The Danbury Scandals (17 page)

Adam’s
travelling cloak lay untidily on the seat. She sat on the floor and pulled it
over her, trying to make it look as if it had fallen there, hoping he would not
pick it up until they were on their way. It was a poor hiding place but it was
better than nothing.

She was only
just settled to her satisfaction when she heard the sound of footsteps on the
gravel and then Adam’s voice. ‘I am in great haste, so drive as fast as you
can, but I don’t want dead horses at the end of it.’ The door opened and she
felt the carriage lurch as he put his weight on the step. The next moment he
had settled in his seat and they moved off. Maryanne held her breath, expecting
him to stoop to retrieve his cloak, but he let it lie. She was almost sorry
because it was stifling her and she needed to come up for air. The driver
waited until they had gone out through the gates, then he cracked his whip and
set the horses into a gallop. The carriage swayed and lurched in sickening
fashion as they picked up speed and Maryanne was wondering how soon she dared
reveal herself when he said, ‘Don’t you think you would be a little more
comfortable on the seat?’

Startled, she
threw off the cloak and scrambled up beside him. ‘You knew I was there all
along.’

‘I knew someone
was there.’

‘Why didn’t you
say something straight away?’

He chuckled.
‘It occurred to me that whoever had taken the trouble to hide themselves in my
coach must have wanted to leave Castle Cedars very badly.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you?’

‘What?’

‘Want to leave
very badly?’

‘Yes. Yesterday
you asked me to come away with you.’

‘That was
yesterday,’ he said laconically. ‘Said in the heat of the moment, and, if my
memory serves me, you were adamant that you would not consider it.’

‘I...’ She
paused; this was going to be very difficult. ‘I changed my mind.’

‘And if I have
changed mine?’

‘You haven’t,
have you?’ she said slowly, noting with a certain amount of satisfaction that
he had given no order to stop the carriage. ‘And I don’t want to go back.’

‘You are being
very foolish,’ he said quietly. ‘Everyone will be distraught about your
disappearance and your bridegroom will conclude that he has another crime to
lay at my door.
Mon Dieu!
How do you think that makes me feel? It is an
accusation I find particularly galling.’

‘Because,
unlike the others, it isn’t true?’

He looked
sideways at her, but could not see her face. ‘I wonder you are prepared to
trust yourself to me, if your opinion of me is so low.’

‘There is no
one else,’ she said, unaware of how much her words wounded him. ‘Besides, I
can’t go back, even if I wanted to, you must see that. The family will disown
me. The scandal...’

‘You should
have thought of that before you set out on this adventure.’

She felt
miserable and humiliated. What had made her think he would welcome her with
open arms? A couple of kisses and a few light-hearted words which had obviously
meant nothing to him. ‘Stop the coach, then,’ she said angrily. ‘Stop it this
instant and let me off. I’ll walk.’

‘Back to Castle
Cedars? It’s a fair step.’

‘No! Didn’t you
listen to a word I said? I will not go back. I am going to stay with my uncle
in Portsmouth. I had hoped you would take me there.’

He sighed and
leaned back in his seat, the better to see her against the moonlight, which
caught in her hair and made it look like gossamer. Her eyes were large and
bright with unshed tears. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her he
would never let her go, but how could he? He cursed the impulse which had made
him suggest she could come with him; it had been foolhardy, if not downright
criminal. But if he insisted on taking her back, what would happen to her? His
imagination painted horrendous pictures of the torment she would be subjected
to and he knew he could not do it. ‘I mean to travel all night,’ he told her.

‘I don’t care.’

‘You don’t even
know where I am going, do you?’

‘France. You
told me so. And from Portsmouth too.’ He sighed. ‘Very well, that is where I
shall leave you.’

‘Thank you.’
Her voice, even in her own ears, sounded small and muffled, as if someone were
trying to choke her.

‘I suggest you
try and sleep.’ He rolled his cloak into a pillow for her and put it behind her
head. ‘I can’t slow down, I’m afraid; I was much later leaving than I
intended.’ She leaned back and shut her eyes and before long her head was
lolling off the makeshift pillow. He shifted himself to put his arm round her
and make her more comfortable. Her head found his shoulder and nestled there.
He smiled and brushed his lips against her soft hair. ‘Sleep, little one,’ he
murmured. ‘Sleep while you can.’

It was dawn
when the coach slowed to enter the town. Maryanne stirred and sat up, shaking
her tousled head, and then looked out at the half-remembered streets. On both
sides, ancient ramshackle buildings stretched down to the arch of St James’s
gate; shops, taverns, chandlers, cook shops and pawnbrokers huddled together.
The combined smell of seaweed, tarred rope and strange spices gave the place
its own particular odour. It was strange how a smell could be so evocative of
the past; that more than any other sense brought back a place, a scene,
something half forgotten. The road ran into the beach where lightermen ran
their boats on to the shingle to unload and where the ticket porters in their
strange hats and leather shoulder-cushions waited to carry the chests of naval
men and the luggage of travellers to and from the boats that plied between the
shore and the ships anchored in the bay.

Maryanne looked
out towards Portsea dockyard where merchant ships and men o’ war lay at their
moorings. Beyond them a line of dark hulls, without their masts, lay low in the
water, strung out in line, bow to stern, rising and falling on the swell.
These, she knew, were the hulks which, during the war, had housed French
prisoners of war. ‘Were you ever on one of those?’ she asked, pointing.

‘Not as a
prisoner, thank God, but I have been aboard.’ He stopped speaking and tapped
the front of the coach and the horses drew to a stop. ‘Give me your uncle’s
direction. I have little time to spare.’ Why had he sounded so brusque? He
didn’t fool himself and he did not think that he fooled her either; she must
know how the prospect of leaving her was affecting him.

