Marry in Haste

Fawcett Crest and Premier Books by Jane Aiken Hodge:

WATCH THE WALL, MY DARLING

THE WINDING STAIR

MARRY IN HASTE

GREEK WEDDING

SAVANNAH PURCHASE

And

ONLY A NOVEL:
The Double Life of Jane Austen

A FAWCETT CREST BOOK Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn.

THIS BOOK CONTAINS THE COMPLETE TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL HARDCOVER EDITION.

A Fawcett Crest Book reprinted by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Copyright © 1961, 1969 by Jane Aiken Hodge.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-89109

Selection of the Young Adults Division of the Literary Guild of America, February 1970

CHAPTER 1

Catkins shivered in the cold spring wind that blew bitter mists round Camilla Forest’s ankles. Shivering too, she pulled her light shawl more closely round her and wished for the warm pelisse that lay in her box. She had packed in such hurry and despair that there had been no time to think of the comforts of a journey by the mail coach. Mrs. Cummerton, hysterical, reproachful, and then hysterical all over again, had insisted that she catch today’s coach to London, but with her pupil’s lamentations at her going, her employ’s reproaches, and Gerald’s insulting apologies, there had been no time for thought.

And now, at the lonely crossroads, she was beginning to wonder if she could have missed the coach after all. Mrs. Cummerton’s coachman, who had deposited her here, had assured her with rough, unspoken sympathy that the mail coach from Bath would stop somewhere between half-past four and five. “Allays does, miss, allays has, allays will, for I know. Has to pick up Lord Leominster’s mail, see, him being a bigwig, as you might say, and own cousin to the duke of Portland. So rest you here, miss, and wait for it,” he’d concluded, “and you’ll be in London by morning.”

And for a while she had been happy enough, after the day’s alarms, to sit quietly on her box in the country road, listening to the evensong of starlings and trying not to think out what was past—and what to come. Memory of Mrs. Cummerton’s insults was, she found, rather less unpleasant in expectation of what her father would say. He had told her this project would never do and he had been, odiously right, for once in his life, right. Best not think about it. She rose to her feet and took a brisk turn down the road to the corner from which the coach should come. The air was colder now, the shadows long, the starlings almost silent, would be night soon, and where was the coach?

As if in answer to her question, she heard, far off, the rumbling of wheels and soon a carriage clattered into view. At first hearing it, she had hurried back to stand by her box, but as it came nearer, her heart sank. This was not the mail coach, with its sweating job horses, its coachman and uniformed guard, but a gentleman’s carriage, drawn by four elegant bays. As it passed her, she heard an order shout from within, the coachman reined in his horses, and when stopped a little further down the road the groom jump down from his perch and came back to speak to her.

“Excusing me, miss,” he said, removing his livery cap, “but would you be waiting for the mail coach?”

“Yes.” She looked at him doubtfully in the gathering twilight.

“Because if you are, master said to tell you it’s met with an accident.” Suddenly he became human. “We passed it three miles back, as deep as you please in the mud, one wheel gone and splinter bar broke, coachman swearing hisself hoarse, passengers moaning and guard in fits on account of he’d lost the key to the mail-box as he fell. Only good thing is, it happened not five minutes’ walk from the King’s Hearth ... Anyways, miss, you won’t see no coach before morning if then, and so master said I had best warn you.”

“It was kind of him to think of it. But what am I to do?” The question was addressed more to herself than to him, but he took it seriously enough.

“Why, what but go back where you come from and wait for tomorrow’s coach. Master said as how I was to help you with your box, if so be you needed it.”

“It is very good of him,” she said again, almost automatically. Her mind was in a whirl. No coach tonight.
W
ha
t
should she do? To return to Mrs. Cummerton’s, after what had passed, was impossible. And yet, what else could she do? She turned again to the man. “Is there an inn at the villa where I could spend the night?”

“Well, miss, I dunno,” he was beginning doubtfully, when an imperious voice summoned him back to the carriage. With an awkward apology he turned and left her at a trot. With him went hope. It had grown darker as they talked and she observed that the coachman had spent his time in lighting the carriage’s lanterns. A fine rain was now blowing in the wind and she felt its icy fingers begin to find their way through her shawl. Soon she would be wet through. Should she run after the man and put her plight to his unknown master? Surely no one would be so callous as to leave her benighted here. But it was already too late. The man had jumped back to the box and the carriage had begun to move. She watched with sinking heart, then felt her hopes revive as the coachman took his horses in a wide turn on the grass verge and drove rapidly back towards her. Again the groom leapt from his box, but this time it was to open the carriage door and let down the steps. A tall man in a many-caped travelling coat emerged, removed his beaver to reveal close-cropped dark hair, and approached her with a bow that would have won the approval of Brummel himself.

“I fear you are like to find yourself benighted here.” His voice was low, pleasant, almost diffident. “Perhaps I may have the honour of driving you back to your friends’ house. My man has informed you, I think, that the mail coach does not run tonight. But allow me to present myself: Leominster, at your service.”

“And I am Camilla Forest, and much beholden to you for your kindness. If you would but be so good as to give me conveyance to the nearest inn ...” She stammered to a halt, painfully aware of how strange a request this must seem, how odd, indeed, her whole plight. And of all people it must be Lord Leominster who had discovered her—the haughty earl, Mrs. Cummerton called him, too high in the instep to take notice of his untitled neighbours.

“To the inn, Miss Forest?” He could not quite keep the question out of his voice, but turned, nevertheless, to tell his servants to take up her box, and then, taking her arm, helped her up the steps into the carriage. “But you are wet through.” He settled her in a corner and wrapped a fur rug warmly round her. “This has been an ill-managed business on someone’s part. You will pardon me if I ask what your parents are thinking of to let you be wandering about the countryside like this.”

