Marry in Haste (22 page)

“I do,” said Chloe crossly. “As for Mr. Smith, he has already made it clear that we were nothing but an incumbrance to him: I do not care if he is a royal duke—as indeed he might well be, from his manners, or lack of them.”

“But hardly from his appearance,” said Camilla. “Has it occurred to you that without his disguise he might be positively good-looking?”

“No,” said Chloe, and began furiously to curl her sticky hair.

Even Camilla felt a slight sinking of the heart when they were ceremoniously ushered into the captain’s cabin. If anything, she thought, her diamonds and Chloe’s pearls merely added a final touch of absurdity to their appearance. But she held her head high and greeted the captain with all the ease of a great lady, while noting, with sinking heart, that he was in full dress uniform, and Mr. Smith, behind him, in impeccable evening attire, and looking, as she had forecast, deplorably handsome without his mask of dirt. His bows to her and Chloe, as the captain presented him as the Duke of Weston, carried the faintest hint of laughter, and Camilla, recollecting the awkward peasant’s bobs he had made them in Portugal could not help laughing herself in sympathetic pleasure at the transformation. But she could feel Chloe bristling beside her, and hurried to mask an ominous silence on her sister’s part by what she herself felt to be a slightly over-eloquent flow of gratitude. Mr. Smith—or rather the Duke—would have none of it.

“If I have helped to save your lives,” he said, “you—or rather your charming sister—have most certainly reciprocated by saving mine.” And he told the captain the story of their adventures on that desperate last night of their journey. Camilla, taking wine, first with the captain and then with the Duke, and listening to the Duke’s praises of their fortitude on their long march, was soon in charity with both men, forgiving them what had seemed, at first, their quite odious elegance of appearance. But she looked in vain for a similar softening in Chloe, who continued to act what was almost a parody of a great lady. When the Duke drank her health and called her his preserver, she merely tossed her head and remarked that he had surely changed his tune: “I seem to remember that I was a foolish girl back in Portugal.”

Camilla was appalled, but the Duke merely laughed and turned back to entertain the captain with a description of their first meeting and his manhandling by the French: “I can tell you,” he concluded, “if these two ladies had not arrived when they did—and looking as they did—there would have been one dukedom the less in England.”

Chloe raised elegant eyebrows. “Truly,” she said. “Have you then no heir ready to step into your ducal shoes?”

“Why no,” he turned back to her at once, “oddly enough, I have not; we Smiths have dwindled most deplorably off into the female line.”

If Camilla had not been so fond of Chloe, she would have thought she snorted. “Deplorable indeed,” she said, turned her shoulder to him, and began ostentatiously to ply the captain with questions about the state of things in England.

It was not a comfortable evening, and Camilla, for one, was heartily glad when it was over and she felt that it was politely possible to plead anxiety for little Edward (who was being minded by the tongue-tied sailor) and take their leave. Back in their cabin, she turned on Chloe to administer a well-earned reproof—but found herself forestalled. Chloe had subsided on her bed in a passion of tears.

They did not see either the captain or the Duke again before they reached Falmouth. Camilla, who was beginning to fret at the narrow confinement of their cabin, urged Chloe more than once to join her in a turn about the decks, but Chloe was adamant. Nothing, she said, would induce her to expose herself once more to the Duke’s censorious eye. “Did you not see, Camilla, how he took in every detail of my—I mean our appearance? No doubt it will make an admirable tale for his friends at White’s, just as our meeting provided food for the captain’s mirth all evening. No, thank you, I shall stay below-decks and deprive him of more grist for his humorous mill.” And so, since Camilla did not feel that she could properly venture up by herself, they all three stayed in their cramped cabin, Edward increasingly fretful for lack of fresh air, Camilla suffering for his discomfort, and Chloe in what seemed a permanent fit of the sullens.

It was, therefore, with the most profound relief that Camilla welcomed their arrival at Falmouth, although she also found herself suffering, more even than she had expected, from the inevitable memories that green harbour roused of the last time they had been there—with Lavenham. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked across the harbour at the little hotel on the hill where she had stayed, with Lavenham, so newly her husband, the day before they had sailed for Portugal. What mad hopes she had fostered then: Lavenham would learn to love her; in the end they would be man and wife indeed. Well—she shook herself and picked up little Edward—they were, and he did not believe it—perhaps never would. And she had before her the painful task of convincing old Lady Leominster, perhaps in the teeth of her husband’s denial, that her child was indeed the heir Lady Leominster wanted. It was not a happy prospect, and when Chloe, who had been miserably silent all morning, opened her mouth to complain at the prospect of going ashore looking like a couple of women of the town—or worse—Camilla turned on her so roundly that Chloe, shaken at last out of her private wretchedness, suddenly put her arms round her and kissed her. “Oh, Camilla, I am a brute; it is worse for you than it is for me, and I have been behaving like a bear. Forgive me.”

