‘And where is that?’ asked Hannah.
‘About six miles to the north.’
‘Good,’ said Belinda. ‘Now, if you will but stand aside, my lord, I am going inside that hostelry with Miss Pym and we are going to have some breakfast.’
‘As you will,’ he said.
‘There you are,’ muttered Hannah gleefully. ‘Works like a charm.’
Seated at a table in the coffee-parlour of the inn, Belinda and the marquess studied each other warily. Belinda thought the marquess, even in top-boots and a plain coat, looked more like a haughty aristocrat than ever, his cold eyes giving nothing away. The marquess wondered why Belinda, tired as she was, and with shadows under her eyes, looked like the most beautiful woman in the world, and then wondered whether she had bewitched him, but he showed all these confused thoughts and feelings like a true English gentleman by asking her, ‘More coffee, Miss Earle?’
Hannah began to despair of the pair of them. Of course there were marriages where husband hardly ever spoke to wife, but such had been the marriage of Mr and Mrs Clarence, and only look where that had led. Her eyes glowed blue with remembered sadness.
‘You are like a chameleon, Miss Pym,’ said the marquess. ‘I have observed your eyes change colour according to your mood.’
Hannah, who privately thought he would have done better to observe Belinda’s eyes, replied, ‘Humph,’ and buried her nose in her coffee-cup.
‘The sky will soon be light,’ said the marquess, ‘and the morning promises to be fine. It should be an easy and pleasant journey to Monks Parton. I have plenty of carriage rugs. Would you care to wrap up well, Miss Earle, and join me on the box?’
Hannah feared that Belinda was on the point of saying something pettish and kicked her viciously in the ankle. Belinda let out a yelp of pain.
‘What is the matter?’ asked the marquess anxiously. ‘Is it your ankle? I had forgot about that sprain.’
‘I experienced a sudden twinge of pain in my other ankle,’ said Belinda, glaring at Hannah. ‘Yes, I would like to join you. I have never travelled on the box of a carriage before.’
Hannah smiled, well pleased.
After Belinda had been helped up on the box and wrapped in a bearskin rug, Hannah climbed inside, accompanied by the marquess’s valet, curled up on the carriage seat and went to sleep.
‘How very high above the ground we seem to be,’ said Belinda nervously.
The team of grey horses ambled slowly forward. The air was sweet and there was a hint of spring in the warmth of the wind. Behind her the tiger, also wrapped in rugs, had fallen asleep.
‘So I have you to myself at last,’ said the marquess. ‘I am sorry I did not make you a formal proposal of marriage, but the circumstances were odd. I shall call on your great-aunt when we reach The Bath.’
‘But what do we know of each other?’ demanded Belinda, looking at his hard profile. ‘I had made up my mind not to marry, to be independent.’
‘You would have independence were you married to me. A spinster has a sad life.’
‘Miss Pym is a spinster.’
‘True. But Miss Pym is an Original.’
‘But you don’t really want to marry me,’ said Belinda. ‘You were just being chivalrous.’
‘Alas, I am never chivalrous.’
‘Why do you want to marry me?’
The marquess reined in his horses and looked down at her angrily. ‘Because I love you, dammit, as well you know.’
‘No, I don’t know,’ snapped Belinda.
He dropped the reins and took her in his arms. ‘Then let my silent lips tell you what my words cannot.’ He kissed her tenderly on her eyes, her nose, and then her mouth. No more bruising kissing, thought the marquess. But Belinda freed her lips and looked up at him with starry eyes, and said with a break of laughter in her voice, ‘Oh, you do love me, and I love you so much, Frenton.’
He crushed her close to him and sank his mouth into hers. Her passion rose to meet his. She caressed his hair and then choked and sneezed as a fine cloud of scented powder rose in the air.
‘We had better be married very soon,’ he said tenderly, handing her a large handkerchief.
‘Yes,’ agreed Belinda happily. ‘And you do believe me, or rather you did believe Miss Pym when she told you the real story about that footman?’
‘Yes, my love. Oh, yes, Belinda.’
‘I do not know your first name,’ said Belinda, shyly twisting a button on his coat.
‘It is Richard. Say, “Richard, I love you.”’
Her eyes were shining. ‘Oh, Richard, my dear heart, I love you so much.’
He held her close. Their lips joined in a kiss of such intensity that for both the world seemed to spin round faster and faster about them.
Inside the carriage, Hannah Pym awoke and sat up. The carriage was at a standstill. Perhaps they had arrived and the marquess and Belinda had not troubled to wake her. She opened the carriage door and climbed down.
There was a farmer, leaning on a gate with a farm-hand beside him. Both were looking up at the box. The farmer had a large steel watch in one hand. ‘Reckon that be about five minutes, Ham,’ he said.
‘Reckon as it do,’ agreed Ham with a salacious leer.
Hannah joined them and looked up at the box. The marquess and Belinda were wrapped in each other’s arms, both rock-still, their lips joined in a long kiss.
‘Been like that this age, mum,’ said the farmer cheerfully. ‘Ham, here, was saying as how he’d choke were he to do that there, but I says to him that he do breathe through his mouth the whole time, which is why he couldn’t achieve it. Wunnerful it is. Never seen the like.’
‘My lord!’ called Hannah angrily. ‘You are making a spectacle of yourself.’
The marquess started, released Belinda and looked down. ‘And so we are,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Climb in again, Miss Pym. We are on our way.’
Hannah climbed in and sat bolt upright. Their faces had been, yes transfigured by love. As the carriage rolled on, a slow tear rolled down Hannah’s cheek. She felt old and lonely. The feelings of precious independence given her by that legacy seemed to be withering away. No strong man had ever looked at Hannah Pym like that. No man ever would.
She had always been cheerful and hopeful. She considered life had treated her well. She had never known disease or infirmity or starvation, never regretted her spinster state. But now she felt weak and childlike and lost.
A thin ray of sunlight shone into the carriage. Hannah looked out. They were travelling quickly now along a high ridge of land. The fields stretched out, calm and peaceful, and with only a few remaining patches of snow. Her spirits began to lift. Here she was, plain Hannah Pym, off on another adventure and assisting in the marriage of a marquess. She shook her head, wondering how she could have become so blue-devilled only a moment ago.
‘It must have been that venison,’ said the ever-practical Hannah Pym. She rubbed her crooked nose and straightened her square shoulders.
Monks Parton was a small, sleepy village, unchanged since Tudor times. Houses of timber and wattle and thatch crouched around a triangle of village green like so many shabby cats. Two women were drawing water from a well at the edge of the village green. The marquess called down to them, asking them if they had seen any sign of a portly gentleman in clericals and an equally portly lady, driving a pony and gig.
One of the women shook her head but vouchsafed that there was a small tavern at the end of the village that had three bedchambers for guests.
The marquess drove on. The tavern, called the Bear and Stump, was as old as the houses of the village. One end of it sagged towards the ground, and the beetling thatch over the dormer windows reminded Belinda of Penelope’s false eyebrows.