m too old to worry about
it any longer. There is an heir, he has done his duty by the family in that
respect.’

‘Mark.’

‘Yes, and I
suppose that is the reason for this unexpected visit. You don’t humbug me,
child. What is troubling you?’

‘I don’t think
I can marry him. I don’t love him.’

‘What on earth
has love to do with it?’

‘Everything,’
Maryanne said miserably.

‘You are as
foolish as your mother. You like Mark, don’t you? You have no particular
aversion to him?’

‘Of course I
like him,’ she said slowly. ‘He has been kind to me, but. . .’

‘Kind! Don’t
you know, child, the Danburys are never kind? They are selfish and arrogant and
insular, and Mark is no exception, but that doesn’t mean he won’t make a good
husband, provided you keep him on a tight rein.’

‘But I don’t
want to be like that. I want a man I can look up to, not one I must continually
try to master.’ Why did she keep thinking of a pair of laughing brown eyes? No
woman would ever master the owner of those.

‘Bit late to
say so now, don’t you think? You accepted Mark and the announcement’s been
made. If you back out now you’ll cause a scandal, and this family has had enough
of those to last for generations.’

‘If you mean my
mother...’

‘Not only
Helena; James too, though he had the sense to see the error of his ways and
come home.’

Maryanne
gasped, suddenly remembering Caroline’s accusation that she was one of James’s
by-blows. ‘You mean they ran away together?’

‘No, foolish
child. James was back before Helena left, though it might have been better if
he hadn’t been, then there’d have been no one to help her make a fool of
herself.’ She paused, peering into Maryanne’s face in a short-sighted way. ‘I
can’t make you marry Mark, but I advise you to think very carefully before you
set the cat among the pigeons. Your inheritance, like your mother’s before you,
is conditional on your making a marriage approved of by your guardian.’

‘In other
words, the inheritance is not meant for me, but my husband?’ Maryanne asked.

‘Yes, but
there’s nothing out of the ordinary in that. And it would be best kept in the
family.’

‘It can’t be
that much, surely?’

‘I have no idea
how much it is, except that it has been wisely invested ever since your mother
left home and it has grown into a sizeable sum. It is the only bit of the
family fortunes Henry couldn’t get his hands on and squander.’

‘My mother gave
it up for love. I could give it up for lack of love.’

‘And do you
think she was happy?’ The old lady snorted her derision. ‘Living in that hovel
in the slums of Portsmouth with that terrible old man. The husband she had
sacrificed everything for was never at home and there was barely enough money
to feed you both. Do you think she was content? I tell you now, she was
miserable.’

Maryanne sat
and stared at the old lady as if she were a witch who had put a spell on her;
she felt numb. Her mother had loved her father, she had never doubted that,
but, when she sat staring into the fire or out across the grey sea, had she
been regretting leaving a comfortable home?

‘That’s made
you think, ain’t it, girl?’ And when Maryanne declined to answer she added,
‘What’s the matter? In the dismals because I failed to say the comforting words
you wanted to hear? You get only home truths in this room, as anyone who knows
me will tell you. Now go and find Mark and tell him I want to see him.’

‘Will you tell
him I can’t marry him?’ Maryanne pleaded.

‘Certainly not.
And you won’t tell him either, do you hear?’ The old lady’s voice softened
suddenly. ‘Believe me, child, I know what I am talking about. Give yourself
time to think about it. There is no hurry with the family in mourning.’

Maryanne stood
up, dropped a curtsy and left her to look for Mark. The mourners had left, the
house guests had gone to their rooms to change for dinner and the servants were
clearing away the glasses and crumb-laden plates in the empty drawing-room. She
was about to return to her own room when she heard Mark’s voice coming from the
library. ‘I want to enclose the Downend pasture.’

‘You will do
nothing of the sort,’ she heard James answer him. ‘It is the villagers’ common
land.’

‘Father, it is
no longer considered sensible to have vast tracts of land which are almost
unmanageable. The latest thinking is to enclose. You can ask higher rents that
way.’

‘I refuse to
discuss it, Mark. I have always been looked on as a fair landlord, not a greedy
one.’

‘Are you saying
I am greedy, Father? How can I take over the estate if I am not allowed to make
decisions?’

‘You may decide
anything to do with the running of the estate, not the disposing of it. You
will rouse the fury of the villagers if you take away their grazing.’ He looked
up as Maryanne came into the room.

‘Maryanne, my
dear, were you looking for us?’ He sounded relieved by her interruption.

‘Grandmother
would like to speak to Mark. I came to fetch him.’

Mark drove them
to Beckford in his curricle next day. It was an unfortunate choice of vehicle because
it reminded Maryanne so forcefully of that tragic race. She found herself
musing on the fact that the compensations of being the Marquis of Beckford had
overcome his sorrow remarkably well, and then scolded herself for her
uncharitable thought.