In a flood of mutual, soothing tears, they forgave each other, and then dried them because little Edward had caught the infection and was screaming heartily in Camilla’s arms. Chloe took up the little bundle that contained their jewels and they went up on deck to find the captain awaiting them. The Duke, he told them, had gone ashore at first light and was now on his way to London with his despatches. But he had left his carriage behind for the use of Lady Leominster and Lady Chloe. He begged that they would allow his servants to take them wherever they pleased.

“But how has he gone to London?” asked Chloe.

“On horseback,” said the captain, “he said it would be quicker so.”

“Then he lied,” said Chloe, with a return of her previous bad temper.

But she had to admit that the lie was a very handy one for them. They had no English money, and the prospect of pawning their pearls, one by one, in order to pay for their journey across England had not been pleasant. Now, they were to travel in luxury, for the Duke’s elderly and formidably respectable coachman made it clear that he was to be responsible for all expenses on the way: “It is as much as my place is worth, my lady,” he explained, when Camilla began a protest. She yielded gratefully enough—it would be time to think of repaying the Duke when they were safe home—and even went so far as to suggest to Chloe that they might borrow enough from Mr. Banks, the coachman, to equip themselves in somewhat more suitable clothes for the journey. Oddly enough, it was Chloe, who had previously complained so bitterly about their tatterdemalion appearance, who now exclaimed, just as vehemently, against the very idea of borrowing any more from the Duke than strictest necessity demanded. “Do you, if you feel you must, Camilla, but I am too intolerably obligated to him already.”

Camilla gave up the idea readily enough. She was too bone weary to care for the idea of shopping; little Edward was fretful from the long journey; the sooner they got home the better. And she soon discovered that Mr. Banks had had the fullest possible orders from his master. Not only did he manage not to show the least sign that there was anything odd about their appearance, he also always contrived an excuse to go ahead and announce their arrival at the wayside inns where they stopped. When they arrived, they found themselves greeted as heroines, and their odd appearance was forgotten in the glamour Mr. Banks contrived to cast around them England, it seemed, was war-mad all of a sudden, and Spain’s unexpected resistance to Bonaparte’s tyranny the subject of universal enthusiasm.

“You must confess,” Camilla remarked as they remounted the coach after a positively festive meal of the best of everything a little country inn had to offer, “that the Duke is well served.”

“Of course he is,” Chloe replied, “tyrants always are.”

Camilla sighed, shrugged, and dropped the subject. If Chloe must persist in this unreasonable aversion to the Duke, she, for her part, had worries enough of her own to occupy her. They had decided to go straight to Haverford Hall. It would be time enough, after they had somewhat recovered their strength and, incidentally, refurbished their wardrobes, to face old Lady Leominster, to whom, inevitably, they would have to apply for funds. “Unless,” remarked Chloe, momentarily forgetting her own preoccupations in concern for Camilla’s, “we find Lavenham home before us. I cannot believe that he will stay long in the Brazils, ignorant, as he must be, whether we are alive or dead.”

Now it was Camilla’s turn to be unreasonable. “I do not see why not,” she said. “After all, you know as well as I do that he has always put his duty before our welfare. And quite right, too,” she added belatedly, and without entire conviction.

“Camilla, I do not think that quite fair of you,” Chloe protested. “If you had but seen his anxiety when you were ill, you would think otherwise.”

“It did not stop him going on board ship with Lord Strangford and leaving you to nurse me,” said Camilla. “If he had stayed with us, we would never have got into this scrape.”

“But no more should we, if I had not been such a fool as to trust your brother,” pointed out Chloe.

It was a silencer for Camilla. The part played by Charles Boutet was not one she much liked to remember; monstrous to have reminded Chloe. She put out a hand: “Forgive me?”

“Of course. Camilla, do you realise we are almost there?” The milestones were beginning to carry familiar names, and to revive, for Camilla, painful memories of that hopeful journey on which she had set out, a lifetime ago, with her new husband at her side. Where was he now, and what did he think of her? Could he possibly believe that she had gone willingly with Charles? She was actually grateful to little Edward when he burst into the tears of total exhaustion and effectively distracted her from thoughts that were equally painful and useless.

