CHAPTER XXIX
TIMOTHY, seizing a respite from his conscientious labours on the floor, stood in the doorway of the ballroom and delicately wiped his brow.
Certainly, if they could have controlled the weather, it would have been better had it been a little cooler, but aside from this he felt it would not be an exaggeration to say everything had gone perfectly.
The Grandduchess looked to be in fine fettle, the Princes greatly animated, and upon the dance floor Mr Hargan was displaying himself to great credit with Mademoiselle de Nicolet, a spray of sweet williams pinned to her dress.
The final cachet, however, was the appearance of great Mr Brummell himself, who deigned to appear after nearly all other guests had arrived, and complimented Lady Allerton upon the simplicity of the evening – admitting that he had found some of the excesses of the past weeks a little vulgar.
Timothy was raising a mental toast to himself when he found his wrist urgently grasped in a strong grip. He was just about to advise the ruffian to unhand him, but Hetty’s voice spoke urgently in his ear. ‘Timothy, I must speak to you! Something terrible has happened!’
A horrible premonition seized Timothy: ‘The champagne has not run out?’
His relief at her denial was short-lived. As soon as they had found a private corner, Hetty thrust a sheet of writing paper towards him – she had been clutching it in one hand – this seeming the quickest way to explain the whole. Timothy lifted his quizzing glass.
‘What the deuce—?’ he demanded. ‘Lord, I can’t read this scrawl! What is it?’
‘Trix!’ she uttered in a strangled voice.
‘Well, that settles it,’ he said, giving the letter back to her. ‘Never been able to make head or tail of her writing! Nor Arthur’s for that matter. You’d better tell me what it is.’
‘She has eloped with Captain Edgewood.’
‘What?’ Timothy gasped. ‘No, hang it, Hetty! Must be bamming you!’
‘No, no, it is the truth! She is not in the house, and she left this note for me.’
‘Well, I’m dashed!’ Timothy said. ‘Captain Edgewood? Not a good fellow.’
‘No, indeed!’ Hetty agreed wretchedly. ‘I never dreamed – Good God, I thought that affair had ended! She has not mentioned his name since the masquerade.’
And Hetty had been entirely taken in.
She could not permit it. ‘Timothy, we must act immediately!’
He blinked at her. ‘Dash it, can’t do anything tonight, not in the middle of the party! Tomorrow would be far better – nothing going on tomorrow.’
‘We can, and we must! They have fled to Gretna Green, and they have to be overtaken!’
‘Gretna Green?’ echoed Timothy, revolted. ‘No, really, Hetty! Can’t have!’
‘She says so, right here!’ Hetty brandished the letter at him again.
‘Where else could they be married, with her under age? She supposed, of course, that I should not receive her letter until too late, that all the business of the ball would hide her departure. Thank goodness her maid came to fetch me.’
When she considered how close they had come to disaster, she felt almost faint with horror.
‘You and I may slip away without anyone noting our absence! We must bring Trix home, and no one need know what happened.’
‘Seems to me we’d do better to tell Arthur,’ Timothy objected. ‘He’ll be devilishly angry if we keep such a thing from him.’
He would. Again, the vision of Arthur’s face, twisted with contempt, swam before her eyes.
If she ever wished for his forgiveness, this was not the way to go about it.
And yet … there were three facts of which Hetty did feel certain.
The first: Trixie had asked Hetty not to betray her elopement to Arthur, and however dreadfully she had behaved Hetty did not wish to do so.
The second: she could not extract Arthur from the ball without occasioning considerable notice.
The last she had seen of him, he had been deep in conversation with the Grandduchess – he, at least, could not leave the house.
And third … Arthur had been right in the most literal of sense: the Allertons were not her family, not by blood, or marriage, or even wardship any longer – and yet, in a truer sense, they were. And did she not have a right to protect them, just as much as anyone else?
She drew in a decisive breath. ‘Timothy, you must know where we can hire a post-chaise and four good horses!’
He admitted it, and Hetty gave a sharp nod of satisfaction.
