‘I am coming with you,’ said Belinda firmly, when the marquess showed signs of leaving her behind. ‘She will not feel quite so humiliated if there is another woman there to comfort her.’
Hannah was determined to be ‘in at the kill’, but for less charitable reasons. Although she felt they were only doing their duty, she did not like either the moralizing Miss Wimple or the pontificating Mr Biles and was looking forward to seeing the guilty pair brought down a peg.
Before the marquess could stop her, Belinda had rushed before him into the inn, demanding of the landlord whether there was a Miss Wimple in residence.
The landlord, a stocky fellow in a smock who looked more like a labourer than the host of a tavern, scratched his head and said he had no one of that name.
‘Then,’ said the marquess, stepping in front of Belinda and Hannah, ‘we are also looking for a married couple by the name of Biles.’
‘Ho, them,’ said the landlord. ‘They’s here, right enough. Room at the top o’ the stairs.’
Belinda made a dart for the stairs but the marquess drew her back. ‘Pray give them my card, landlord, and ask them to step below, if you would be so good.’
Belinda waited impatiently while the landlord backed towards the stairs with many low bows. ‘Why do we not go up?’ she asked.
‘Age and passion do not mix in your young mind,’ said the marquess. ‘You might find yourself faced with a highly embarrassing tableau were you to burst into their room.’
There were sounds of a sharp altercation from above and then the landlord returned. ‘Take a seat in the tap, my lord, my ladies, and they’ll be down direct.’
‘There is no back way by which they might escape?’ asked the marquess.
‘No, my lord. Window’s too small for a gurt woman like her.’
They waited uneasily in the tap, sitting in front of a log fire.
After half an hour, Mr Biles and Miss Wimple entered. He had abandoned his clericals and was dressed in a coat with a high velvet collar and brass buttons. Miss Wimple was wearing a white-striped cotton dress printed in a tiny flowing floral pattern in red and blue and yellow. On her head, she wore a splendid cap of the same material. Both looked mulish and defiant.
Belinda rose and ran forward and took her companion’s hands in her own. ‘Miss Wimple,’ she said, ‘you have been sadly deceived. This man is married.’
‘I know,’ said Miss Wimple crossly, tugging her hands free.
‘But Miss Wimple! What of all your strictures, your moralizing?’
‘My love for this gentleman is pure,’ said Miss Wimple, her eyes flashing. ‘Hardly a love that such as you, Miss Earle, would understand.’
‘Mr Biles,’ said the marquess, ‘what do you plan to do about your unfortunate wife?’
‘Miss Wimple is now my wife, before God,’ said Mr Biles, raising his hands to heaven.
‘But not before man,’ said the marquess drily. ‘I repeat, what of your wife?’
‘She may divorce me,’ he said coldly. ‘She has her own money. She will not starve.’
‘But Miss Wimple may do so,’ said the marquess, ‘if your fickle fancy lights on another lady.’
‘Never!’ cried the pair in unison.
The marquess looked at Belinda, who gave a little despairing shrug.
‘Then all I can do,’ said the marquess, ‘is counsel you to get as far away from the Earl of Twitterton as possible. For although you returned his carriage, in his eyes you may have stolen it, if only for a brief time, and if he presses charges against you, you will be transported.’
‘You sully our great love with your warnings and fears,’ said Miss Wimple grandly.
‘Tcha!’ snorted Hannah Pym. ‘We are wasting our time here. You are a fallen woman, Miss Wimple, and I am only amazed that you can still try to hang on to the high moral ground. Come, Miss Earle.’
Belinda was glad to escape. As they stood together beside the marquess’s carriage, she said in an amazed voice, ‘And I thought she would be so grateful to be rescued. Where now?’
‘To Lady Bellamy,’ said the marquess. ‘Journey’s end and life’s beginning.’
She’s made a romantic of him, thought Hannah.
Belinda looked at Hannah shyly. ‘Miss Pym, would you do me the very great honour of residing with me for a few days? I confess I dread to think of being alone with my aunt.’
‘Gladly,’ said Hannah. ‘But you must not enter Bath on the box of his lordship’s carriage. That would not do at all.’
Tired and weary, they reached Lady Bellamy’s in Glossop Street. The marquess told Belinda he would call on her great-aunt that afternoon, kissed her hand, and then mounted to the box of the carriage again.
Hannah rapped on the door. An old butler opened it and informed them that Lady Bellamy was in the Green Saloon on the first floor.
Belinda clutched Hannah’s arm as they mounted the stairs. ‘I am feeling unaccountably nervous,’ she said, glancing around. ‘This place is like a prison.’
Hannah nodded in agreement. The hall had been bare except for one side-table. The staircase was uncarpeted, which was not unusual, but there were no pictures on the walls and the window on the landing above them was barred.
The butler opened the double doors, took their cards, and announced them in a surprisingly loud voice.
Belinda’s heart sank right down to her little green kid slippers when she saw her great-aunt. Lady Bellamy had always been a hard-faced, austere woman, but she looked even more grim and disapproving than Belinda remembered her to be. The first thing Hannah noticed was not her ladyship, but the fact that the windows of the Green Saloon were barred as well.
She then turned her attention to Lady Bellamy. She was a tall, gaunt woman dressed in a gown that looked like sackcloth. A Bible lay on a small table beside her. She put out a hand and rested it on the cover of the Bible and Hannah noticed that hand was so thin, it was almost transparent. Her eyes were black and glittering, as if she had a fever.
‘So the fallen one has come,’ said Lady Bellamy in a deep voice that had a hollow ring to it, as if sounded from the depths of a tomb.
‘Miss Earle is here, yes,’ said Hannah.
‘And who are you?’
‘I am Miss Hannah Pym of Kensington,’ said Hannah, meeting that black, glittering gaze with a steady one of her own. ‘Unfortunately, Miss Earle’s companion has fallen from grace. She is run off with a Methodist preacher. Miss Earle has requested that I stay with her for a few days.’
‘That you may not.’ Lady Bellamy’s glance dismissed Hannah and fastened on Belinda. ‘I shall soon teach you the error of your ways, young miss. Running off with a footman, indeed! Too much food. Nothing like starvation to purge the soul.’
Belinda flashed a scared look at Hannah, and then said, ‘My lady, I have good news. Lord Frenton, the Marquess of Frenton, has done me the honour to offer me his hand in marriage and I have accepted. He is to call upon you this afternoon to ask leave to pay his addresses.’
‘Frenton? Frenton of Baddell Castle?’
‘The same.’
‘You poor child. Do not worry. I shall keep you pure.’
‘Mad,’ Hannah mouthed to Belinda.
Aloud, she said to Lady Bellamy, ‘Your great-niece has secured a fine match for herself. Surely congratulations are the order of the day.’
‘Never!’ cried Lady Bellamy. ‘What is this year?’
‘Eighteen hundred,’ said Hannah impatiently, wondering how soon she could get Belinda away from this madwoman.
‘Then let me see … it was in ninety-two that Frenton caused such a scandal in our fair city. Lady Devine had been widowed but two years when he dragged her into his bed. They lived together quite openly.’
Belinda turned pale. ‘And where is Lady Devine now?’
‘She married the Duke of Minster. The wicked flourish like the green bay tree.’ She looked at Hannah. ‘Miss What’s-your-name, take yourself off.’