When they drew up at last on the wide carriage sweep in front of Haverford Hall, the first shadows of night had fallen, and they were surprised to see that the entire front of the house was illuminated. Camilla clutched Chloe’s hand: “
Someone
is there.”

For a moment, her courage failed her. Suppose it was Lavenham, how would they meet? She had not spoken to him since that desperate day when he had hurled such furious accusations at her that she had fainted. And now, she was returning with his child in her arms, a child he had called a French spy’s bastard. But Mr. Banks had beaten a resounding tattoo on the big front door and it now swung open, revealing the brilliantly lighted hall. Even in this moment of tension, Camilla found time to notice, as she carefully alighted from the carriage with Edward whimpering in her arms, that old Lady Leominster had been as good as her word:

the house shone with new paint, and the servants, who were idly assembling in the hall, were resplendent in new liveries. What an odd contrast, she thought as she slowly mounted the steps, she and Chloe must present in their bedraggled black.

She forgot everything as an inner door opened and old Lady Leominster appeared. More bent, more wizened, and more brilliantly garbed than ever, she hurried forward, arms outstretched. “My dears.” She gathered first Camilla, then Chloe into a highly perfumed embrace, paused for a quick, satisfied glance at little Edward, who had fallen silent in the dazzle of the lights, then urged them forward into the little drawing room from which she had come. “I know it all,” she said, “I had a message from the Duke of Weston this morning and hurried here to have all ready for you. You are heroines, I collect, both of you, and the Duke your servant for life.” Here a sharp glance, bristling with question, flashed from Camilla to Chloe and back, before she resumed: “And my grandson, I understand, a perfect paragon among babies. Tell me,” to Camilla, “has he the Lavenham foot?”

“The what?” A long, involuntary tremor ran through her and she was glad to have Lady Leominster take Edward in fragile but surprisingly competent hands. Speechless, she looked on as the old lady deftly unwound his shawls, lifted the long dress to reveal his poor little webbed feet, and let out a long sigh of satisfaction. “Ahh,” she said, “most satisfactory.” And then, to Camilla, “But did no one tell you? Of course, Chloe was a child—she would not know—but Lavenham? Every boy in the family—since anyone can remember. It would have been—awkward, if you had come back with an heir born God knows how in Portugal and he had not had it ... As it is, come here, my dear, and let me kiss you.” But Camilla had burst into helpless tears.

Later, she told Lady Leominster the whole story, or as much as she could bear to, and received, in return, her promise of every possible assistance when Lavenham returned. “He will not be reasonable,” said his grandmother, “he never was. But we must contrive to make him so.” She had told Camilla already that Lavenham had asked for, and received, permission to return to England. She looked for his arrival daily. “But I am inclined to hope, my child, that it may be somewhat delayed. I would rather you had a little colour in your cheeks, and flesh on your bones, before we have to deal with him. And now, tell me,” once again the large eyes flashed questions, “what is this about the Duke of Weston?”

“The Duke?” Camilla asked, puzzled. “Why, nothing, except that he has been most kind to us.”

“Kind!” The old lady snorted. “I should just about think he has! Can you really be as ignorant—or as innocent—as you seem? Do you not know that the Duke who has been so ‘kind’ to you and Chloe has about as sharp a reputation as any young rakehell in town? Why, I have it on the best authority that when he took it into his head to go on this dangerous mission to Portugal his family let out a sigh of relief and secretly prayed that he would never come back. And you wish me to believe that he nurse—tended you and Chloe across the country—yes, and the baby too—out of pure philanthropy? And sent you home in his own coach—thought I grant you that is more in character, since he has always been known for his wild rides across country and was doubtless glad to get rid of coach and servants as a parcel of nuisances. But to take the trouble to send and tell me of your arrival—no, no, it must be for one of your sakes, and I only hope it is Chloe. Though come to that,” the bright eyes snapped, “it might not be such a bad thing after all if Lavenham were to come home and find you pursued by the most notorious duke in town. But mind you do not let him catch you. I’ll not have any of your Devonshire House goings on in my family.”

Half angry, half amused, Camilla did her best to convince the old lady that she was far wide of the mark in her suspicions. The Duke had never showed the slightest partiality for either of them, she said, and had indeed tended all too obviously to treat them as the encumbrances they must have been to him. “Though,” her natural fairness forced her to add, “he could not, in truth, have been kinder. He even carried little Edward much of the way.”

“What!” exclaimed Lady Leominster. “Best not noise that around, if you wish him to remain your friend. But I begin to think I see—treated you as encumbrances, did he? No wonder Chloe is so out of charity with him. Well, I think we had best go to London at once.”