To Dream of Love (2 page)

She pushed open the door of the drawing room. A brooding, morose, Byronic-looking young man was lounging in an armchair. Apart from a colored Belcher neckerchief, he was dressed entirely in black. His hair was worn long and was of an indeterminate shade of brown, and his large brown eyes were sullen. Harriet judged him to be only a little older than she. Aunt Harriet had perched her bulk on a small chair facing him.

Crouched in front of the fire and in the process of lighting it was a tall man. Harriet could only see the back of his head and his broad shoulders under a well-tailored blue coat.

“My niece, Miss Harriet Clifton,” said Aunt Rebecca with simple pride. The morose young man jumped to his feet and executed a low bow.

The man who was lighting the fire stood up and turned about. Mocking hazel eyes fastened on Harriet. She blushed painfully. The stranger from the kitchen garden!

“Your servant, Miss Clifton,” he said. He raised an inquiring eyebrow at Aunt Rebecca, who was nodding and smiling in agreement, although no one had said anything to agree with.

A flash of humor lit the hazel eyes. “I see I must make the introductions,” he said. “The tortured gentleman over there with a dark soul is my cousin, Mr. Bertram Hudson. I am Arden.”

“The Marquess of Arden,” prompted Aunt Rebecca, who knew her peerage inside out.

“The same, ma’am. Now, if you will excuse me, I will soon have a comfortable blaze.”

Mr. Hudson slumped back down into his chair. Aunt Rebecca continued to nod and smile like a large clockwork doll, and Harriet stood where she was. nervously pleating a fold in her dress with her work-reddened fingers.

The fire blazed up and then settled down into a depressingly smoky mass.

“The fire does not draw very well,” said Harriet, her voice sounding strangely muffled and odd in her own ears.

“You obviously do not use this room very much,” said the marquess, fastidiously dusting his long white fingers on a cambric handkerchief.

He gazed thoughtfully about the room, from the threadbare brocade curtains to the damp-stained walls, and then at the bare boards of the floor.

“No, my lord,” said Harriet. “I fear we are sadly short of comfortable rooms in which to entertain anyone.” Her eyes pleaded with him not to mention seeing her under the pump. He studied her thoughtfully and then nodded slightly in answer to her unspoken request.

“Then where
do
you warm yourselves?” drawled Mr. Hudson.

“It is of no consequence,” said Harriet, disliking the lounging young man. “I fear we are unable to offer you hospitality, gentleman. So if you will inform me of the reason for your call, I will do my best to be of assistance.”

“But the
tea,’“
said Aunt Rebecca in a stage whisper. “We have
tea.”

“We lost our way to the London road,” said the marquess. “I tried to pull the bell earlier, and when I did not get any reply, I rode around to the back of the house to see if I could see anyone.” He looked steadily at Harriet. “But there was no one in sight. I would have left without trying again, but something happened. I regret to tell you that my cousin, believing the estate to be abandoned, shot two of your hens.”

Harriet bit her lip. She had been about to cry out in fury. She had only six hens, and the killing of two of them was a sore loss. She said aloud, “But I did not hear any shots. Did you, Aunt Rebecca?”

“I was asleep, more like,” said Aunt Rebecca.

“Perhaps
you
were so busy you did not hear, Miss Harriet,” said the marquess, a smile beginning to curl his lips.

Harriet remembered how the water had gushed out of the pump, effectively drowning out any sound, and blushed painfully.

“And so,” went on the marquess, “after I learned of the murder, I returned and tried the door knocker instead, feeling sure the bellpull was broken. Here we are to make amends. We have two hens, dead, I am afraid, and a hamper of delicacies that we beg you to accept to show our true remorse.”

Mr. Hudson sat up. “But that hamper was a pre—”

The marquess’s steely voice cut across his.
“And
you will be paid handsomely for the loss of your birds.”

“There is no need, no need at all to pay anything,” said Harriet. “Mr. Hudson made an understandable mistake.”

“I was only having a bit of sport,” grumbled Mr. Hudson. “Thought the place had been deserted this age.”

“I insist,” said the marquess. “Bertram, go and tell John and Peter to carry in the hamper.”

Bertram Hudson slouched out with a lowering look.

“I think if I had some dry logs, I might yet be able to build a blaze,” said the marquess.