She gave a little laugh, half amusement, half bitterness. “I fear I owe you an apology for trespassing on your good nature under what I fear you may think false pretences. I am not a young lady, sir, but a governess.”

His reaction to this tragic pronouncement, was, surprisingly, a laugh. “You are a very young one, then,” he said, “or your voice belies you. And you must allow me the privilege of protecting you just the same. I have yet to learn that it is impossible to be a governess and a young lady at the same time.”

This came near the bone and she found it, for a moment, impossible to reply. He was looking at her thoughtfully, and she was grateful for the near darkness of the carriage that hid her blush. At last he seemed to come to a conclusion.

“I have no possible right, of course,” he said, “to question you about the predicament in which you find yourself, but surely there must be somewhere more suitable than the village inn for you to spend the night. It is not at all, I feel sure, what you are used to. And besides—forgive me—even a governess has a reputation to consider.”

“Particularly a governess,” she said, with some bitterness. “But needs must, Lord Leominster, and I shall rely on your goodness not to mention tonight’s happenings.”

“Oh, as to that, it is a matter of course.” He sounded mildly affronted, then returned to the attack. “And I am to abandon you, then, to the tender mercies of Tom Marston at the Blue Boar and his slattern of a wife? Surely, Miss Forest, it would be better to return to your previous place, however terrible the umbrage in which you left.”

She laughed, again with that mixture of bitterness. “I fear you mistake the matter somewhat, my lord. The boot is on the other foot. I have been turned off, in disgrace. I cannot possibly go back.”

His laugh, in the darkness, echoed hers. “I see. And what heinous crime, I wonder, have you committed. No, no; a moment, let me guess. I do not for a moment believe that you have been making free with your employer's diamonds—or her port. But, let me see, she has an older son, perhaps, your charges’ brother—indeed, I believe I could name him. You are come, I take it, from Mrs. Cummerton’s house.”

She gasped. “How in the world did you guess?”

“Easily enough. You must not think, because I am known as the arrogant earl, that I am not passably well informed as to what goes on in the district. I have a housekeeper who considers it her duty to keep me
au courant
with the local gossip. So naturally I know that Mrs. Cummerton recently engaged a French governess for her children and was thought to be giving herself considerable airs in doing so. And equally I know of Gerald Cummerton—who does not? I can only wonder at his mother’s idiotism in engaging you in the first place. But then, I always understood her to be a fool. The only thing, I confess, that does surprise me is that you should be French. You do not sound it.”

“Thank you.” Eagerly. “I do not wish to.”

“No?” He considered it. “I remember about you now. Mrs. Lefeu—my housekeeper—said you would never do at Mrs. Cummerton’s because—forgive me—you were so much better born than your mistress. You are Mademoiselle de Foret, are you not, daughter of the Comte de Foret.”

“No!” Almost angrily. “I am Miss Forest, if you please, English bred, if not English born. I ask you, sir, what is the use of clinging to an empty title? For a year or two, perhaps, it did well enough. One was always going back tomorrow, or at least next week. But it is seventeen years now, since we fled from France, and I have not found a title much substitute for a competence. Nor does it seem likely that we shall be returning in the near future.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “you are right there. Bonaparte is well in the saddle and I do not suppose you would find it in your heart to compound with him.”

“I should think not indeed.” She flared out at him. “You do not understand, sir. My only memories of France are of the Terror and our escape; of blood and tumult which killed my mother—and my brother, too, for all I know to the contrary. Do you think I wish to go back there, on any terms? The only kindness I have known—and I have known much—has been in England. I am as English as you, sir, perhaps more so, because I know how lucky I am.”

He laughed. “I am glad you think so. I would not, myself, have considered it the height of good fortune to be waiting, in the rain, for a coach that did not come. Nor, indeed, would working, in any capacity, for Mrs. Cummerton be my ideal of worldly bliss.”

It was her turn to laugh. “Nor mine, I assure you, sir, though in all fairness I should say that it was tolerable enough until Gerald came home from Oxford. One of the advantages of being a governess is that you see so little of your employers.”

“Indeed.” He sounded amused. “It seems a barren enough recommendation. But, tell me, what possessed your friends to let you go as a governess in the first place?”

“What else could I do?” The bitterness was back in her voice. “One cannot go on, forever, depending on the bounty of strangers. Oh, they were kindness itself at Devonshire House, but ...” She paused. The less she said about life at Devonshire House since the Duchess’s death, the better.

But he had turned away to look out of the carriage window into the darkness. “Here we are at the Blue Boar.” The carriage had slowed to a halt and the groom now opened the door and let down the steps. Camilla made as if to rise, but Leominster remained seated between her and the carriage door, looking doubtfully into the darkness.

“I am sure I do not know how to thank you, sir,” she began, but he interrupted her.

“No.” Abruptly. “It will not do. You cannot possibly spend the night here, Miss Forest. It will be far better to risk your reputation at my house than your health here. And, for the matter of that, though I have no doubt you have heard me described as the proud earl, that, I think, must have been the worst of the slanders against me. Besides, I have an excessively respectable housekeeper in Mrs. Lefeu, who is also, as she frequently reminds me, my seventh cousin six times removed. I think you had much best pass the night at Haverford Hall.”

Without allowing her time to answer, he gave the necessary orders and then settled back, with a sigh of relief, in his corner of the coach. “How I dislike making decisions. But you were speaking of Devonshire House. Were you indeed brought up in that
galere
?”

“Yes. My mother made great friends with the Duchess when she visited Paris in 1789.” And then, returning to the matter in hand: “It is very good of you, Lord Leominster, but truly I do not know whether I should accept your kind invitation.”