The Road to Gretna (15 page)

She saw the figure of Angus toiling up the hill and turned away to look round the stark inside of the hollow stone shell. “Romantic, perhaps,” she said with a sigh, “but it must have been shockingly uncomfortable and inconvenient to live in.”

His laughter sounded uneven. “Undoubtedly,” he said drily, “though of course there were wooden floors dividing the stories and the walls would have been hung with tapestries.”

“Yes, I daresay the ladies spent all their time embroidering tapestries while the men went off to fight.”

“No more your choice of a way of life than mine?” he asked, his eyebrows raised enquiringly.

“No. I hate embroidery and I should be always worrying that you...that my husband was going to be wounded or killed. It’s getting dark; we had best go down.”

She started down the winding steps. He caught up with her and took her arm until they reached ground level, where he released her.

Outside the looming walls it was still quite light. Henrietta had picked a long grass stem with a tasselled head and was teasing Lily with it, laughing with childlike delight at the kitten’s absurd antics. Jason and Penny paused on the edge of the moat.

Penny turned her head towards him to comment on the charming scene. His gaze was on Henrietta and he was smiling fondly, without a hint of the usual sardonic twist to his mouth. The words died on her lips.

What a fool she was to take his courtesy and kindness for anything more, she castigated herself. She had let her dreams and her wishes persuade her to read a significance into his attentions that was all in her imagination. She had even succeeded in forgetting that she had seen him kiss Henrietta, in Stamford. He loved Henrietta. Tomorrow he was going to marry Henrietta. All Penny could do was pray that he hadn’t noticed her foolishness.

With relief she saw Angus turn the corner of the churchyard and come towards them. She hurried to meet him.

A chilly breeze had sprung up, so they soon went back down the hill to the Unicorn, a small, unimpressive inn hardly distinguishable from the neighbouring cottages. The chamber Penny and Henrietta were to share was somewhat cramped, but the chambermaid, though hard to understand, was a cheerful, helpful girl who brought hot water on the instant.

“I shall wear my pink gown with the coral ribbons,” Henrietta decided.

“Surely that’s the one Cora said she didn’t pack? You looked very pretty last night in the primrose
crêpe lisse
.”

“But I wore it last night. I cannot possibly wear it again so soon.

“Well, what else did you bring?” Penny started to dig through the contents of one of the portmanteaux.

“I brought my wedding dress. Should you like to see it?”

“Heavens, you had a wedding dress made up? No, no, don’t unpack it. I am not half so good at packing as Cora. Describe it to me.” She found the pink with blond lace which Henrietta had rejected the first night on the road, and shook out the worst creases while Henrietta was distracted. The only mirror in the room was small and awkwardly placed, so she hoped the lack of perfect smoothness might pass unnoticed.

“It’s white lace over a white satin slip, embroidered with seed pearls in true lovers’ knots, and white satin slippers, of course, and the veil is embroidered, too.”

Penny had a sudden vision of Henrietta, all in white, being married over the anvil amid soot and smoke and flying sparks in the blacksmith’s forge at Gretna. Her sense of the ridiculous overcame her despondency and she collapsed on the bed in a fit of helpless laughter.

“What is so funny?” asked Henrietta, injured. “It is excessively pretty, I vow.”

“I’m sure it is, my dear. I was laughing at myself, because I have nothing but this dull brown dress to be married in."

“You must wear your evening gown.” Henrietta surveyed the green sarcenet doubtfully. “I shall lend you my pearls.”

“You are a dear.” Penny hugged her, then turned businesslike and hurried her through her toilette.

When they were both ready to go down, Henrietta lingered behind for a moment. Penny went ahead down the stairs and into the tiny private parlour where the gentlemen were waiting. Despite the time of year, the small fire burning in the grate gave a welcome warmth, though Penny had rejected one in their chamber.

“Never say you have failed to bring her up to the mark tonight, Miss Penny,” said Jason.

“Of course I have not; she is right behind me. Oh, Jason, did you know she has brought a wedding gown with her, all white lace and seed pearls?”

He looked stunned.

“’Tis only natural for a young lassie to wish to be wed in white,” Angus observed. “I’m sorry ‘tis not possible for you, Penelope.”