“Certainly,” said Harriet with a quelling look at Aunt Rebecca. “I will tell our butler to arrange the matter.”

Aunt Rebecca emitted faint noises of distress from among her shawls, but Harriet marched firmly from the room.

She had used up the inside stock of logs for the kitchen fire. She threw a shawl over her shoulders, tied on the apron that she had removed before going into the drawing room, and went out of the kitchen door. The pump stood there in the chilly light, a mute reminder of her indecency.

She went around to the old pinking shed, which was filled with dead tree trunks that she had dragged into shelter.

“Why did I not think to chop more logs this morning?” muttered Harriet, seizing the axe.

She was chopping away busily when a calm voice behind her said, “Allow me, Miss Harriet.”

Will I
ever
stop blushing? thought Harriet miserably as the Marquess of Arden’s broad shoulders filled the doorway.

He shrugged himself out of his coat and hung it up on a nail, then took the axe from Harriet’s unresisting fingers.

“I am afraid I had forgotten it was the servants’ day off,” lied Harriet. “Please do not trouble …”

“It is no trouble,” he said, expertly wielding the axe.

Harriet watched with something approaching envy as a neat pile of logs and kindling began to appear before her eyes. She wondered how he kept his hands so white, since he obviously knew how to use an axe, and the thin cambric of his shirt revealed the play of strong muscles in his back.

“There!” He stacked a large basket with logs and kindling and nodded to her to lead the way.

He stopped in the kitchen and looked slowly around. The kettle was singing on the hearth, steam whistling through a hole in its old iron lid. Brightly colored plates, very few of them matching. shone from a Welsh dresser. Aunt Rebecca’s knitting was lying on the kitchen table at one end and a little pile of Harriet’s favorite books was at the other.

“We shall not stay very long, Miss Harriet,” said the marquess. “Perhaps we would all be more comfortable in the kitchen. Your servants do themselves very well.”

But from the glint in his eye, Harriet was well aware that the marquess had not for a moment believed her lie about the servants’ day off.

“I will fetch Aunt,” she said with a little sigh. The marquess was so tall and elegant and carefree that Harriet suddenly envied her sister, Cordelia, from the bottom of her heart. Cordelia belonged to the same world as the marquess, a world of scent and warmth, hot food, well-trained servants, and beautiful clothes.

“Oh, and incidentally, Miss Harriet,” said the marquess. Harriet turned at the door and looked around. “I am notoriously shortsighted and I have quite an appalling memory.”

Harriet looked at him intently, but the hazel eyes were grave and steady. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

When she returned, she was followed by her aunt, Mr. Hudson, and the marquess’s servants, who were bearing a hamper.

“Put it on the table,” said the marquess. “And John, ride to the nearest village and bring back a sweep. Double wages if he comes quickly.” He turned to Aunt Rebecca. “Your drawing-room fire will blaze very merrily once the chimney is unblocked, ma’am.”

“I do not know how to thank you,” said Aunt Rebecca, quite overset. “That a gentleman such as you should see to what straits we …”

“Madam,” said the marquess firmly. “In that hamper are six bottles of the best port. I am going to open and decant one now. We will all feel much warmer after a glass.”

As the marquess decanted the wine. Mr. Hudson, much animated by the warmth and the prospect of a glass of port, began to unpack the rest of the hamper, laying the contents out on the kitchen tables. Harriet gazed in a dazed way at all the luxuries that were appearing out of that seemingly bottomless hamper. There was a Westphalia ham, cakes and biscuits of every description, cold pheasant, and loaves of fresh crusty bread.

“This is rather fun,” announced Mr. Hudson, looking younger and more boyish by the minute. “We shall have a party.”

“That’s the ticket.” The marquess grinned. “Serve the ladies, Bertram.”

The “murdered” hens were hung on a hook in the scullery, and Harriet and Aunt Rebecca settled down to a most enjoyable meal. The party was interrupted at one point by the return of John with the sweep, and Holland covers had to be found to protect the meager furniture in the drawing room.

The marquess talked lightly and easily of the happenings of the day. The newly appointed regent would not enjoy all the power of his father, George III. But he
could
form a government. He had been expected to favor the Whigs and had startled everyone by coming down on the side of the Tories. This brought him many enemies: the Whigs hating him and the Tories still distrusting him. The regent had become deeply religious—although no one expected it to last—and read a chapter or two of the Bible daily with his favorite mistress, Lady Hereford.

