Runaway Bride Read online

  Pamela nodded. ‘Yes, and she abuses him unmercifully for his strong language.’

  ‘Excellent. He is deep in debt to Beresford—and an old admirer of mine as well. I’ll send for him in the morning. Now, to bed, my love, and leave all to me.’

  *

  Miles Mandeville, a hard-drinking, hard-riding Leicestershire squire who liked hunting, shooting and women in that order, was more surprised than pleased to receive a scented note next morning summoning him to the presence of his old inamorata, Lady Beresford. He was still more surprised and, at first, still less pleased, when he found her in a strictly business-like mood, with a bundle of his IOUs in her hand. But when she had put her proposition to him, he burst into a delighted guffaw of laughter that almost blew Pamela’s listening ear from the keyhole.

  ‘No need to bribe me with these, ma’am.’ But he tore up the IOUs as he spoke. ‘Damme, but I’d do it for love—or for hate —if you’d rather. If that chit of a girl has affronted me once, she’s done it a thousand times. Turned her back on me at Almack’s only last night and all to listen to Luttrell and his nonsense. Leave me alone to take care of her.’

  Lady Beresford was glad that Pamela was not in the room to see the expressive leer with which he finished his sentence. So accompanied, Jennifer’s chances of escaping with virtue—let alone character—unscathed from the masquerade of the demi-monde were slight indeed.

  The next point was to ensure that the Duchess did not attend the Duke of Devonshire’s masquerade. This was more difficult, for the Duchess dearly loved a masked ball. Lady Beresford consulted Marsham who shook her head. ‘No, my lady, to persuade her grace to stay at home from that is what I could never undertake to do. She is all in a pucker of excitement about Miss Jennifer’s costume and is bound to go and see her triumph, as she claims it will be. And poor Miss Pamela to be totally eclipsed, I have no doubt, by this upstart Queen of the Night. But I’ll tell you, my lady, what I could do, though for no one in the world but you and Miss Pamela would I consider such a thing, but knowing as how you are such a good friend of mine’ (at this point she quietly pocketed the plump purse that Lady Beresford had as quietly handed to her) ‘...It is but to slip a few drops of laudanum into her grace’s chocolate that she always takes when she is dressing and I warrant there will be no more talk of balls and masquerades. No, no,’ she cut short a horrified protest from Lady Beresford, ‘nothing to harm her dear grace, just a couple of drops that shall give her a better night’s sleep than she has had this many a long day. For indeed I have tried and tried to persuade her she should take it now and then, when her sleeplessness is at its worst, the poor lamb, but she never would, and so it is the bell ringing all night long and “Marsham, another pillow,” or “Marsham, some hot chocolate if you please,” as if a body had no more need of sleep than she has.’

  Lady Beresford, who had listened with concealed impatience to this tirade, now interrupted: ‘Excellent, Marsham; I can see you are in the right of it. It will be doing my mother a true kindness. And indeed she is too old to be jauntering off to balls and routs. So,’ she rose, ‘I shall rely on you, Marsham.’

  ‘And may, your ladyship.’

  CHAPTER IX

  Jennifer, who had designed her own costume as Queen of the Night, gave a sigh of pure pleasure when she was dressed at last and turned to survey herself in the glass. It had succeeded à merveille. If Pamela’s white tulle confection, which she had designed with equally loving care, only made her as striking a figure, they should indeed be the belles of the ball. She reread Pamela’s note which had just been brought to her by a footman. It was disappointing that the Beresfords had to go first to Lady Cowper’s and that she and Pamela could not, therefore, make their complementary entrance together. But no matter for that. They would meet soon enough once there. She smiled her thanks to her adoring maid, Betty, picked up her mask and hurried along the wide corridor to the Duchess’s boudoir.

  Marsham met her at the door, finger on her lip. ‘Hush, Miss Fairbank, the poor lamb is asleep. Look,’ standing aside, she pointed to the still form of the Duchess, recumbent, deep breathing, on an unwonted sofa.

  ‘She is not well?’ Jennifer would have hurried into the room, but Marsham stopped her.

