The Duke found Belinda waiting patiently in a small parlour at the George, her bandboxes at her feet. She was surprised to see him, but not in the least chagrined. She said: “Oh, sir, Lord Gaywood is such a very kind gentleman, and he is going to set me up in style in London, and give me that gown I saw in Milsom Street, and drive me in a chaise-and-four!”
“Lord Gaywood is deceiving you, Belinda,” he said. “He will do none of these things. You know, it is very bad of you to have run away with him. Didn’t I warn you that you must not go with strange gentlemen, however kind they may seem to be?”
“Oh, yes, sir, but indeed I thought of you, and how you told me it was a take-in!” Belinda explained. “And this time I did just what you would like, for I said I wouldn’t go to London if he did not give me that lovely purple dress first! And he has gone to Milsom Street to buy it, so you see that he is a kind gentleman, after all!”
“Belinda,” he said gravely, taking her hands, and holding them, “do you like Lord Gaywood better than Mr. Mudgley?”
“Oh, no/” she cried, the ready tears springing to her eyes. “But you cannot find Mr. Mudgley, and Lady Ampleforth boxed my ears, and I was very unhappy in that house. And Lord Gaywood said he would take care of me, and no one should be angry with me!”
“But I have found Mr. Mudgley” he said gently.
Her tears ceased to flow abruptly; she stared at him with her eyes very wide open.
“I promised that I would bring you to him. He wants you very much, and his mother does too. Which is it to be, Belinda?—a purple gown, or Mr. Mudgley?”
“Will you take me now!” Belinda asked urgently, her cheeks softly flushed. “Oh, please, will you take me now?”
“Yes, I’ll take you now,” the Duke replied, absurdly relieved at this instant decision. He added, feeling that her sacrifice deserved reward: “In a chaise-and-four!”
She clapped her hands in delight, saying that Mr. Mudgley would not be able to believe his eyes when he saw her drive up in such an equipage. The Duke, trying not to feel disappointed at this naive remark, led her out to the chaise, and handed her up into it. He found a nervous, and considerably bewildered landlady hovering beside him, and turned to her, “If the gentleman who escorted this lady to your house should return presently,” he said, “will you be so good as to give him a message for me?”
“Yes, sir,” she said doubtfully. “That is—”
“Tell him, if you please,” continued the Duke, “that the Duke of Sale thanks him for his letter, but does not need any assistance from him in the management of his affairs!”
Chapter XXVI
the Duke drove Belinda to the Christopher, and installed her in his parlour there while he dashed off one of his scrawls to his betrothed. It had occurred to him that he had told Mr. Mudgley that Lady Harriet would bring Belinda to him. To drive her to Furze Farm a day earlier than could have been expected, and without Lady Harriet, might, he felt, reawaken the mistrust he had been at such pains to allay in Mr. Mudgley’s breast. So he begged his Harriet to prevail upon the Dowager to allow her to go with him, and to dine afterwards at Cheyney, offering as sops to that erratic old lady’s possible scruples the presence of Lord Lionel at Cheyney, a promise to escort Harriet back to Laura Place at a seemly hour and a reminder that there would be moonlight. He sent this missive off by the hand of his footman, and having assured himself that his elusive charge had no immediate thought of wandering away again, went into his bedchamber to change his dress.
Nettlebed, upon learning of the projected dinner-party, did his best to persuade him into knee-breeches, but he was not really surprised when the Duke said that he should wear pantaloons and Hessians, and, for the first time in his long association with the Duke, bowed to this decree without either grumbling, or reminding his master that Lord Lionel always wore knee-breeches in the evening.
Much heartened by this evidence of the beneficial effects to be obtained by treating his servants with brutal severity, the Duke hurried into his clothes, and had packed Belinda and her bandboxes into the chaise again before Francis had had time to return with the answer to his letter. So emboldened by his victory over Nettlebed was he feeling that he drove round to Laura Place with the intention of being extremely high-handed with the Dowager, if she should dare to thwart him. Happily (since the Dowager was more than capable of holding her own against far more formidable males than he would ever be), this trial of strength proved to be unnecessary. When he was admitted into Lady Ampleforth’s house, he found his Harriet already descending the stairs, with her hat on, and a cloak hiding her muslin gown.
He started forward to meet her saying: “Do you go with me? Will Lady Ampleforth trust you to me? How pretty you look!”
If she had not been in her best looks before, this impulsive exclamation naturally made her glow into something approaching beauty. She smiled tremulously, blushing, and murmuring: “Oh, Gilly, do I? I do not know how you can say so, when you have been with Belinda!”
He acknowledged the force of this, but said seriously: “I do not know how it is, Harriet, but I would rather look at you than at Belinda. You have more countenance!”
She now knew that whatever happiness might be in store for her this must rank as the most memorable day in her life. To conceal her swelling pride, she said in a rallying tone: “You are trying to flatter me, Gilly!”
“No,” he said. “I know you too well to suppose that flattery would be acceptable to you.”
Without making the slightest attempt to disabuse his mind of its curious misapprehension, Harriet said simply: “I am glad you think I have countenance, dear Gilly. I want only to be worthy of you.”
“To be worthy of me!” he said, quite thunderstruck. “But I am the most commonplace creature! Indeed, I do not know how you can look twice in my direction when you have known my handsome cousin!”
“Gideon?” she said in surprised accents. “Of course I have a great regard for him, for I am sure he has always been very kind, and you love him, which must recommend him to me, you know. But surely no one in their senses could think of him when you were by, Gilly!”
Preys to their blissful delusions, they walked slowly out of the house to the waiting chaise.
“I was half afraid your grandmama would not let you come with me!” the Duke said foolishly.
“Oh, Gilly, was it very wrong of me? I was obliged to use a little stratagem, for she was so cross, and I could see she meant to say it would be improper for me to go! I—I said I knew Mama would not permit it! Not quite like that, you know, but letting it be seen that that was what I thought. It is very dreadful! She doesn’t like Mama, and I knew very well that I had only to put that into her head, and she would say I might go with you!”
She sounded conscience-stricken, but the Duke laughed delightedly, so that any filial qualms that were troubling her gentle soul were instantly laid to rest. He handed her into the chaise, where Belinda greeted her without the smallest sign of guilt.
“Oh, my lady!” said Belinda. “Mr. Rufford—I mean, the Duke!—has found Mr. Mudgley!”
“Dear Belinda, you must be very happy!” Harriet said, laying a gloved hand on her knee.
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” agreed Belinda blithely. She paused, and added on a more wistful note: “But I wish I might have had that beautiful dress!”
“I am sure you would not wish for it rather than to be established so comfortably,” Harriet suggested gently.
“No, indeed! Only that I might perhaps have stayed until Lord Gaywood came back, you know. For he went to buy it for me, and it does seem very hard that I must not have it after all!”