Chapter One #3
A shadow passed over Mr. Ellsworth’s face, and he looked at his hands.
“Yes. I thought to have a ring of my mother’s re-set.
But never mind that now. I returned here—late—after dinner at a chop house and a long walk, by which time I could scarcely tell up from down or put one foot in front of the other.
I climbed the stairs—the passage was dark—the door…
” He trailed off. Swallowed audibly. “I must have—swooned—lost consciousness—the moment I gained the room.”
“Not quite that moment.” Mrs. Dere’s reply was crisp. “For you clearly gained the bed after gaining your entrance.”
As he still remained in said bed, denial was out of the question, but his face crumpled, and he buried it in his hands.
“My dear Alice,” said the baron uneasily, “perhaps we should let Mr. Ellsworth return to his room and dress, and our Maria as well. Such business can wait until everyone is more the thing.”
“Sir, how do we risk it?” she answered. “If this person has destroyed our Maria’s reputation, he must be brought to account and not allowed to steal out of a window while our backs are turned.”
“No indeed,” seconded Mr. Costard. “There’ll be no scapegrace absconding from my inn, if I know what’s what.”
“I’m no scapegrace, the last twelve hours of my life notwithstanding,” said the young man, now rubbing his fists mechanically over his brow as if his head were a lump of unnaturally stiff dough. It must have worked, however, for when he raised his eyes again, all traces of confusion had vanished.
“Whose word may we take for that, besides your own?” Lord Dere asked quietly.
“You may ask any of my Ellsworth relations. I can offer you a list of a dozen names. You—you may consult Warden Gauntlett of New College as well. Though I am no favorite of his, he would not deny my office there. In short, I am a gentleman and the son of a gentleman, and I have no intention of ‘stealing out’ or ‘absconding.’ What—penalties—I have incurred by my actions I will—I will meet. You have my word.”
At such a brave speech, and at the despairing manner in which he delivered it, Maria felt her throat constrict, and she shuffled forward in her counterpane.
“You needn’t speak of ‘penalties,’ sir,” she assured him.
“We return home today, and, as I have said, this awkwardness aside, there’s been no harm done. ”
Far from appearing comforted, Mr. Ellsworth stared at her as if she were simple, something Maria only had time to note before a babel swallowed her: “No harm done? Foolish girl—there’s been irreparable harm!
” “No harm done? What about my inn’s reputation?
The town criers are already shouting this from Kensington to the London docks.
” “Maria, sweeting, if only it were that easy.” “No harm done? Even the eels would have to get married, after what I saw.” “Maria, you are an imbecile, if you think this can be hushed up!”
The cacophony and its unanimity stunned her into silence, and she suddenly felt a fool in her nightcap and chemise and braided hair, all swathed in the Bolt in Tun’s worn coverlet.
“My dear child,” said the baron in his soft voice, “through no fault of your own, you have spent the night with this young man and been most publicly discovered—er—in flagrante. If you are not to be ruined, and if he proves to be the gentleman he says he is, you must be married to set this right. Or, to set this as right as it can be set, under the circumstances.”
“Married?” she gasped. “But—but—we don’t even know each other!”
“Shouldn’t have set the cart before the horse, then,” said Maid Molly instructively.
For once the baron looked very stern, and Molly pressed her lips together, though she would have plenty to say about the delicious incident when they were gone.
“There will be time to become acquainted and more,” Lord Dere told Maria.
“Do you mean—in the weeks while Mr. Terry reads the banns?”
“There will be no banns and no Mr. Terry marrying you in Iffley,” declared Mrs. Dere, throwing up her hands in exasperation.
“We cannot wait an entire month to deal with this. The baron will speak to the bishop about a license, and perhaps your brother Mr. Egerton may marry you in his church, where you are little known.”
A muddle of baffling emotions flooded Maria, and again she thought she must be a wicked girl because—because panic was not uppermost. Not at all. And, worse, somewhere mixed in there was a dash of…something which might easily be mistaken for…delight?
Delight.
Oh, heavens.
No time to think of that now.
“Couldn’t I—suppose I simply went to live with Philip and Jane for a time?
” she suggested, uncomfortably aware she might be proposing this for form’s sake.
Because everyone would expect her to balk at the idea of marriage to this stranger.
“Or I might stay with Frances and Adam in Abingdon. Just until the affair has blown over.”
But not only Mrs. Dere was shaking her head.
“Pray remove Miss Barstow’s things from this room,” the baron ordered, “so that she may go and dress, and—Mr. Ellsworth may remain and do the same when his baggage is brought. Then, when you are ready to meet the day, young man, you and I may…talk.”
“All right, your lordship,” agreed the innkeeper. “But, though you might be willing to give him a few minutes of privacy, for my own peace and comfort I’m still posting a man outside the door.”