‘It is only a
step from here,’ she said. ‘I need detain you no longer.’ Before he could stop
her, she had picked up her bag and jumped down. ‘Thank you for your help.’

‘But I must see
you safely there.’

She turned and
waved. ‘No need. I am home, among my own people.
Bon voyage
!’ Then she
turned and ran in among the crowds that thronged the street. He watched until
he saw her turn into the doorway of a small cottage set back a little way from
the road, and then paid off the coachman and set off along the shingle.

The cottage
where Maryanne had been born was tucked right at the end of Broad Street, as
near as Ben could be to the sea without actually living on it. She felt a pang
of guilt that she had not visited him before, but the Reverend Mr Cudlipp had
always refused to bring her and she had not considered making the journey
alone. She would make it up to him, she promised herself.

She knocked and
waited, but when no one answered she stepped back to look up at the house, and
saw for the first time that it was empty and deserted; some of the windows were
broken and the tiles slipping from the roof. She tried the door, but could not
open it and when she peered through the window she found the rooms bare, and
covered in dust and cobwebs. Of Uncle Ben there was no sign. ‘He’s dead,’ she
said, with sudden conviction, looking back to where she had left Adam, but
there was no sign of man or coach. ‘And now I’m in a pickle.’

Slowly she slid
down to sit on the step and lean her head against the doorpost with its peeling
paint. Her brain refused to function. She was too exhausted to think clearly,
she told herself, and if she could only have a few hours’ sleep she would wake
refreshed and be able to decide what to do. She rose and went round to the back
of the house, where she climbed in through one of the broken windows. She stood
in the empty cottage, ignoring her bleeding hand, and looked about her, trying
to imagine it as it had been, trying to put life and laughter back into a place
which had long since surrendered both. Finding an old blanket in one of the
rooms, she lay down in the corner and curled herself up in it, putting her bag
under her head. Outside she could hear the noise of the streets and the sea
breaking on the shingle. Nearer at hand, the wind sighed through the broken
windows. It was like a lullaby and, too exhausted to notice how hard the floor
was, she fell into a troubled sleep.

She was woken
by a sound outside and sat up with a jerk. Someone was approaching. She crept
across the room to look out of the window, but whoever it was had gone round
the side of the house. With her heart pounding, she moved silently to stand
behind the door, picking up a poker from the hearth as she went. The door had
been bolted from the inside and did not give at the first push, but a heave with
a strong shoulder sent it crashing back, just as she stepped out from behind it
and brought the poker down on the man’s head with all her strength.

He fell like a
log, face down on the floor at her feet, and did not move. There was blood on
the back of his dark head, running in a little pool on to the floor. She pushed
her fist into her mouth to stop herself from screaming and forced herself to
bend over him and touch his temple. There was still a strong pulse there; he
was not dead. She turned his face towards her and cried aloud, because the man
she had felled was Adam. She knelt beside him, wondering how to staunch the
bleeding and bring him round. She dashed out into the yard, found a tub of
rainwater and dipped her towel into it, then ran back and knelt beside him to
dab at the cut. It was a messy wound, but not very deep, and she breathed a
sigh of relief. When he regained consciousness, he would have a headache and
perhaps a nasty bump, but, please, God, nothing worse. She wished he would open
his eyes, but they remained firmly closed, although his breathing was easy.

She stroked his
forehead and murmured his name, wondering if the damage was worse than she
thought. ‘I’ll fetch a doctor,’ she said aloud. ‘Please don’t die, please
don’t.’

The next minute
she was lying on the floor beside him and he was holding her in his arms, and
there was no weakness there, but an animal strength that held her against all
her struggles.

‘You! You...
brute!’ she cried, kicking out at him. ‘How could you frighten me so? I hate
you!’

He let her go.
‘Good, that saves a deal of trouble.’

She scrambled
to her feet. ‘What do you mean? And what are you doing here, anyway? And why
did you pretend to be knocked out cold?’

‘I didn’t
pretend,’ he said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. ‘That blow was
enough to fell an ox.’

‘Well, you are
an ox, and you deserved it, creeping in like that.’

‘I didn’t
creep.’ He looked around at the bare room. ‘Your uncle’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘I think he
must be, but you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here? I
thought you had sailed...’

He smiled,
thankful that she had stayed and not run off when she found the place empty or
he’d never have found her. ‘Who said anything about sailing? I went to see
someone off and mentioned Ben Paynter to the man who carried his chest on
board. I was told the old fellow was dead. Died two months ago.’

‘So you came
back to find me?’ She could not understand why her heart was suddenly singing.
‘I couldn’t leave you, could I?’ he retorted.

‘Why not? What
does it matter to you what I do? Why are you so angry with me? Is it because I
hit you with the poker?’

He smiled
ruefully, getting to his feet. ‘Is that what it was?’

‘I’m sorry.
Does it hurt very much?’

‘Abominably.’

‘Are you sure
you don’t want a doctor?’

‘Certain.’ He
took her arm. ‘Come on, we must get some way along the road before the day is
out.’

‘Road, what
road?’ she demanded. ‘If you think you can take me back...’

‘No,’ he said,
picking up her bag and leading her out to where a second coach stood waiting.
‘What’s done is done and there is no going back now, though what I am going to
do with you I have no idea.’

It was hardly a
proposal, but she didn’t care. She would rather be with him, who did not love
her, than with anyone else who did, and, as long as it lasted, she would
rejoice in that.

Chapter Seven

The crush
outside the Lord Markham’s London home in Bedford Row was worse than it had
been on the night of the ball and it was obvious Lady Markham was having one of
her renowned assemblies. The driver stopped the chaise just short of the
patient line of carriages waiting to discharge their passengers and called
down, ‘Do you want me to go on, guv? It’ll be an hour or more afore you get to
the door.’