Chapter Twelve

 

Lady Matilda Ingleby had been cunning. Livid with wrath at Ellis Henlow’s startling disclosure she might be, but no amount of jealousy would serve to make her lose sight of the main chance. She would not look the fool for any man. She it was who had attached Sothern to her, and she must make it appear that the end of the affair was also her doing.

As it was, she decided vengefully. After all, there had been no precise definition of an end between them, as there might have been had he dealt honourably with her. The memory of her interview with Ellis Henlow rose up again, and she felt a resurgence of the all-consuming rage that had engulfed her at his words.

‘Married? They were married. How is this possible? When were they married?’

‘The day before yesterday,’ Ellis had told her, in a tone of cool unconcern.

‘How do you know this?’

‘Oh, I was there,’ came the offhanded response. ‘I am family, you know. It was all rather sudden.’

Sudden? Aye, that was the mot juste. So sudden that it now hit Maud with stunning force. Her lover had married in the teeth of his mistress. He had come to her, lying of a lack of a rival, straight from his young wife’s arms. And he had said nothing. Was she not entitled to some consideration? She, who had shared his caresses, had given freely of herself to comfort his lonely nights, had offered him her all, only to be insulted at the last with his slighting comment which she had done nothing to deserve?

Conveniently forgetting how she had lured the earl to her bed, as she had lured others before him—and even during his supposed tenancy, if the truth were told—Lady Matilda ranted and raved in the privacy of her boudoir. Never mind that her favours had been offered for her own satisfaction as well as his, that even tonight’s encounter had been arranged with an eye to supplanting him with a younger and more personable comforter for her bed. He had no right to make that despicable remark at the theatre. Unworthy to mention the girl’s name, was she? They would see about that. She would mention it to some purpose.

Skilfully she planted her story. Her chosen confidante, the biggest gossip in town, learned from an apparently delighted Lady Maud that the earl’s own grandmother’s scheming had saved her the disheartening task of bidding him a long-overdue farewell.

‘I had long since tired of him, but what would you? Men are such sensitive creatures, my dear, and one hesitates to wound their excessive pride.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ gushed the lady, drinking in the tale. ‘And how did it all end?’

‘When so determined a woman as Lady Staplegrove sets a matrimonial trap the outcome is inevitable. She contrived it so that the girl was hopelessly compromised.’

‘But how? In what situation did she place them?’

‘That I am not at liberty to disclose.’

Although she hinted at a runaway match with the earl in hot pursuit. Restoring the girl to her guardians, Sothern found his conduct open to question, for the guardians knew nothing of any other man. There was nothing for it but marriage, and that right speedily.

Lady Matilda did not, of course, phrase the story so plainly. It was rather the detail painstakingly left out that gave her auditor to understand it so.

By the time Sothern came riding to the park to exercise his horse, the fashionable promenade was buzzing with the now thoroughly exaggerated tale, embellished as it was passed along. It did not take many minutes for him to realise that he was the subject of a general speculation, several persons twitting him slyly on his supposed misfortune, one even going so far as to congratulate him—not on his recent nuptials, but on his fortunate release from the clutches of Lady Matilda Ingleby.

Jake stared at this gentleman in speechless indignation. Realising his error, the other reddened, muttered a confused apology, and circumspectly withdrew. Seething, Jake kept an eye out for his two best friends, assuming at once that one of them must be the author of this blatant indiscretion.

He had spent most of the night tossing and turning, unable to sleep, fighting the urge to get up out of his bed, go back to Brook Street, and settle this nonsense with Clementina once and for all. The thought that such a show-down must of necessity take place in her bed where she now slept—alone—served to increase his unrest.

He awoke little refreshed, a prey to an unprecedented tumult of emotion. In the confusion of violent longings, frustrations and anger, distress and hurt, he discovered to his surprise that misery was uppermost. More than anything he wanted to see Clementina smile at him with more in her eyes than mere pleasure at his touch. She was his, yes. But, for all that he had possessed her, he could not reach her heart. Cursing himself, he recalled again and again the gap of long years that separated them. He could not rid himself of the memory of how she had spoken that very first night.