  ‘No, no, it is nothing. She falls, sometimes, into this exhausted slumber. She has been wakeful, you must know, these many nights past, the poor lady. I doubt she is vexed at Lord Mainwaring’s silence and such worries always prevent her from sleeping. She is sound, now, till morning and it is best for you to go happily off to your masquerade with Lady Beresford who is doubtless calling for you.’

  ‘No.’ In her anxiety for the Duchess, Jennifer had not thought how her indisposition might affect her own plans. ‘No. I had just now a note from Miss Beresford. They are to go first to Lady Cowper’s and cannot therefore take me up. Nothing for it; I must go alone. I will hit upon them soon enough when once I am there.’

  Well coached by Lady Beresford, Marsham was loud in protest against the impropriety of this plan. The argument was interrupted by a footman who announced that Mr Mandeville was below to attend upon her grace.

  ‘Tell him her grace is indisposed,’ began Marsham, then turned in well-simulated inspiration to Jennifer, ‘but stay, he goes, no doubt, to the masquerade. Why not request his services as escort? For to let you go unattended is what I know her grace would never countenance.’

  Jennifer made a moue. She did not like Miles Mandeville’s looks, nor his license, nor his language, and would infinitely have preferred to go alone than in his company. But she could see that Marsham was set upon the point, and after all the drive to Devonshire House was a matter of but a few minutes. It would be refining too much to object to Mandeville’s company for so short a distance.

  ‘Very well,’ she said to Marsham, ‘I will go down to him.’

  She found Miles Mandeville resplendent in a sky blue domino and was so absorbed in her own embarrassment at having to ask a favour of someone she disliked that she quite forgot to enquire what was his business with the Duchess. As he, for his part, had equally forgotten to invent any, this was just as well for the success of his plan.

  When she put her difficulty to him and requested the favour of his escort to Devonshire House, he agreed at once with the greatest gallantry, but stipulated that they must go in his carriage rather than the Duchess’s. ‘Damme, Miss Fairbank, I’ll not have it said that Mad Mandeville is dependent on any old dame for his transport. You shall come with me and ride behind such a pair of greys as you never had the good fortune to see. Never fear, I’ll drive you home after, or’—he saw that this was going too far, ‘I have no doubt that Lady Beresford will set you down.’

  This was true enough, and so was his argument that he would need his own carriage to take him home when the masquerade finally ended in the small hours of the next morning. Jennifer yielded with the best grace she could muster. After all, time was running on, the main thing was to get to the masquerade.

  Mandeville handed her into his carriage with a flourish, gave an unintelligible order to the coachman and sat down himself rather too close beside her. He had his plan of campaign well worked out: ‘Rattle the girl badly enough and she’ll be so glad to arrive, she’ll not notice if it were Old Bailey instead of Devonshire House.’

  So he took her reluctant hand and began an impassioned speech. ‘Charming Miss Fairbank, how I have longed for this opportunity...’

  She pulled her hand away and interrupted: ‘Indeed, sir, you much mistake the matter if you think my most unwilling request for your company licenses this familiarity.’

  ‘Oh, so it was unwilling was it? There’s a fine sweetener for a cavalier. You shall pay for that Miss Fairbank.’ He again secured her hand and tried to pull her towards him, but she dealt him a resounding blow on the cheek with her free hand, and, as he let her go with an oath, retreated to the farthest corner of the carriage.

  ‘Shame on you, sir. If I had a father or a brother to protec
t me you would not use me thus.’ She looked in vain, as she spoke, for the check string. It was on his side of the carriage; quite out of her reach.

  He was still swearing to himself. Her father’s signet ring, which she always wore, had cut open his cheek and it was bleeding profusely. ‘Damme, you have no need of protection, Miss Fairbank. I’d sooner have to do with a wildcat or an amazon. But here, at last, we are.’

  And indeed Jennifer felt with relief that the carriage was stopping. A liveried footman flung open the door and she glimpsed a brilliantly lighted entrance hall, and, by the light of the flambeaux on either side of the door, a small crowd gathered to watch the arrivals. She was aware of a faint feeling of surprise. Did not Devonshire House stand in its own grounds? Was the Duke so liberal-minded that he allowed the mob inside his gates?