‘If we hire a chaise and four and change them at every stage, we shall come up with them before they have gone thirty miles beyond London! I shall fetch my cloak. Do not tell Dawson to call up a hackney. We will creep out by the door into the yard, and find one for ourselves directly!’
‘But, Hetty!’ Timothy protested, looking down at himself. ‘Can’t go driving about the countryside in evening dress! Must change!’
But Hetty refused to allow him this indulgence. Assuring him that his swallow-tailed coat and satin knee-breeches would be hidden by a driving-cloak, she so admonished and hustled him that within a very few minutes he found himself being smuggled out of the house by way of the back stairs.
But Hetty’s confidence that hailing a hackney would be simple was quickly disproven. There were so many carriages upon the street that it was fairly blocked: no hackney would be coming down here until morning.
‘We shall have to walk down a few streets,’ Timothy said. ‘Don’t like it above half – but can’t stand about here, waiting.’
No, and nor did Hetty much like being peered at by curious grooms and footmen as they were now – how long would it be before they were spotted?
‘Well, well.’ A curious voice spoke and they turned to see the Marquis descending from his own carriage a stone’s throw away. ‘Is the party that poor? Ought I to flee as well?’
‘Just popping out for some – for some … ice!’ Timothy improvised quickly.
‘I’m afraid that doesn’t sound very true,’ Nicolet said apologetically.
‘It isn’t,’ Hetty said, hastening towards him. ‘I cannot tell you why, but could you take us up to Charing Cross?’ she implored him. ‘I promise it is of the utmost urgency and we cannot take our own carriage.’
‘Is this an elopement?’ he enquired. ‘Perhaps you are a little foxed, my dear – wrong brother, you see.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It is a rescue – I cannot say any more.’
‘Oh, well, in that case,’ Nicolet said with an invitatory wave of his hand. ‘I am your most obedient servant …’
Arthur did not shirk his duties that night. He laughed and mingled and danced and sipped upon champagne. Though he had never felt more mixed up inside, he reflected that he had possibly never been on better form – a trait he could only have inherited from his mother.
He had not had the opportunity to speak to Hetty all evening, and neither did he wish to – for he could not be certain, if they did come face to face with one another again, whether he would beg forgiveness or rail at her some more.
Until he knew that, he could not spend a moment alone with her – and yet, despite this, he had never been more aware of her location.
Never at the expense of the person with whom he was conversing, no – he was not so ill bred as to ever commit the cardinal sin of glancing over a person’s shoulder – but, whenever there was a natural moment that he might cast his eyes across the room, he found them gravitating towards her.
This was not a new practice. He supposed that in most rooms where he and Hetty were both to be found, he would look to her.
To see if she was all right, or perhaps to reassure himself of her presence.
As when one has something very valuable in one’s pocket, and one finds oneself patting one’s coat every now and then, to make sure one has not lost it.
However furious he might be with her, he could not rid himself of the habit.
He knew, then, when Hetty had left the ballroom, but conversation with the Grandduchess prevented him from noticing her re-entry and subsequent exit with Timothy, and it was possible he would never have known of her departure had it not been for Dawson.
‘My lord …’ Dawson said, appearing quietly at his side. ‘If I might have a moment …?’
‘Everything all right, Dawson?’
‘I am afraid – I should not like to tell tales, but I am a little concerned …’
It was unlike Dawson to prevaricate, and that was enough to capture Arthur’s wandering attention.
‘What?’ he said sharply.
‘One of the footmen spotted Miss Clithero leaving.’
‘Leaving? Our own party?’ It was a ludicrous idea.
‘She left in the company of the Marquis,’ Dawson said. ‘In his carriage, my lord.’
Time seemed to slow. ‘No,’ Arthur shook his head. ‘No.’
‘I did not see it first hand,’ Dawson said apologetically. ‘But he is a truthful boy, not one to tell tales – and there is this …’
He held out a billet with Arthur’s name upon it. Arthur took it. He did not need to read it to know what he must do.
‘Have them bring round my curricle,’ Arthur said. ‘At once.’