‘You are far too old.’

Old? He was doting! Sighing over a chit of a girl, when he could have any woman he wanted for the taking. He pushed aside the thought that he did not want any other woman, and determined to die before he sued for her affections like a moonstruck boy.

But once in the Park he no sooner learned that their secret was out than all reason fled before his fury, more so because Clementina must be hurt by the talk. He cared nothing for himself. People had been whispering about him all his adult life. But that they should dare to bandy his wife’s name roused him to such a pitch of wrath as he had never known before.

Not seeing his two traitorous friends, he left the Park and discovered them at Brooks’s. Hustling them into a small writing-room, he barely waited to shut the door before rounding on them both.

‘Fine friends I have! Which of you saw fit to blazon the story of my marriage abroad, may I ask? Whose tongue have I to thank for this base act of betrayal? Be sure you shall answer for it, either of you!’

Sir Harry Blaine went red in the face. ‘By God, Sothern, for what do you take me? How dare you accuse me? If I don’t cut your liver out for this unspeakable insult...!’

‘Wait, Harry!’ Theo Farleigh intervened quickly. ‘Calm yourself, I beg.’

‘Calm myself? Calm myself?’

He squared up to Jake, and Theo pushed between them.

‘Stop! You are under a misapprehension, both of you.’

As one, they turned on him.

‘So it was you...’

‘By God, Farleigh, you traitorous dog!’

‘Hold there,’ Theo shouted. ‘I’m not your man. You fool, Jake. You too, Harry, to be so blind. Can’t you see the fellow is too much beside himself to think clearly?’

Harry’s head snapped round to stare at Sothern, suddenly intent. ‘By God, you’re right, Theo! Now then, Jake, take care. You warn me of apoplexy often enough. Look out for yourself, that’s all I say.’

‘Oh, be quiet, Harry,’ Theo said, exasperated. He took Sothern by the arm and shook it gently. ‘My friend, I’ll take my oath I know where this leak originates.’ Then he proceeded to tell his friend about his meeting with Lady Matilda. ‘How she found out the facts I don’t know. But I’ll lay my life she’s at the root of it.’

‘Maud? But she can’t be,’ Jake protested. ‘She has no knowledge of any of it.’

‘Ask her,’ Theo advised.

‘Yes,’ agreed Blaine. ‘I’ll warrant you’ll know how to get it out of the woman.’

‘If there’s any truth in this I’ll choke it out of her!’

With a brief apology for doubting his friends, he departed. At Half Moon Street the butler denied him entrance, saying that Lady Matilda was not at home.

‘Is she not, indeed?’ Jake said dangerously. ‘I’ll see for myself.’

Pushing past the butler, he ran up the stairs and flung open the door to the boudoir where Maud was wont to receive him.

She was indeed at home, seated at her writing-desk next to the fireplace, in the act of inscribing a note to Ellis Henlow. For the first time the sight of her en negligée did not move him in the least. She jumped at his entrance, and looked round, gaping in startled fear.

One glance at her face told Sothern all he needed to know. Cold fury seized him, more deadly than his earlier rage.

‘You scheming, traitorous, lying jezebel!’

He crossed the room, brushing past the chaise-longue in which he had so often sat with this woman, amorously entwined. Without warning he seized her, dragging her half out of her chair.

‘Who told you?’ he demanded icily. Her terrified eyes goggled at him. ‘Tell me, before I prize it out of you by other means!’

‘Henlow,’ she got out.

Shock made him release her abruptly. She fell back into her chair, cowering away, her breath rasping.

‘Ellis Henlow?’

She nodded and Jake groaned, his fury giving place to lively apprehension. If that devil was in town... His imagination boggled at the possibilities. And he had sworn to keep Clementina safe!