  But Mandeville’s unwelcome hand was under her arm urging her forward. As he guided her up the carpeted steps, she heard a cockney voice exclaim, ‘There’s another on ‘em. Only see how innocent the drab looks.’

  Blushing, she hurried inside. How could Lord Mainwaring maintain his radical opinions in the face of such mob crudity? But this was no time to be thinking of him. Mandeville was muttering an angry apology. He must attend to the cut on his cheek. She proceeded, alone, into the crowded rooms. For the first time, as she looked at the masked and dominoed crowd, she began to think it might be no easy matter to find Pamela and Lady Beresford. But surely Pamela’s white tulle would be conspicuous enough, for the ladies of this assembly were clad in what seemed to her a garish motley of brilliantly coloured silk and satin. There was a something, too, about the noise of the crowd that she found disconcerting. She was used, by now, to the babble of society; here, surely, the note was higher, the voices shriller. But then, this was her first masquerade. No doubt the knowledge of anonymity brought with it a relaxation of decorum. Just the same, she would be glad when she found Pamela and her mother.

  Eagerly searching for them, she made her way through several crowded rooms where dancing and cards were in lively progress and was surprised, as she went, by the freedom of the remarks addressed to her by many of the dominoed figures she passed. A gaudily costumed pirate seized her hand as she brushed by him.

  ‘It is,’ he said, ‘it must be, by this tiny hand I swear it. You are the divine Harriette herself.’ And he printed a damply burning kiss on her hand and would have continued up her arm if she had not snatched it away with such obvious indignation that he drew back in surprise.

  ‘Damme, such airs and graces here?’ He would have caught her hand again but to her relief he was suddenly surrounded by a bevy of young women costumed as gipsies who claimed him as their lord and master—being a pirate—in language that amazed Jennifer by its freedom. Hurrying away, she was relieved to find herself in a rather quieter room where hangings of pale green satin set off a profusion of hothouse flowers. She sat down on an ottoman, determined to wait there until she should be so fortunate as to recognise someone she knew and could ask their safe conduct to Lady Beresford. If she had had any idea what a masquerade was like, she would certainly not have ventured here with no more reliable companion than Miles Mandeville. She saw him now in the next room, in animated conversation with a nun and a country girl in an Indian glazed gown. Anxious to avoid him, she got up and hurried into a further room which she was surprised to find quite empty. But she had been followed.

  The pirate who had previously molested her came up behind her and seized her in his arms. ‘Divine Harriette, so you have led me here at last. I should have known that your coyness was but feigned.’

  And to her speechless and enraged astonishment, he took her in his arms, forced her mask over her chin and kissed her fiercely through his own mask of black crape.

  This was too much. ‘Is all the world gone mad?’ She tore herself away from him and hurried back into the next room, only to be seized upon by Miles Mandeville’s two companions.

  ‘Here she is at last,’ said the nun. ‘Where have you been hiding yourself all this time, Harriette, my love?’

  ‘Here is some strange mistake,’ she tried to free herself. ‘My name is not Harriette, I assure you.’

  ‘Excellently feigned,’ said the country girl. ‘Even the voice is missish. But we have smoked you, Harriette, through all your airs. Now come, take a turn of the room with us and tell me who you will have home with you tonight.’ And, forcing her along between them, they began a discussion of the good and bad points of the men they passed which made her blush hotly behind her mask.

  ‘But here,’ said the nun, as Miles Mandeville approached them again, ‘here if I mistake not, is a gallant of yours. We’ll not spoil sport.’ And she detached her arm from Jennifer’s, gave a bold laugh, and moved away, arm in arm with the country girl.

  ‘Sir,’ Jennifer turned to Mandeville with appeal in her voice. ‘I cannot find Lady Beresford anywhere and truly I cannot stay here alone. I must beg you to take me home.’

  ‘Home?’ He had taken her arm and was leading her through the crowd. ‘Do you jest? The evening is but beginning. And, moreover,’ here he whisked her through a doorway concealed behind some draperies, ‘you and I have a score to settle.’