Mellowed by food and wine, Mr. Hudson confessed to ambitions to emulate Lord Byron and read them several of his own poems. Aunt Rebecca assured him that he was
much
better than Lord Byron, and Harriet, who thought the poems were rather dreadful, nonetheless added her praise, since she was relieved to see that the moody Mr. Hudson had a cheerful side to his character.

At one point, Mr. Hudson showed alarming signs of beginning to ask them why they lived in such poverty, but a warning glance from the marquess silenced him.

Harriet did not mention Cordelia, because, for the first time, she was realizing the full enormity of her sister’s selfishness and did not even want to speak her name.

Aunt Rebecca did not mention Cordelia either, for fear of being snubbed by this magnificent marquess in the way she had been snubbed in church.

More port was drunk to celebrate the relighting of the now-swept drawing-room fire. Seeing a spinet in the corner of the room, Mr. Hudson begged Harriet to sing them a song. The spinet had not been sold because half of the keyboard was stuck down with damp.

Emboldened by the wine, Harriet sang several pretty ballads in a pleasant soprano. Her hair was now dry, and the one pin, which had proved adequate to keep it up on the top of her head when her hair was wet. finally gave way.

Her black hair tumbled down about her shoulders, and with an embarrassed laugh, she tried to put it up again, finally spreading her hands in a gesture of resignation.

The two men stood watching her as she twisted around on the seat of the spinet, the glory of her hair hanging to her waist.

“ ‘Her beauty made the bright world dim, and everything beside seemed like the fleeting image of a shade,’” quoted Mr. Hudson in a half whisper.

“We must take our leave,” said the marquess, his eyes suddenly hooded by his heavy lids. “Make your bow, Bertram.”

Harriet murmured an excuse and fled from the drawing room. In her bedroom, she twisted her hair up into a tight knot and pinned it securely.

When she returned to the hall, both men were taking their leave of Aunt Rebecca, who was telling them the best way to reach the London road.

“Do you come to London, Miss Harriet?” asked Mr. Hudson intensely.

“I am afraid not,” said Harriet.

“Then I shall …”

“Bertram!” The marquess’s voice held a warning. “We are keeping the ladies standing in the cold.”

Mr. Hudson threw his cousin a furious look before turning to make his bow to Harriet and Aunt Rebecca.

The marquess bowed. “Good-bye, Miss Harriet,” he said. “Perhaps we shall meet again.”

“I doubt it,” said Harriet wearily, remembering all the social snubs of the county. This aristocrat had obviously found his visit amusing, but he would not wish to return simply to see two such unfashionable and poverty-stricken ladies.

He looked at her with something like pity, opened his mouth as if to say more, closed it again, put on his curly-brimmed beaver, and followed his young cousin out into the twilight.

Harriet closed the door behind them.

“There is a full moon tonight,” said Aunt Rebecca, “so we need not feel guilty about their staying so late. For a moment, dear Harriet, it was like the old days. Your dear mama loved company, and my poor brother, your papa, always had the house full of young men. It is going to be very hard to return to our old ways after such a holiday. Men are so
useful.”

“Money is so useful.” Harriet sighed. “Come back to the kitchen, Aunt. It is too cold in the drawing room. All the heat still goes right up the chimney, even though it has just been swept. We have all those delicious treats from the hamper to keep us merry for quite some time.”

Aunt Rebecca brightened. “There are even
two
canisters of tea, one India and one China. I fear the hamper had been given to them by whoever it was they had been staying with. I thought Mr. Hudson was quite taken with you, Harriet.”

“Yes,” agreed Harriet, leading the way to the kitchen. “He had had more than enough to drink. Lord Arden took him away smartish to avoid any embarrassment.”

In the kitchen, they set to work to store away all the groceries and meat. The bottom of the hamper was lined with newspapers.

“They are quite recent,” said Harriet. “Only a month old. A newspaper is a rare luxury. There is half a decanter of port in the drawing room. I will fetch it, and we can toast our toes in front of the fire and find out how the great world is getting along.”

Harriet returned not only with the port but with the blazing remains of the drawing room-fire on a shovel, which she added to the kitchen fire.