Without another word he turned on his heel, left the room, and ran down the stairs. He was at his grandmother’s house in Brook Street in a matter of minutes, his horse in a lather of sweat.

Dorridge opened the door to him, adding to his anxiety with his first words of greeting.

‘My lord, thank heaven you are come! Her ladyship was on the point of sending for you.’

‘Where is she?’

‘In the pink parlour, my lord. I will announce you.’

But Sothern was already at the parlour door. He entered to find his grandmother in a state of great agitation, talking excitedly to his man of business. On a chair to one side sat the pathetic figure of Sir Jeremy Hythe, his gaunt face woebegone.

‘Grandmama!’

As one, Lady Staplegrove and Mr Cullen turned and his grandmother hurried towards him.

‘Jake, thank heaven!’

‘I am sorry to break in on you in riding-dress, ma’am, but—’

‘What do I care for ceremony at such a time?’ she interrupted, adding in anxious tones, ‘Sothern, we are undone!’

‘I know, Grandmama, and I know who spread the tale.’

Lady Staplegrove looked astonished. ‘Of what are you talking?’

‘Why, that the murder is out, of course.’

‘Have you run mad, or have I?’ demanded the dowager.

Jake blinked. ‘You, I must suppose. Of what are you talking?’

‘Clementina, you ninny.’ Lady Staplegrove threw up her hands. ‘Oh, I’ve no patience. Tell him, Cullen.’

The lawyer coughed and adjusted his pince-nez as Jake turned towards him, a hideous presentiment rising in his mind.

‘My lord, Sir Jeremy came to me on a matter of the utmost urgency. Your wife, as I understand the erstwhile Miss Hythe to be, is in the gravest danger.’

* * *

 

Clementina sat at the table in a private parlour, lingering over the fruit and nuts, and eyeing Ellis Henlow’s profile in a speculative way.

He had left the dinner table, and was engaged in writing his ransom note to Lord Sothern. He was not such a fool as to leave his back exposed to Clementina’s possible revenge. From where he sat at the desk by the window he could still see her out of the corner of his eye and yet watch the approach to the courtyard of the George inn, should there by some remote chance have been any pursuit.

Henlow was not so confident, however, as to put up at the Fountain, the busy hostelry a few hundred yards up the road which, being a terminus for the London to Portsmouth stage-coach, took the main coaching trade. Here he was closer to the docks, however, which he persuaded himself was more suited to his purpose.

Clementina had felt little appetite, but she had forced herself to eat, albeit slowly. She needed strength if she was to find a means of escape. She prolonged the dinner in the hope of putting off the moment when Ellis might attempt to force his unwelcome attentions upon her. He meant to punish both herself and Sothern by this means, for he had told her that if the earl failed to pay up he would take her abroad to live as his mistress, and so ruin her in any event.

All the way to Portsmouth she had spent the time weaving and discarding various impractical plans for escape. At the first change at the Bear inn at Esher, however, Ellis had made her remain in the coach, and stayed with her, his hand roughly grasping her neck.

‘Make one move, one sound, and I’ll choke you,’ he’d promised coolly.

Clementina had perforce stayed quiet, hardly daring to breathe, never mind cause a commotion. When they were held up by a herd of cattle wandering about the road while the drover refreshed himself at a nearby alehouse, she’d thought of and reluctantly discarded a notion of leaping from the coach and dodging among the cows.

There was no chance at the Talbot Inn at Ripley for the next change, and they swept through Guildford without a check. But at Godalming she was finally permitted to alight to partake of a luncheon at the King’s Arms, by which time she was too hungry to think much about escape. Besides, Ellis never left her side for a moment, accompanying her even when she went to use the facilities of the house where he waited for her outside.