  She found herself alone with him in a small withdrawing-room whose most conspicuous article of furniture was a sumptuous ottoman covered with green satin and fringed with silver. He led her, resisting, towards it. What should she do? The noise of the party, and the music playing in the next room would drown her cries. And, even if she did manage to summon assistance, what an appallingly compromising position in which to let herself be found.

  ‘Mr Mandeville,’ she began to appeal to him when a voice behind her made her turn.

  ‘Miss Fairbank? Can it be?’

  ‘Lord Mainwaring!’ She snatched her hand away from Mandeville and hurried towards the tall figure in a black domino who had entered the room behind them. ‘Oh, I am so thankful. I beg you will take me home. I cannot find Lady Beresford anywhere and indeed I was mistaken to come alone.’

  ‘Mistaken?’ His voice was cold as ice. ‘So it would seem if you expect to find Lady Beresford. I am at a loss to understand what folly brings Miss Fairbank here.’

  The doubt that had been gnawing away at the back of her mind came to the surface at last. ‘Is not this Devonshire House then?’

  ‘My poor child,’ his voice softened, ‘it most certainly is not. Who has beguiled you here?’

  ‘Why, Mr Mandeville brought me.’ She turned to where he still stood, rigid, in the middle of the room.

  Now he came forwards with an uncomfortable assumption of ease. ‘Miss Fairbank is pleased to be forgetful, my lord. She begged me to give her a sight of the Cyprians’ Ball and—I own I am to blame—I thought I might harmlessly indulge her, since, you see, she is well masked.’

  Jennifer gasped. ‘The Cyprians’ Ball?’ Her surprise and shock were so evident that Lord Mainwaring, taking her arm, softened still further towards her. ‘Come, Miss Fairbank, you have been here too long already. My carriage is without. We will not wait, now, to clear up this strange misunderstanding.’ He turned, without a word of farewell to Mandeville, and led her from the room.

  Her confusion was such that she remained speechless as he led her back through the crowded rooms towards the entrance hall. Once there, she began to speak, to try and explain, but he silenced her by a warning pressure on her arm. ‘Wait,’ he said.

  So she waited, in silent agony, while his carriage was summoned. Fortunately, it was now late enough so that the crowd of arriving carriages had dwindled, while still so early that they were the first to leave. To her infinite relief, Lord Mainwaring’s carriage was soon announced and he handed her silently in.

  ‘What must you think of me, my lord?’ She sank back into the corner of the carriage.

  ‘I think you very foolish, Miss Fairbank. Even your slight knowledge of the world must have taught you that Miles Mandeville is not a suitable cavalier for so very young a lady as yourse
lf.’

  The slight to her good sense was almost harder to bear than one to her character. She began a protest: ‘But Marsham urged it...’

  ‘Marsham?’ His voice was cold again. ‘An abigail’s advice? But where, pray, was my grandmother? I cannot believe that she had any part in this escapade.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Jennifer hurried to explain. ‘If she had been able to come, none of this would have happened. But she fell fast asleep and Marsham said she must not be roused. And Lady Beresford could not come for me, so it seemed the only thing to go with Mr Mandeville. But I see now that I was wrong.’

  ‘You see it a little late in the day. We must earnestly hope that I was the only person who recognised your voice, which is indeed likely since it was your mention of Lady Beresford that raised my suspicions. Mr Mandeville, I apprehend, will be silent for his own sake, and thus all may yet be well. But it has been a most mismanaged business. I thought I might trust you with my grandmother, but I fear I overestimated both her vigilance and your prudence.’

  It was too much. As if she had gone to the wrong masquerade on purpose! She blinked back angry tears and was about to protest when she observed that the carriage had turned in at a pair of ornamental gates. ‘Oh,’ a new and unwelcome thought struck her. ‘Are you not taking me home?’

  ‘Home?’ His voice queried her right to use the word, ‘I most certainly am not. We cannot be sure you were not recognised at Watier’s. You must, of course, appear at the Duke’s masquerade and you will be well advised to affect a calm enjoyment even if you cannot feel it. This night’s work might damage your reputation irredeemably.’

  ‘Watier’s?’ she asked, puzzled, as the carriage came to a standstill in the long line of conveyances that was still setting down at the entrance of Devonshire House.