Love in Hiding

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1786-3

“Naturally you will stay here,” the Marquis answered.

He turned to the footman as if there was no question of there being any argument in the matter.

“Tell the housekeeper to have two bedchambers prepared immediately and send to the coach to collect these ladies’ baggage.”

“Very good, my Lord.”

The footman withdrew as Mrs. Merryweather, growing a little red in the face, expostulated,

“This is quite unnecessary, my Lord.”

The Marquis smiled that same cynical twisted smile which had it seemed very little humour in it.

“However reluctant you may be to accept my hospitality, Mrs. Merryweather, you cannot expect me to turn you out at this hour in the evening. Besides I promise you that the village inn is very uncomfortable and not at all suitable for anyone with the countenance of your niece.”

“Very well, my Lord.” Mrs. Merryweather was defeated and she knew it “And we must thank you for being so accommodatin’ in this matter.”

“We must, indeed,” Gretna added warmly. “And I must be truthful and say I am not sorry for what has happened. This house is so lovely and you have so many beautiful things, my Lord. May I look at them?”

“I shall be delighted,” the Marquis nodded. “But we dine at seven o’clock. Perhaps you ladies will wish to repair to your rooms. Your baggage will not be long in arriving.”

“I’m sure, my Lord,” Mrs. Merryweather said a little hastily, “that you would wish us to dine upstairs. It must be an inconvenience to your Lordship to entertain us.”

“If it was, Mrs. Merryweather, I should not hesitate to say so,” the Marquis replied.

His dark eyes met Mrs. Merryweather’s troubled brown ones and Gretna, watching them, fancied that there was a faint glitter in the Marquis’s as if he relished overthrowing the obstacles that were being put in front of him.

Gretna rose to her feet.

“Thank you very much for – having us,” she sighed rather like a child who has been reciting something that she had been told to say.

The Marquis turned his eyes upon her.

“I hope that you will not be disappointed in Stade Hall. It will give me much pleasure to show you some of its treasures after we have dined.”

Even as he spoke, Gretna was aware that his words were directed more at Mrs. Merryweather than at herself. Once again she thought how autocratic he was. He could not bear opposition, he would fight it wherever he might encounter it and even if it came from someone so insignificant and unimportant in his eyes as fat Mrs. Merryweather.

As they went up the stairs side by side, Gretna slipped her arm into the older woman’s as if in some wordless way she would thank her for trying to protect her.

Even as she did so, she realised that Mrs. Merryweather’s breath was coming unevenly and her cheeks instead of being their usual rosy red had become almost purple.

“What is the matter?” Gretna asked her anxiously.

“’Tis a pain just here,” Mrs. Merryweather said, putting her hand below her breast. “It’s fair cuttin’ into me, dearie, I can tell you. Just like a sword it is.”

“Mrs. Merryweather, you must have hurt yourself,” Gretna cried.

She helped her up the stairs as best she could and across the landing to the room where they had washed their hands. Now there was a fire lit in the grate and the communicating door was open to show another room almost as large and magnificent leading from it.

The housekeeper, who was supervising a warming pan being put into the large four-poster, turned as they entered.

“I don’t think Mrs. Merryweather – is well,” Gretna told her.

Instantly the woman forgot her airs and graces and became solicitous and understanding.

“Come and sit down,” she then suggested, helping Mrs. Merryweather through the communicating door into the other room. “The couch in here is more comfortable. Put your feet up and loosen your corsets. I expect it’s the shock.”

“She is complaining of a pain,” Gretna said. “It’s below the heart – I am wondering if she has cracked a rib. We were thrown quite violently onto the floor of the coach and I fell on Mrs. Merryweather, so I was not hurt.”

“That’s what it be, dearie,” Mrs. Merryweather groaned. “I remember hittin’ the side of the seat. That’s what it is, I’ve busted one of my ribs. Here’s a nice to-do then.”

“It will have to be strapped up,” the housekeeper said. “Uncomfortable and painful it may be, but not dangerous. The gentlemen often have it happen out huntin’. But you must keep quiet while we fetch the physician and move as little as possible. Amy and Rose will help you undress.”

“Lordy, Lordy!” Mrs. Merryweather exclaimed. “But I can’t go to bed. I’ve got to look after Miss – I mean my niece.”

“I can look after myself,” Gretna pointed out. “I promise you I can. Dear Mrs. Merryweather, you are not to worry.”

“You cannot do a thing until you are strapped up,” the housekeeper insisted in a voice of authority. “I will send one of the grooms for the physician right away, but he lives at Bridgewater and it will take an hour or so to fetch him. You must get into bed and wait for him. It is the only thing to do, I assure you.”

“That is good advice,” Gretna murmured.

Mrs. Merryweather compressed her lips. It was obvious not only that she was in pain but it was difficult for her to say any more in front of the housekeeper and the chambermaids.

Only when finally they had put her into bed dressed in a white muslin nightgown that the housekeeper had produced, did she lie back against the pillows and look at Gretna with consternation on her kind fat face.

“A fine tangle I’ve made of it,” she moaned. “Now, harken to me. Miss Gretna. You are to say you want to dine up here with me. No goin’ downstairs.”

Gretna glanced over her shoulder to where, through the open door, she could see the housemaid unpacking one of her boxes that had just arrived. She could see her white muslin dress, the only new one she had had in five years, but which she had made especially for her journey to London, being taken out and shaken free of its creases.

Just for a moment she hesitated, wishing to please Mrs. Merryweather.

And then there was a dancing light in her eyes as she announced,

“Pray forgive me, but I do want to go downstairs to dinner. I want to see the silver and I want to see the treasures that his Lordship has promised to show me.”