She resumed the journey in a despondent mood which was not alleviated by the wild and desolate nature of the countryside through which they passed. There was scarcely a habitation to be seen for mile upon dreary mile, past pine woods and Witley Common, to the Devil’s Punch Bowl with its gruesome gibbet at the top of Hindhead Hill. Clementina shuddered, glad of the presence on the road of the many other vehicles they met or passed. She was so relieved to arrive at the Anchor Inn at Liphook, with the very beautiful spreading chestnut in front of its Queen Anne facade offering welcome in the now gathering dusk, that no thought of trying to get away entered her head.

By the time they reached Portsmouth she was so weary that even had she thought of a plan she doubted her ability to carry it through. But dinner had revived her, and she was ready for action. Besides, without the constant motion necessitated by a long journey she stood more chance of success. Even so, she cursed the hampering skirts of her morning dress, and longed for the freedom of Jeremy’s borrowed breeches. Since their arrival here Ellis had continued in his role of gaoler, and had not for a moment left her alone. And now the door was locked, and he was still watching her as he wrote.

She wanted to scream, to spit at him and claw furrows with her nails into his handsome countenance. But he was so much stronger than she, and she knew that without his father’s restraining presence, he would not balk at violence.

He finished his letter, folded it, and wrote the direction on the outside. Then he rose and crossed to the fireplace to tug on the bell-pull.

‘You will have to unlock the door,’ Clementina observed.

Ellis dipped a hand into his pocket and brought out the key, holding it up. ‘Time enough when the servant arrives.’

‘He will think it odd.’

‘What business is it of his?’

Clementina shrugged. ‘None, I suppose. I had not thought it any part of your design to draw attention upon us, however.’

He seemed to feel the force of this, for he smiled grimly, tossed the key in his hand, and then crossed to fit it into the lock. He looked back at her.

‘No tricks,’ he warned.

She shrugged again. ‘What can I do?’

‘Well, don’t scream. I shall merely tell them we have quarrelled.’ He paused, and his next words were softly menacing. ‘And then beat you black and blue.’

Clementina shivered. She could not doubt that he would carry out his threat. It was growing late, and she was growing desperate. The glimmerings of a plan were forming in her mind. She heard footsteps coming up the stairs, approaching the door. Then the click as Henlow turned the key in the lock.

She rose from her chair. ‘Ellis, I need the closet.’

‘You will have to wait.’

‘But I cannot.’ She moved round the table and took up a stance before it, her hand feeling behind her on the cloth which still covered the table. ‘Can’t you escort me and wait outside the door?’

Ellis threw up his eyes. ‘You are a confounded nuisance. Very well.’

There was a knock at the door. As Ellis turned to open it Clementina seized opportunity. Her seeking fingers found the pepper-pot.

As her captor stepped back to allow the servant to enter, she ran towards him, and, bringing her hands from behind, dashed the contents of the pepper-pot full into Ellis Henlow’s face.

He fell back with a roar of anguish, his hands flying to his eyes. The footman stood with mouth agape until two small hands heaved him to one side.

Clementina was out of the door and flying down the stairs, Ellis’s bellows of agony ringing in her ears. Down the hall she sped, out of the inn door. Heedless of the ostlers and coachmen lounging about the yard, who watched her hurtling progress with astonishment, Clementina ran as for her life, all her tiredness forgotten as she determined to lose herself among the throng on the nearby quayside.

She hardly heard the rattle of hooves as she came out of the yard of the George. Picking up her skirts, she made to fly incontinently across the road, and was brought up short by an irate curse and the sudden realisation that a team of horses was about to run her down.

The driver pulled them up sharply, and Clementina jumped back on to the verge as the horses reared and their legs flailed alarmingly above her. In a moment they were under control, but the next second an irate shout reached her.

‘Hell and the devil, you idiotic wench, what in Hades are you about?’

In the same instant that she recognised the voice, she looked up and saw the man’s face.

‘Jake! Oh, Jake!’

Sothern, recognising his wife, gave out another oath, threw the reins to his groom, and leapt out of the phaeton.

‘Clementina! My God, Clementina!’

Then she was in his arms, crushed against his chest, laughing and crying together.