“No, I could hardly have climbed out of my window with a trunk, could I? Yours is a very well-organized elopement, Jason.”

“I assure you, the wedding dress was none of my idea! Good Lord, she didn’t pack a bride-cake, did she?”

“Not to my knowledge. No, she was bemoaning the lack of a bride-cake yesterday. Don’t worry, Angus, I don’t mind not having one, and this gown will do very well.”

He patted her arm, then went to speak to the landlord, who wanted to know whether they were ready to dine.

“I thought when I first saw it how well that gown becomes you,” Jason said, his tone more teasing than complimentary. “But are you not growing a trifle tired of it?”

“I suppose you had rather I had dropped a trunk from my window?” she challenged him.

“Heaven forbid. It would doubtless have killed me. And if you’d brought half as much luggage as Henrietta we’d never have fitted it on the carriage. You are eminently practical, Penny.”

"Well, I am growing a trifle tired of my two gowns,” she confessed, “but I don’t mean to repine.”

He looked at her seriously. “No, I don’t believe--” he began, but Henrietta came in at that moment and he never completed the sentence.

Dinner was a difficult meal. Henrietta took an instant dislike to Yorkshire pudding, stigmatized rabbit pie as “country fare,” and rejected liver and onions with every appearance of horror. In the end, Jason patiently suggested an omelette, and with this she was satisfied at last.

Penny would have enjoyed the Yorkshire pudding had it not reminded her of her cousin’s delight in local dishes. As it was, she preferred the fried lamb’s liver, smothered with golden, savoury-smelling slices of onion. She did her best to compensate for Henrietta’s rudeness by asking the waiter to convey her compliments to the cook.

Angus ate his way steadily through a hearty portion of every dish on the table. “Excellent,” he said at last, folding his napkin. “I have already ordered breakfast. Mine host tells me that several Scots gentlemen have pronounced their approval of his wife’s porridge.”

It was Penny’s turn to be difficult. “I believe I should like a pair of kippers for a change,” she announced.

He stared at her in surprise. “But I have already ordered your usual breakfast, Penelope.”

“I suppose it can be changed.”

“Oh Penny, pray don’t eat kippers. They smell so horridly. Indeed, I cannot abide the smell.”

“I, too, am partial to kippers,” said Jason firmly. “Most certainly the order can be changed, so far in advance. Perhaps you will prefer to take your breakfast in your chamber, Henrietta?”

For a moment she was disconcerted, and then the familiar pout appeared.

Penny was thrown into confusion by his championing her against both Angus and Henrietta. She wished she had never thought of rebelling against muffins and bacon. Furthermore her rebellion went for nothing, for the innkeeper regretfully informed them that there was not a kipper in the house. Since he promised that his son would go out at dawn and catch a couple of moorland trout, Jason was well satisfied.

“There’s nothing like trout straight from the stream,” he assured Penny, and changed her order and his own, to Angus’s scarce-concealed displeasure.

It was still quite early when they finished dinner. No one was ready to retire. Settling by the fire, Angus pulled his spectacles and his book from his pocket, and Penny went upstairs to fetch hers. The chamber door was ajar; the latch was stiff and no doubt Henrietta had failed to close it properly. When she went down again, Penny made sure it clicked into place.

The sound reminded her of last night’s dream. The click of a latch—an odd thing to dream of!—had preceded the most vivid part of the dream, half-remembered, the part where... Blushing, she pushed the memory from her consciousness.

Tomorrow he would wed Henrietta, and she would be irrevocably tied to Angus.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In the parlour, Jason and Henrietta were at the table playing a game of dominoes. Penny went to sit opposite Angus, on a rather uncomfortable wooden chair with an ornately carved back. Angus looked up and smiled at her. Either she was forgiven or his pique was forgotten. She was glad that he was not one to hold a grudge.

She smiled back at him and opened her book. The place marked was in the middle of a review of a book on landscape gardening, by the celebrated landscaper Repton. Penny wondered what it would be like to own a country estate, to be surrounded by spacious gardens and parkland, to be able to walk and ride where one willed. Which would she prefer, what Repton described as “the quiet, calm and beautiful scenery of a tame country”, or a “wild and romantic” landscape with “rocks and dashing mountain streams”?