Mrs. Merryweather tried to sit up.

“Your poor mother would turn in her grave. You know as well as I do that you ought not to be dinin’ alone with a gentleman.”

“It will not matter because he has no idea who I am,” Gretna answered. “I am not a Society miss to be chaperoned and cosseted. I am just an ordinary girl – your niece from a farm – that makes it quite all right, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. Merryweather grumbled,

“You don’t know what you are talkin’ about, you silly child. You are to stay up here, I tell you. Stay with me. I won’t have you goin’ down there. His Lordship is not the sort of person who you should be dinin’ with.”

“What sort of person is he then?” Gretna enquired. “Have you remembered what it was you had heard about him? Do tell me.”

“I can’t remember, that I can’t,” Mrs. Merryweather replied. “And yet somehow his name rings a bell, the Marquis of Stade. Someone was speakin’ of him. Maybe it was one of the huntsmen. They drop in after a day’s huntin’ and talk about Society people. Maybe they said somethin’ about him. But whoever it is, it doesn’t matter if what they said was good or bad, you don’t dine downstairs alone with him. It ain’t proper.”

“What does it matter just for once?” Gretna pleaded. “Who is going to know? I shall never see him again and, if I do, I don’t believe he would hold it against me. After all it cannot be helped that you are ill.”

“I could kick myself, I could really,” Mrs. Merryweather said. “Why should a thing like this happen to me?” She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Perhaps the physician will be here. Perhaps I will be well enough to get up.”

Gretna bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.

“Even if he comes in the next five minutes, he will not let you get up. You have to rest, you know that.”

She turned away before Mrs. Merryweather could say anything more and, walking through the open door into her own bedroom, she saw that the maid had unpacked everything that was necessary for the night.

For the first time she was ashamed of her belongings. The thin threadbare wrapper that had been washed and washed until it had long lost its original colour, the little worn slippers that had been hers since she was a child, the plain wooden hairbrush and her cotton petticoats, darned neatly but unornamented with embroidery or lace.

They were all laid out for her, only her gown was missing. She guessed that the chambermaid had taken it away to have it pressed.

Yet, when finally she was dressed and had arranged her hair as neatly and elegantly as she knew how, none of these things seemed to matter. She looked at herself in the mirror and was not ashamed of her appearance.

The crisp white muslin might not compare with the elegant satin gowns that Society ladies wore on such occasions, but at least it was fresh and new.

To Gretna its very newness was a delight. The muslin had only cost a few shillings and she had made it up herself for she had felt that she could not go to London without one new gown that she would not be ashamed to appear in for the first time. There was a blue sash for her waist. It had been one of her mother’s. It was over twenty years old and yet it looked as fresh and as pretty as the dress it ornamented.

A soft fichu framed the whiteness of her neck. For one moment she wished that she had pearls to wear or even a little brooch of diamonds. And then she laughed at herself. Such ornamentation was not for her and not likely to be.

She was certain that her life in London would be very quiet. And yet perhaps sometimes she would have a chance of seeing ladies in their jewels and finery.

It was so exciting to think that tomorrow she would be looking out on streets filled with traffic instead of just green fields with nothing more exciting moving amongst them than a cow or a goat.

And tonight – tonight was exciting too. She felt herself tremble a little in anticipation of what lay ahead of her.

The Marquis was a frightening person, but it would be interesting to listen to him, to hear him talking and to realise that the gentlemen whom her mother had known when she was a girl had looked like him and lived in such grandeur.

Whatever Mrs. Merryweather might say, she would not miss it for anything in the world.

Gretna gave one last look at herself in the mirror and slipped into the room next door.

“I must go downstairs,” she said. “It is time for dinner.”

“Don’t go, dearie! I beg of you, don’t go,” Mrs. Merryweather almost begged her.

“I can look after myself,” Gretna replied, her head held high.

“You look about as much capable of that as a chicken what has just come out of the egg,” Mrs. Merryweather snapped. And then she smiled. “Oh, well, I can quite understand you wantin’ to have a look at life. The Lord knows you’ve been quiet enough all these years and I’m here if you want me. It isn’t as if I wasn’t in the house, is it?”

It was almost as if she were pleading for reassurance and Gretna bent forward and kissed her cheek.

“You are not to worry,” she said reassuringly. “Just lie quietly until the physician comes and I will hurry in to see if you are comfortable when I come up to bed.”

“You won’t be late?” Mrs. Merryweather insisted.

Gretna shook her head.

“Not a moment later than ten o’clock. I am persuaded that it is the proper time for a correct young lady to retire.”

She moved from the room, conscious that despite the poor quality of her petticoats they rustled faintly round her feet. Then she opened the door of her bedroom as the light from the tapers in the great hall cast a golden glow over the landing.

She took a deep breath.

This was like walking into a tremendous adventure. She was about to dine alone with a Marquis, a man she had never seen before today, but who was undoubtedly a personage of great standing and distinction.

Slowly she descended the stairs, playing a little game with herself that she was wearing a gown of richly embroidered satin, that there were diamonds round her neck and her hair was powdered.

And she was not an ordinary country girl going down the stairs in her muslin.

She was a Queen, a Princess, someone in a Fairy story, taking part in a great drama that was just beginning to unfold.

She felt herself thrill to her own imagination. She felt her heart beat a little quicker because she was excited and the breath come quicker between her lips.

And then, as she reached the bottom step, she realised that the Marquis had been watching her standing in front of the fireplace, his hands behind him, his dark head tilted back a little to watch her, the expression on his face inscrutable and his lips twisted in that strange cynical smile.