‘Clementina,’ he uttered into her hair, his tone anguished. ‘Oh, my darling, I thought I had lost you!’

‘I never thought you’d come,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought you’d be too late.’

He hugged her tighter, kissing her hair, her forehead. Then, pulling away a little to look into her face, he saw the tears on her cheeks, and cradled her face with one hand.

‘Sweetheart, don’t cry. You’re safe now.’

‘I know,’ Clementina said, smiling through her tears. ‘And I’m so happy.’

Jake kissed her. A long, lingering kiss that told her everything that was in his heart.

The sound of heavy feet, running, brought them apart. Clementina pulled herself out of his arms and turned.

‘Ellis,’ she cried. ‘Jake, he will be in such a rage!’

Jake put her roughly behind him. ‘Go into the inn. I’ll deal with Henlow.’

He moved forward, purposefully removing his greatcoat and tossing it aside as Ellis Henlow came out into the road. The man’s eyes were red and raw, his comely features contorted into ugliness with pain and fury. Seeing Sothern, he stopped short. Then a snarl left his throat, and he started towards the earl.

‘God damn you to hell!’

‘You first, you lily-livered poltroon!’

It was not so much a fight as a slaughter. Ellis was a big man, but Jake was the taller and stronger of the two. Furthermore, like most fashionable males, he was accustomed to taking boxing lessons for sport, and was a frequent visitor to Mendoza’s teaching establishment.

Ellis was met with a smashing right and left that sent him reeling back into the inn yard. Jake followed him, ready for more. Shaking his head to clear it, Ellis roared his fury and bored in again.

Jake took a blow to the jaw and his head snapped back. But he came up fast, ducking the flailing fists, and, punching for the stomach, got his man in a clinch and threw him a cross-buttock.

For a moment Ellis lay winded at his feet, while Jake stood over him, fists ready-clenched, scowling. Then, with a sudden lunge at the earl’s knees, Henlow brought him down. Both men rolled on the ground, but Ellis soon discovered his mistake.

Livid now, Jake exerted all his strength to roll the other under him. Then he grabbed the man’s ears and, forcibly lifting his head, banged it back down on the rough cobbles of the inn yard. Leaping to his feet, he dragged the half-conscious man up bodily only so that he might crash his fist into the middle of his face and floor him again.

He heard the bone crunch under his hand, and knew that the famed looks were despoiled forever. Ellis Henlow lay senseless on the ground, bleeding copiously from his broken nose.

Breathing hard, Jake stepped back. In a gesture infinitely contemptuous, he dusted off his hands. A spatter of applause made him turn. Coachmen and ostlers from the inn had come out into the yard to watch. In the middle of them was Clementina, her arms full of his greatcoat, her face flushed with excitement, clapping with the rest.

He grinned and went up to her. ‘You’re incorrigible. I told you to go inside.’

‘Are you hurt?’ she asked, ignoring his stricture.

Gingerly he felt his chin and moved his jaw. ‘Somewhat.’

There was blood on his lip. Clementina reached up to wipe it away. Jake clasped her hand and kissed it. He glanced ruefully down at his person. He was covered in dirt, his clothes were awry and his neck-cloth all but ruined.

‘I fear my costume is more damaged than I, but it was undoubtedly worth it.’

‘Come into the inn and we will soon mend it,’ Clementina said unconcernedly. She glanced down at the wreck of the man who had caused her so much anguish. ‘I thought you were going to kill him.’

‘I very nearly did. I think it will be some time, however, before he is ready to beguile any other ladies.’

‘He never beguiled me,’ Clementina protested indignantly.

Jake took her hand and squeezed it. ‘For which I thank God.’

She met his eyes, her lips quivering. ‘No, that was left for you to do, my lord.’

His eyebrow lifted. ‘Have I met with any success?’

‘Oh, you are victor in all things today.’

His hand tightened about hers. ‘Then let us go in at once. I will be requiring further proofs as soon as may be convenient.’