Her thoughts were interrupted by an exclamation of annoyance from Henrietta, who had lost the game. Penny was surprised that Jason hadn’t let her win, as she doubtless expected. Perhaps he was growing weary of constantly indulging her. Or perhaps Henrietta had played so badly it was impossible to lose to her! Whatever the reason, she was displeased.

Jumping up, she flounced over to the fireplace and said to Penny, “What are you reading? Is it a novel?”

She tilted it to read the spine, “The Quarterly Review. Such dry stuff! I wonder that you choose to read it.”

“It describes books I might want to read—novels, among others.”

“I love horrid Gothic novels, do not you? I do not know why they are always written so long, though. I never manage to read beyond the first volume.”

“I have never managed to read beyond the first page of a Gothic novel,” Penny admitted, “but I read a great many other books. I have a great deal of time for reading.”

“You poor thing,” Henrietta commiserated. "How horrid to be a bluestocking.”

Jason had strolled over to join them. “Have you by any chance come across a review of a treatise on sheep-rearing?” he enquired. “I should be glad to know of a good one.”

“But why?” asked Henrietta. “Sheep are monstrous dull.”

Jason looked exasperated. Penny said quickly, “Not when they are little lambs, skipping and hopping and shaking their tails.”

“Oh, yes, I should like to have a little lamb, white as Lily, with a black face.”

“All too soon it would grow up to be a dull sheep,” Jason pointed out. “What are you reading, Knox?” Angus held up his book and Jason read out, "An Epitome of Juridical and Forensic Medicine, containing the Tests and Antidotes of Poisons...” He paused, with a glance at Henrietta. “Now that is dry stuff indeed, to any but a medical man.”

Angus continued reading aloud the long-winded title: “...With Observations on Hanging, Drowning, Lunacy, Child-Murder...”

Henrietta shrieked and backed away, her blue eyes wide with horror. “Murder! How can you read such a dreadful book!”

Angus glared at her over his spectacles. “’Tis nae—” he began.

Jason interrupted, taking Henrietta’s arm in a firm grip. “You cannot wish to stay in the same room with such a book, my dear. I suggest you retire to your chamber. I shall call a chambermaid to assist you.” He propelled her towards the door.

Astonished at his sudden sternness, Penny closed her book and rose from the chair. “I’ll go with her,” she offered.

“There’s no need for you to disturb yourself, ma’am. She will manage very well with a servant.”

Opening the door, he revealed a semicircle of gaping figures: the innkeeper, a waiter, two maids, and an ostler.

“My lord,” stammered the innkeeper, “we heard...that is, t’young lady...summun screamed out...”

“‘Murder,’” said Jason calmly. Urging the reluctant Henrietta ahead, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Penny sank back, caught between mirth and dismay.

“Miss Henrietta is sometimes an excessively silly lassie,” Angus observed, and returned to his book.

Penny could not concentrate on the advantages of separating a house from its park with gardens. She listened, but heard only a murmur of voices.

Jason was behaving as if he didn’t care whether he offended his future wife, whether he lost his heiress. Yet at the castle he had looked very much like a man in love. All her doubts and confusion returned. Perhaps Mr. White had not franked the journey, after all, and had given his approval to the marriage for the simple reason that Jason was perfectly respectable and beforehand with the world. Which brought her back to the fact that he must have fallen in love with Henrietta.

Was he falling out of love?

He came back into the parlour, his face forbidding, and sat down at the table. A moment later the landlord entered with a punch-bowl, a bottle of rum, a lemon, a nutmeg and a nutmeg grater. He was followed by a waiter with a tea-tray, including a steaming kettle.

“You won’t mind, ma’am,” Jason said to Penny, “if I take a little of your hot water and some sugar for the punch. Knox, you’ll join me in a nightcap?”

Angus looked up, just as the waiter was followed in to the room by Henrietta. Alarmed by the anguish in the girl’s face, Penny jumped up. Henrietta stopped dramatically just inside the doorway.

“Jason,” she cried, “Lily has disappeared!”

Overwhelmed with relief—she had half expected a scathing denunciation of Jason—Penny sighed and asked, “How did she get out of her basket?”

“I let her out,” Henrietta confessed guiltily. “Before I came down to dinner. But the chamber door was shut.”

“You didn’t latch it properly. It was open when I went up. She could be anywhere.”