21 A Cunning Plan #3
“Best… best leave, Vi,” he said.
“I suppose we must,” she said, sounding very subdued. “I suppose it is very wicked, all this?”
“Very wicked indeed,” Cal said in a dramatic whisper, although his eyes twinkled. “You really shouldn’t have anything to do with us, you know.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “But you are my friend, Uncle Cal!”
“I think you have a better friend,” Cal said, gesturing towards Lord Vincent, still holding his empty glass. “When once he finds the courage to voice a contrary opinion to yours, perhaps you will learn to listen to him and not go tearing off around the country at a moment’s notice.”
Lord Vincent made another inarticulate sound, before managing to say, “No, no… Vi must have… whatever she wants. Only want to make her happy.”
“Then I see no hope for either of you,” Cal said cheerfully. “You will clearly marry in the teeth of parental opposition and spend your lives in one hare-brained scheme after another.”
“But happy,” Lord Vincent said, with a shrug of one shoulder, handing his empty glass to Cora. Raising his chin defiantly, he added, “Nothing else matters.”
Between them, Cora and Cal bundled the pair out to the waiting carriage and directed the bored postilion to Staineybank. Then Cora settled down to drink the tea and eat the cake that arrived just moments after the departure of the visitors.
Cora was in the bedroom, not precisely dressing for dinner, for the cottage kitchen was hardly worthy of an evening gown, but allowing Souter to make some adjustments to her dress and hair, when another carriage drew up outside the cottage.
It bore the same coat of arms on the door and the same livery on the footmen, but was drawn by four horses.
Cora was not at all surprised to see an elegantly attired man of close to her own age descend.
She opened the door herself. “Lord Beckwith, I presume? You have missed them. They are gone on to Staineybank some two hours since.”
He chuckled. “Thank you! They will be safe enough there.” He sighed.
“Was ever a boy so foolish as Vincent? But there, I suppose the girl is irresistible to unschooled colts, and I was not so sensible at his age either. I married young and it did me no harm. You are the infamous Mrs Merrington, I take it? I have heard so much about you.”
“Have you?” she said, startled that a marquess quite unknown to her was even aware of so lowly a person as she was.
“Indeed I have. Brinshire has told me all about you.”
“Oh dear! But not to worry, you need not be sullied by my company a moment longer. If your carriage pursues this road a little way further, you will see the entrance to Staineybank.”
The marquess smiled, a roguish gleam in his eye. “But I should very much like to be sullied by your company, madam. You intrigue me greatly.”
Cora only smiled and shook her head. “If you do not hurry, my lord, you will miss dinner.”
“A fate all too easily borne if you are the alternative,” he said.
“Besides, you have plans to eat, too, judging by the tempting aromas wafting from the kitchen. Ah, and here is the man himself,” he went on, as Cal emerged, still shrouded in his apron.
“The much to be envied Mr Garford, I presume. The Marquess of Beckwith at your service, sir.” He executed a flourishing bow.
“Are you flirting with Mrs Merrington, my lord?” Cal said equably.
“Do you think it would do me any good? One hopes one’s success with the ladies is not entirely a thing of the past, for I rather fancy my chances to cut you out, my friend.
I must have five years on you, at least, I am unencumbered by wife or mistress, and I believe I outrank you just a trifle.
Your Mrs Merrington has been described to me by my old friend Brinshire, but I imagined some stout matron, raddled by age.
Now that I have met her, I entirely see the attraction and would far sooner eat my dinner here with you two than at Staineybank. ”
“We eat in the kitchen in… oh, ten minutes or so, if I can ever get my piquant sauce made.”
The marquess laughed. “I shall send my carriage onwards to herald my delayed arrival.”
And so it was that Cora found herself the object of the marquess’s delicate flirtation, watched by an amused Cal, as they ate at the kitchen table with Souter, Timmy and a wide-eyed Meg.
Only after a second bottle of claret did the marquess reluctantly agree to make his way to Staineybank, on condition that Cora and Cal walked through the grounds with him right to the front door.
“We are not supposed to show ourselves here,” Cora protested when they reached the stables. “You can find your way from this point, my lord.”
“No one will set the dogs on you while I am with you,” he said. “I am determined not to relinquish you until we reach the front door, Cora.”
They could do nothing but acquiesce, allow themselves to be thanked another half dozen times and finally, with some relief, deliver the marquess into Froggett’s care, before walking home hand in hand through the growing dusk.