Laughing, Clementina allowed him to pull her into the George, where she led him to the private parlour lately vacated by her erstwhile captor. Here Jake took her in his arms, despite spoiled clothes and an aching jaw, and for a few blissful moments they were the only two people in the world.

Then Jake rang for some refreshment and hot water, and, stripping off his coat, desired the waiter to have it cleaned and pressed. While he dusted off his boots and breeches and retied his neck-cloth, Clementina pelted him with questions, and learned how poor, confused Jeremy, overcome with the idea that he had somehow betrayed Clementina, had sought out Mr Cullen. Fortunately the coachman had remembered the direction that Clementina had given him, and had driven him to Cullen’s premises after Jeremy had urgently repeated his request to be taken to the lawyer.

Ellis Henlow’s abduction of Clementina was the act of a desperate man, Sothern told her. ‘Cullen tells me that Major Henlow has already gone abroad to escape his creditors. Mrs Henlow is hiding out at Dunhythe, but has the intention to follow him as soon as may be. Ellis borrowed Jeremy, we think unbeknown to his mother, in order to perpetrate his evil design.’

‘Poor Jeremy,’ said Clementina distressfully. ‘And his mother is going? How could she leave him to his own devices at Dunhythe?’

‘She is a cruel woman.’

Clementina laid down the clothes brush with which—in a very housewifely manner, as he had teased—she had been assisting him to clean up, and turned back to him impulsively.

‘Jake, I promised I would help him. Would you mind if we used my inheritance? It is yours now, I suppose, but—’

‘My darling, I don’t want it. And you have no need of it now. Not all of it, in any event. We may give the estate to your poor Jeremy, and as much money as he needs to run it until the rents begin to come in.’

‘And an annuity for Margery,’ Clementina decided. ‘Then she may stay on at Dunhythe and take care of Jeremy.’

‘An excellent suggestion.’

‘What will happen to Ellis, do you suppose?’

‘I imagine he will board the next packet for France.’ Jake smiled grimly. ‘If he knows what is good for him.’

‘And so we will be rid of the whole problem,’ Clementina said happily.

These matters being settled to their mutual satisfaction, the earl refreshed himself with a pint of ale, which did much to restore him, and in spite of Clementina’s protests, kissed her again.

‘I’m not that badly hurt,’ he insisted, although he did let her go. He smiled into her eyes. ‘I’ll show you later just how little.’

Clementina blushed. ‘Are we going home, then? To Albemarle Street?’

‘No, we’re going home to Berkshire. Now our secret is known we may as well give it out that we’ve gone on our honeymoon.’

‘Very well,’ she agreed equably. ‘I don’t care where we go. I just want to be with you. I love you, Jake.’

He made no move to touch her again, but his eyes held a warmth she had never seen there before.

‘And I think I fell in love with you that very first night,’ he said softly, ‘when you faced us all so bravely.’

‘I was petrified.’

‘I know. And you’d have died before you let us see it, wouldn’t you, my indomitable little love?’

She bit her lip. ‘I’m still afraid.’

Jake’s brows drew together in quick consternation. ‘My darling, of what?’

Clementina came to him, and put her hands against his chest. He covered them reassuringly with his own and held them so.

‘Jake, promise me one thing. If—when—you tire of me, tell me. Don’t let me go on thinking that you care; don’t let me make a fool of myself. I won’t fuss; I won’t make scenes, just as long as I know.’

The earl’s dark eyes shadowed with concern. ‘Clementina, you don’t see it, do you? My sweet, before you came into my life I had never truly loved any woman. I know that now.’ His fingers caressed her cheek and his voice was tender. ‘To love you, my Clementina, is to cherish you, now and always.’

She sighed in deep content and sank against him for a moment. All at once, he drew back, a grin splitting his face.

‘Won’t make scenes? If I ever dared to so much as look at another woman I shudder to think of the consequences.’

Clementina’s lips quivered. ‘Then there is only one thing for it, my lord. Don’t dare.’

And they were both laughing.