Once at
Beckford, he had a horse saddled and set off to tour the estate, leaving
Maryanne to amuse herself. She wandered about the lower rooms and then went
upstairs and gazed out of the long window at the end of the corridor across the
neatly tended gardens to the park and beyond that to the fields. The villagers
were cutting hay, taking advantage of the warm dry weather. There were children
working with them and she smiled to herself; attendance at the rectory school
would be poor until the work was done and then it would be good until the
harvest, when the children would be needed again. She sighed and turned away.
As Lady Beckford, she would have money and influence to help the inhabitants of
Beckford. She could also do something for all those helpless children orphaned
by the war. Mark had asked her to marry him, Adam had not; he had simply
suggested going away with him and that was not the action of a gentleman, so
why was it so difficult to make what seemed, on the surface, to be an easy
decision? Trying to think calmly and objectively only produced a mental image
of someone with laughing brown eyes and gentle hands, and made matters worse.

She was very
quiet on the return journey, answering Mark’s enthusiastic chatter about the
changes he meant to make with little more than monosyllables, until, in the
end, he demanded to know what was wrong.

‘Nothing.’

‘It doesn’t
seem like nothing to me. Her Grace said you were nervous, said I was to be
especially careful of you.’ He held the reins in one hand so that he could put
his free hand over hers. ‘There’s nothing to be nervous of. You will make a
capital Marchioness.

‘Mark, why are
you upsetting the villagers?’

‘Who said I
was?’

‘I heard what
you said to your father.’

‘That was simply
a discussion about what is best for everyone. You need not concern yourself
with it. Your province will be the house and running it efficiently. Surely
that is enough?’

She tried
arguing with him but that only made him angry, and in the end she gave up and
they travelled the rest of the way home in uncomfortable silence.

It was dusk
when they arrived, and there was a hired chaise standing at the door. Assuming
it had brought more callers offering condolences, they went straight to the
drawing-room, but Caroline was there alone, picking at a piece of embroidery.

‘Mark, thank
goodness you are back,’ she said, jumping up and scattering canvas and wools on
the floor. ‘That Frenchman is with Papa. They have been closeted in the library
for hours.’

Maryanne gasped,
making Mark look sharply at her, but she managed to bite off the exclamation
she was about to utter.

‘I thought Papa
meant to have him arrested,’ Caroline went on. ‘But he told me, as calm as you
please, that he had seen him in church and asked him to call. Something’s going
on and I don’t like it.’

‘Neither do I,’
he said grimly. ‘If he thinks he can humbug Father, he will find he has to deal
with me.’ He strode out of the room and across the hall to the library. Light
flooded out for a moment and then was cut off as the door was slammed shut.
There was a smirk of satisfaction on Caroline’s face which made Maryanne want
to slap her.

‘Now the man
will hang for sure,’ Caroline said, sitting down and gathering up her
embroidery.

Maryanne was
too restless to sit; she went and stood by the window with her back to her
tormentor. It was dark now, but there was a moon which threw long shadows
across the garden and made a silhouette of the waiting chaise. Adam obviously
intended to leave for France as soon as his interview with James was over. If
only... She turned to Caroline. ‘I am tired; I think I’ll go to bed.’

‘Don’t you want
to hear what happened? Aren’t you curious?’

‘No,’ she lied.
‘It is no concern of mine.’

In the privacy
of her room, she sat in the window seat and continued her contemplation of the
empty chaise; the driver was probably being entertained in the coach-house. She
imagined Adam coming out and getting into it, being carried out of her life
forever, leaving her behind to face a future that, in spite of a title and all
the comforts money could provide, looked bleak indeed. Whether she married
Mark, knowing there was no real love on either side, or remained a spinster,
there was nothing to look forward to. But with Adam... Supposing he was right
and Mark had caused the accident? Supposing Mark was right? Did it make any
difference to how she felt? Did it make her love Mark the more or Adam the
less? Could she let him go out of her life? Could she stop him? No, she
decided, he was his own master; he would follow his destiny. And she must
follow hers.

She stood up
suddenly, went to the wardrobe and began feverishly throwing garments about the
room. She changed out of full mourning into a grey jaconet dress with a high
waistline and narrow tight-fitting sleeves, then she pulled out a travelling
bag and stuffed it with a change of underwear, a wool gown for cooler weather
and the barest minimum of toiletries. She had arrived with next to nothing; she
would leave with nothing. She sat down and scribbled a hurried note to Mark to
tell him she could not marry him and another to James apologising for the
distress her disappearance would cause, though in her mind she substituted
‘scandal’ for ‘distress’, which was all they really cared about.

Then from the
top drawer of her dressing-table she took two guineas - all she had; it had
never occurred to James to provide her with money - put them into her reticule
and, throwing a cloak over her shoulders, crept out on to the landing. A single
lamp burning in the hall and a sliver of light beneath the library door told
her that the men were still talking. She made her way slowly down the stairs
and out of the front door. With a quick glance about to make sure she was not
being watched, she darted across to the carriage and clambered into it.